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SAG Foundation Q&A with Hugh Laurie and David Shore
Moderated by Jenelle Riley

August 20, 2009

Jenelle: [Recording starts after David Shore’s introduction] …two Golden Globe Awards, two SAG Awards, this is true; a Teen Choice Award. He just received his fourth Emmy Award nomination. Please welcome Hugh Laurie.

Hugh: Who’s Mike R?

Jenelle: Uh, that’s my cousin.

David: Who’s not here. It’s reserved for him.

Jenelle: He told me he couldn’t make it. He had an emergency. He posted on Facebook that he was performing at a club tonight. And just thought I wouldn’t know. Mike R. is in trouble. Thank you so much for being here tonight. [inaudible] Um, I would love to go back to the very beginning, David. Where did you get the idea for the show about a doctor with no bedside manner, and is that how you…[inaudible]?

David: No, actually I…I didn’t have the idea for this. I mean ultimately I did, but not at that point. Paul A. and Katie Jacobs had the idea. They knew the networks were looking for a procedural show; a CSI, Law and Order, and they had this idea for…[inaudible]…diagnosis…[inaudible]…cop drama in a hospital where the germs were the bad guys. [laughter] And I thought it was a terrible idea. [laughter] But they managed to sell it behind my back, the bastards. [laughter] They had me out for dinner one night [inaudible] the president of NBC… Pitched it…took about as much time as I just did. And ABC fell in love with it. There was like a bidding war between the networks, and.... So it was originally supposed to be a procedural show and I really was kind of worried about that, because I don’t think people watch whodunits…[inaudible]… I think that’s what’s interesting is a lot of people do things… Someone said to me early on, “You know, one juror doesn’t kill another juror ‘cause the second juror is having an affair with the first juror’s wife. [laughter] And hide the evidence behind the spleen.’ [laughter] Um, and so, because they have motives, I just…it took a long time until we sold it…until I actually developed the story to realize I had to turn it inward and have it be about a character and the patient and what their motives are and who they…[inaudible]…

Jenelle: Do you balk at the term 'procedural' because I know…

David: No. No. I mean it’s… