‘House’s’ Hugh Laurie: American Accent Ain’t Easy

NEW YORK (August 21, 2006) — Hugh Laurie, the British actor who won a Golden Globe for his role on the Fox medical drama, “House,” says speaking like an American isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“I haven’t identified a single word that is pronounced the same in America as it is in England,” the 47-year-old actor tells Entertainment Weekly magazine in its Aug. 25 issue. “And that can really take you out of the moment, having to constantly listen to yourself and check your accent. It makes it harder to immerse yourself in the scene.

“It’s as if you’re playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon. I moan about it a lot.”

Laurie plays Dr. Gregory House, the sardonic doctor who heads a medical team specializing in the diagnosis of rare disorders at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

House, whose leg has been crippled by a blood clot, walks with a cane, pops painkillers and has a perpetual stubble. He doesn’t like wearing a white lab coat, and he’s testy with his patients and staff. However, House is a brilliant diagnostician.

“I could see him very clearly in my head from the start,” Laurie tells the magazine. “I could hear him in my head — the rhythm of his speech. What he was hiding behind the meanness and sarcasm.”

The third season of “House” premieres Sept. 5.