Personally, I think he hits his Rs just a trifle too much.
I love his audition tape. He’s being the proper Englishman, apologizing for his scruffy looks, and just becomes House. The casting people must have fallen off their chairs.
In a TV Guide interview from last week, Robert Sean Leonard (Wilson) says that when Hugh Laurie is on the set, he IS House. He is not an actor portraying a character, he is the person.
What I find jarring is that I am now watching The Mentalist in which Simon Baker sounds pretty American to me. Then at the end he says “Stay tuned for scenes from next weeks Mentalist” or whatever, but it is in his Aussie accent. Way to take me out of the moment Simon!
Didn’t Stephen Fry say that when he visited Laurie on set he stayed in the House accent the whole time? Apparently it’s easier than switching back and forth from American to English. Must have been a bizarre experience for Fry, talking to his old friend like that.
He ain’t Bertie Wooster, that’s for sure.
I think his accent is pretty damned good, although I haven’t seen House since maybe the second season.
Yep, House ain’t Bertie.
But, Hugh Laurie IS Bertie. No one else comes close.
Jeeves and Wooster is when I realised how good an actor Laurie is. When the programme was announced I thought, “What a good idea, Stephen Fry will make the perfect Jeeves”. In reality he was a bit disappointing. Hugh Laurie, however, nails it.
It’s true. On the “House” set, he keeps his American accent all the time. In fact, one time on Letterman, Dave asked him to do his “House” voice and Laurie politely refused, claiming that he wasn’t at work at the moment. He won’t do his American voice at home either, because he claims it disturbs his family when he does.
Another American – who lived in England for 2 years and watches House every week – who thinks that Hugh Laurie’s accent is perfect. I recently finished watching all 5 seasons of The Wire on DVD, and I wish I could say the same for Dominic West’s accent! It was very good, but there were definitely still moments when I was reminded that he’s British. The episode where he went undercover and had to fake a British accent was pretty funny, though – and even funnier when I realized that my SO didn’t know that West is British. 
Yep, flawless accent. Great show.
It also floored me to discover Jimmy McNulty and Stringer Bell from The Wire are both English.
If I had the wherewithall to revive any Broadway show, one of my ideas is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s original " Jeeves," starring Fry & Laurie.
What I want to know is HOW actors/actresses from the UK and Aussie-land can do American accents so well.
House once called up another hospital to get some of Cutty’s private records and he pulled out a crisp proper English accent. I laughed so hard.
Sitnam - I remember that scene differently. I remember him calling up and using an American version (not very good) of a British accent, which I found even more remarkable.
StG
Anna Faris is as American as baseball, apple pie and syphilis.
They didn’t have the idea of casting Laurie, it was an open audition call. Good thing too, because nobody would have thought of him for the role.
Laurie just happened to nail the character of House (and boy, wouldn’t I like to do the same)
The guy who played Stringer Bell is British?? :eek:
(In a highly tangential hijack, Marlow Stanfield and Bubbles are both on Heroes.)
Anna Faris may be. However, Anna Friel, who stars in Pushing Daisies, is definitely British and is most famous here for being one half of the first lesbian kiss ever shown on British primetime.
His accent is right on but can’t he shave once.
