Hugh Laurie is an amazing actor. Best Brit doing American I've ever seen.

[Critters2]

Most Brits over-pronounce Rs when doing an American dialect. House gets it right. I find that pretty impressive.

[supernova]

1. The sheer volume of House fans

who never knew he's British are a testament to your post. :rofl:


:toast: to HL!

[Critters2]

3. He did mispronounce "DI-lemma" last week. But that's really rare..

Most of the time, he's right on the money!

[jobycom]

7. Took me several episodes and a lot of previews before I realized who he was.

And even then I only figured it out by looking him up.

Has he won every Emmy since the series began? Because I can't think of anyone else who deserves it.

[skygazer]

2. My sister just bought me the Jeeves and Wooster series

Which made me appreciate him all over again. Yeah, he's great.

[supernova]

4. I love Jeeves & Wooster

I'll have to watch that again sometime. I don't think I've watched them since PBS aired them.

[Danger Mouse]

5. To me, he will ALWAYS be George.

[jobycom]

8. Wow. That's an uncanny resemblance.

I never noticed he looked like a robot before.

[Danger Mouse]

9. rofl, not intentional, the bottom pic is my sigline.

see?

[jobycom]

14. Well

it's not like I've never seen your sig line before. :rofl:

[Critters2]

11. George!

:rofl:

[Danger Mouse]

12. I prefer his WWI incarnation, personally.

:D

[Forkboy]

15. "Marry? Never! I'm a gay bachelor, Blackadder."

"I'm a roarer, a rogerer, a gorger and a puker!"

:rofl: :rofl:

[Critters2]

17. !

:rofl:

[arcadian]

35. He was in the 'Bambi' episode of "The Young Ones'

As was Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson, probably the best episode evah! :rofl:

[Forkboy]

37. "Is is true, Bambi? Did you do a video nasty?"

Hard to pick a fav episode, but yeah, that one might have to be it.

Fucking SPG in the crowd, "Oi! Up Scumbag! Up Scumbag!" :rofl:

The guy who played Bambi, Griff Rhys Jones, was also in the movie Morons From Outer Space (with Billy Evans, who plays the security guard in Bambi that hassles them over their pig "Bacon Sandwich"), and it's a pretty funny movie.

[arcadian]

39. From Flood

Vyvyan: Of course there isn't any room in it for you! Why should there be any room in it for you? I want to see you drown! And If I want to see you drown, why should I build a submarine with room enough for you in it? Stupid! I'm not even taking SPG along!

SPG: Is that right? We'll see about, pally!

(SPG flies into the air and bites VYVYAN on the neck)

Vyvyan: Bastard! (he falls onto his submarine, wrecking it)


:rofl::rofl::rofl:

I didn't know that Adrian Edmondson was married to Jennifer Saunders. They are both so awesome.

[Forkboy]

40. It's one talented couple, that's for sure.

If you haven't already, check out both Filthy, Rich, And Catflap with Ade, Rik, and Nigel Planer in it (6 episodes total, I think), and Bottom, with Ade and Rik. Bottom especially is fucking hilarious. Rik plays an even bigger weasel, if possible. Christopher Ryan is in a bunch of episodes too.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-CjIsz3fFo&feature=related

[GoddessOfGuinness]

21. George's dad

Frederick Little

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. hes' british?????????????

goodness

[Danger Mouse]

10. you've never seen Blackadder?

[Critters2]

16. Hell yes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3V698JzqC0

[Forkboy]

13. His book, The Gun Seller, is the funniest book I've ever read.

If this doesn't make you want to read it nothing will. :)

His name was Rayner. First name unknown. By me, at any rate, and therefore, presumably, by you too.

I suppose someone, somewhere, must have known his first name -- must have baptised him with it, called him down to breakfast with it, taught him how to spell it -- and someone else must have shouted it across a bar with an offer of a drink, or murmured it during sex, or written it in a box on a life insurance application form. I know they must have done all these things. Just hard to picture, that's all.

Rayner, I estimated, was ten years older than me. Which was fine. Nothing wrong with that. I have good, warm, non-arm-breaking relationships with plenty of people who are ten years older than me. People who are ten years older than me are, by and large, admirable. But Rayner was also three inches taller than me, four stones heavier, and at least eight however-you-measure-violence units more violent. He was uglier than a car park, with a big, hairless skull that dipped and bulged like a balloon full of spanners, and his flattened, fighter's nose, apparently drawn on his face by someone using their left hand, or perhaps even their left foot, spread out in a meandering, lopsided delta under the rough slab of his forehead.

And God Almighty, what a forehead. Bricks, knives, bottles and reasoned arguments had, in their time, bounced harmlessly off this massive frontal plane, leaving only the feeblest indentations between its deep, widely-spaced pores. They were, I think, the deepest and most widely-spaced pores I have ever seen in human skin, so that I found myself thinking back to the council putting-green in Dalbeattie, at the end of the long, dry summer of '76.

Moving now to the side elevation, we find that Rayner's ears had, long ago, been bitten off and spat back on to the side of his head, because the left one was definitely upside down, or inside out, or something that made you stare at it for a long time before thinking 'oh, it's an ear'.

And on top of all this, in case you hadn't got the message, Rayner wore a black leather jacket over a black polo-neck.

But of course you would have got the message. Rayner could have swathed himself in shimmering silk and put an orchid behind each ear, and nervous passers-by would still have paid him money first and wondered afterwards whether they had owed him any.

