Word: actorisms
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Women under 50 generally don't lust after leading men with canes--and neither do television network executives. But British actor Hugh Laurie is about to start his second season upending such TV truisms as an infectious-diseases specialist--whose cleverness is matched only by his astonishing rudeness--on Fox's hit medical drama House, the No. 9 prime-time show among women this year. "Perfection is intensely annoying," says Laurie, who, as if to demonstrate, carries his prop cane in the wrong hand, according to the show's physical-therapist viewers. "Audiences were ready for a character who didn...
...favorite to win Best Dramatic Actor at the Emmys on Sept. 18, Laurie, 46, is best known in Britain for playing lovable if priggish buffoons on the comic series Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie. In Dr. Gregory House, Laurie and the show's writers have created TV's unlikeliest new hero. The Vicodin-popping specialist's own pain does little to quell his disdain for patients like a 9-year-old cancer victim ("She's such a brave girl; I want to see how brave she is when she hears she's going to die"). "Another actor...
After watching hours of casting tapes for the pilot last year, House executive producer Bryan Singer refused to see any more British actors due to their imperfect American accents. "Luckily Bryan had no idea who Hugh was," says the show's creator David Shore, who played Laurie's audition tape, sent from a sandy, Namibian film shoot, for Singer. "Bryan said, 'That's what we want, a terrific American actor.'" Laurie could hardly be more British, having attended the University of Cambridge alongside cinema heavyweight Emma Thompson and preferring for the time being to keep his wife and three school...
...accompanies Neill in a round of press interviews before Little Fish's Sept. 8 Australian release. Elegantly attired in tailored jacket, crisp shirt and jeans, the actor enters the hotel foyer wearing what look like two spare tires on his feet - "they're my clown shoes," he says. In fact, they're his farm boots, which bear the U.S. brand name of Providence. An apt choice, since Neill is the most accidental of actors. It was while directing documentaries for the New Zealand National Film Unit that he was asked by director Gillian Armstrong to audition for My Brilliant Career...
...successfully campaigned against rapid development around scenic Queenstown. Just the other week, he bobbed up at Helen Clark's election launch, introducing the Prime Minister with an attack on the war in Iraq. And don't get him started on GE foods. Otherwise, the accidental actor and activist is content to play vintner. "The best review I ever got for my pinot noir was when they called it sex in a glass," says Neill. "That'll do for me." Cinema-goers can expect a lively vintage...