Hugh Laurie says ‘dad would have hated’ ‘fake version’ of doctor

He was born into heritage. He was the youngest son of a renowned British physician and Olympic gold medal winner, and was apparently destined to walk in the footsteps of his father, a life of discipline, honor, and healing.

On the surface, his early years were a virtual replica of his father, rowing at the same college in Cambridge, having a reverential respect of medicine, and being destined to a career of service to others.

However, when he was in university, something unforeseen happened to that path. He joined a sketch comedy troupe that had produced comedic legends, and he did so out of curiosity rather than ambition when he joined a student theater group.

Behind its walls he met the people who would shape his future, in particular a young actress of great intelligence and emotional sensitivity, and a genius of comedy who would one day become his writing partner and lifelong friend.

That is where it all changed.

As his contemporaries honed their scholastic abilities and mapped out lives as lawyers or doctors, he was attracted to the art of story-telling, to the stage, to the uncertain rhythm of live audience and written satire. It was natural. And yet it was also betrayal. Not to the world, but to the father he worshiped.

His career was formed as his new passion was formed. In the following twenty years, he became one of the most familiar faces in Britain in both comedy and drama. He co-created some of the most popular sketch series,

performed on stages and screens with some of the best actors of his era, and slowly transitioned to the global spotlight. However, it was when he played the role of an acerbic, pain-ridden doctor in a revolutionary American television series that would make him a household name in the world.

He did not pretend to be the doctor, he was the doctor. His acting, his accent, his cynicism and emotional depth were so strong that even the producers of the show had not known that he was not an American.

Week by week, year by year, he played a man of medicine so effectively that he seemed to be known to the viewers all over the world. But within the burden of that success became greater.

Since he was not a doctor. He was playing at one.

During interviews, he has confessed that fame came with a strange form of emptiness. The hectic routine wore him out. At times he would dream of little accidents–a few days rest by a broken leg or arm. And all the time there was one thought, that my father would be proud of this. Or would he regard it as a cop out?”

He has stated with irony and sadness that he is a counterfeit of a doctor. He has said he feels guilty–deep, undying guilt–of having taken what he regards as a short cut, of having sought applause rather than a cause. He sees his father, the man who devoted his life to medicine and saved so many people, looking down at him disappointed.

And yet, even with that uncertainty, he still played doctors, even years later when he assumed a different role as a neuropsychiatrist in another popular television show. It is like he was running after something, not fame, not money, but redemption. One of the ways to celebrate the life that he never lived was by doing it with all the commitment.

He is known to be brilliant on the screen. His performances are admired by millions of people because of their depth and precision. However, behind the stoic eyes and dry humor is a man who occasionally asks himself whether he has failed the one person whose pride was everything.

He has appeared in Sense and Sensibility, Blackadder, 101 Dalmatians, Friends and many others. However, it is House that made him immortal. Not only as an actor, but as a person who reflected a mirror to the intricacy of the human race.+