The whole 1st chapter is here;

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?z=y&ean=9780671020828&displayonly=EXC#EXC



And he was brilliant in both A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and Blackadder. People who only know him as House are missing 9/10 of his career. He's been funny as hell since the early 80's. :)

[myrna minx]

31. Thank you for posting this. I wish Fry would make an appearance on House,

they are perfect together.

I highly recommend Stephen Fry's "The Liar" if you haven't read it already. It is a laugh out loud book as well. :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Liar-Stephen-Fry/dp/156947012X

[Forkboy]

34. I've read all of Fry's books.

His third one, Making History, is fantastic. Not as "silly" funny as his first two, but just a fantastic story, and he incorporates different styles throughout the book (one section is written as a screenplay). Here's a synopsis;

The story is told in first person by Michael "Puppy" Young, a young history student at Cambridge University on the verge of completing his doctoral thesis on the early life of Adolf Hitler and his mother. He meets Professor Leo Zuckerman, a physicist who has a strong personal interest in Hitler, the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. Michael assumes this is due to his Jewish heritage. However, it is later revealed that Leo was born Axel Bauer, the son of Dietrich Bauer, a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz. Leo has developed a machine that enables the past to be viewed—but it is of no practical use as the image is not resolvable into details. Together, they hatch a plan to modify the machine such that it can be used to send something back into time. They decide to use a permanent male contraceptive pill, stolen from Michael's girlfriend (a biochemistry researcher), who, due to his continual distraction, has left him to take a position at Princeton University. They send this pill back in time to the well in Braunau am Inn so that Hitler's father will drink it, be made infertile, and Hitler will never be born. Michael sends the pill back and everything changes.

It's much fuller and deeper than his first two books were, while still retaining Fry's Oscar Wilde like sense of humor.

As for Fry being on House, there have been talks trying to do just that, but scheduling conflicts keep stopping them. I saw an interview with Fry from last year where he said they still wanted to do it though, so fingers crossed. :)

[Patiod]

41. I'd like to see Fry there too - maybe as his "Bones" character

Both shows on the same network, so it could be done pretty easily

We're big Fry and Laurie fans -

edit after reading the post about scheduling conflicts - not surprised they've already thought of this.

[mwooldri]

18. It's amazing how some actors will get accents...

David Tennant from Doctor Who does a great SE English accent, yet he's from Glasgow.

Catherine Zeta-Jones went all out and even lost her Welsh accent.

Mark.

[Skittles]

19. even more amazing

how my mum can live in America for decades and still sound SO BLOODY BRITISH :7

[mwooldri]

24. I came to NC in 1999; I still sound like I did when I came in 1999.

I just can't lose the accent. Now if I try to talk like y'all, I totally fail and sound like a complete idiot.

Mark.

[jeff30997]

26. Are you sure?

I've read your post 3 times and I haven't found a single trace of British accent. :)

[Skittles]

28. I grew up all over as a GI brat and could pick up any accent

although I refuse to adopt a freaking drawl :thumbsdown:

[Aristus]

23. Jane Seymour has an AWFUL American accent!

She's gorgeous beyond the power of words to describe, and a pretty good actress. But she can't do an American accent to save her life.

I never watched "Dr. Quinn". But she played an American in "War And Remembrance", and her accent sucked...

[MilesColtrane]

20. I was amazed to learn that Idris Elba is British.

You may know him as Stringer Bell from "The Wire".

He sounded exactly like he came from the streets of Baltimore in that series.

Here's how his character sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6E1ozvrkfo

Here's what he sounds like in real life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ_pvrS6oMA

[GoddessOfGuinness]

22. I loved his Mr Palmer

in Sense and Sensibility...

He's a fantastic actor!

[DarkTirade]

25. I had no clue until I heard him speaking normally off the show.

Although in hindsight, it explained why he looked so familiar and yet I could never place him... because anything else I'd have seen him in he had a completely different voice. And I recognize voices much better than faces. :P

[Connonym]

27. Jaime Bamber from Battlestar Galactica similarly does an excellent American accent

[XemaSab]

29. Naomi Watts plays a good seppo

:)

[applegrove]

30. I had no idea he was a Brit. I love House. It is such a great show I've

gone back and rented all the videos. Still have to finish year one though.

[blueraven95]

32. This is lame, but...

when House first started, I started watching it...at the same time my sister and I were watching all of the Black Adder episodes. It wasn't until the Emmys (a few weeks into the show) that I realized it was the same person in both.

At the Emmys, Hugh Laurie presented with Zach Braff, and they did a whole bit with Braff not believing Laurie was really British. It was pretty funny, and it really stuck with me, because I didn't put the two together until then.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

33. The Wire had several British and Irish actors playing Americans

My favorite was Aiden Gillen as Mayor Tom Carcetti:



There was also Idris Elba as Stringer Bell:



Dominic West as Detective Jimmy McNulty:



There was also Clarke Peters as Lester Freamon, who was born in the US but has lived in England since the 1970s:



Of the group, probably West let his accent slip the most when in character. Still, all them played pretty convincing Yanks.

[NJmaverick]

36. I was just reading an article about him

He really works his butt off, with many takes, to make sure he completely eliminates his British accent.

[Forkboy]

38. He's a total perfectionist from what both he, and everyone else, says.

You can see it in all of his work over the years. And we're all lucky for it. :)

[Ryano42]

42. Honorable Mention for Damian Lewis in Band of Brothers

It was neat to watch the behind the scenes movie and hear his accent melt away. He did a great job portaying a hero and true citizen/soldier.

[Patiod]

43. The guy from "Life"

I'm glad that show may get a second chance - very enjoyable. You'd never guess he was a Brit.