Hugh Laurie
In 2006, Hugh Laurie took home a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series Drama, a win that marked a notable turn in a career already spanning television, film, and stage work across two continents.
Laurie was born on 11 June 1959 in Oxford, in the Blackbird Leys area, and grew up as a citizen of the United Kingdom. His early education took him through the Dragon School and then Eton College, before he went on to study at Selwyn College. From early in his career he worked across several disciplines — as an actor, comedian, musician, pianist, and singer-songwriter — and later added screenwriting, directing, and voice acting to his credits as well.
His work as a film and television actor brought him considerable recognition in the United States as well as in the UK. In addition to his Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Drama, he also received a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, making him a two-time winner of that award. His contributions to the arts were further recognised when he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, an honour reflecting his standing within the British cultural landscape. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one of the relatively few British performers to earn that distinction.
Alongside his acting work, Laurie has pursued a serious career as a musician, functioning as both a pianist and a singer-songwriter rather than treating music as a sideline. His range of occupations — actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, voice actor, and musician — reflects a career that has moved across formats and genres rather than staying fixed in any single one. The two Golden Globe wins remain among the most concrete markers of how his work has been received by the industry.
Quotes by Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie's insights on:
To follow somebody, without them knowing that you’re doing it, is not the doddle they make it seem in films. I’ve had some experience of professional following, and a lot more experience of professional going back to the office and saying ‘we lost him’. Unless your quarry is deaf, tunnel-sighted and lame, you need at least a dozen people and fifteen thousand quids-worth of short-wave radio to make a decent go of it.
It’s good that you feel bad,’ she said, after some thought. Not much thought, obviously, but some. ‘If you felt nothing, it would mean there is no love, no passion. And we are nothing without passion.
In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.” Neville Chamberlain.
The first item was fighting under the name ‘Crostini of Mealed Tarroce, with Benatore Potatoes’ and weighed in at an impressive twelve pounds sixty-five. The Ralph Lauren blonde came over and asked me if I needed any help with the menu, and I asked her to explain what potatoes were. She didn’t laugh.
I had to wonder how Ginny could hold her head up under the weight of cosmetics smeared all over her face. Underneath it all, she may have been quite pretty. Or she may have been Dirk Bogarde. I will never know.
I realise it must be strange for you, being here in England. I realise that we must strike you as a nation of hicks, who only got hot and cold running water the day before you flew in, but even so, I have to tell you that I’ve heard a lot of this before.
I think classical music tuition is, well, was when I was a child, was an abomination. I think in some ways it is one of life’s great tragedies for everybody who gives up an instrument.