Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie, born 11 June 1959, is an English actor, comedian, and musician. He first gained professional recognition as a member of the English comedy double act Fry and Laurie alongside Stephen Fry. The pair acted together in several projects during the 1980s and 1990s, including the BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie and the P. G. Wodehouse adaptation Jeeves and Wooster. Laurie also appeared in three series of the period comedy Blackadder between 1986 and 1989. He gained further prominent recognition for starring as Dr. Gregory House on the Fox medical drama series House from 2004 to 2012.

Laurie was born in the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford, England, the youngest of four children born to Patricia and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie. His father was a physician who won an Olympic gold medal in rowing at the 1948 London Games. Laurie grew up in Oxford, attending the Dragon School and later Eton College. In 1978, he enrolled at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he studied archaeology and anthropology, specializing in social anthropology, and graduated in 1981. Following his father's footsteps, Laurie was a competitive rower, winning a British national junior title in 1977 and competing in the 1980 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

After glandular fever forced him to abandon rowing, Laurie joined the Cambridge Footlights dramatic club, becoming its president for the 1980–81 academic year. There, Emma Thompson introduced him to Stephen Fry. In 1981, their Footlights revue, The Cellar Tapes, won the inaugural Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, leading to a West End transfer and a television broadcast. Laurie, Fry, and Thompson subsequently starred in the sketch comedy series Alfresco. Laurie and Fry continued working together across various projects, including the film Peter's Friends (1992), television advertisements, and charity events.

Laurie expanded his acting career into serious drama and feature films. He starred in the television film Letters from a Bomber Pilot (1985) and appeared in films such as Sense and Sensibility (1995), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Spice World (1997), Maybe Baby (2000), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Street Kings (2008), and Tomorrowland (2015). He also performed voice work for animated projects like Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) and Family Guy. On television, he directed and starred in the comedy-drama fortysomething (2003) and guest-starred in Spooks and Friends.

For his lead role in House, Laurie assumed an American accent and earned two Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and multiple Emmy Award nominations. The 2011 Guinness World Records listed him as the most-watched leading man on television. Following a hiatus after House ended in 2012, Laurie joined the HBO sitcom Veep (2015–2019) as Senator Tom James, earning his tenth Emmy nomination. He also starred as arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper in the series The Night Manager (2016–present), winning another Golden Globe Award.

In addition to acting, Laurie is a musician and writer. He released two blues albums, Let Them Talk (2011) and Didn't It Rain (2013), and wrote the 1996 novel The Gun Seller. Laurie was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2007 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018, both for services to drama.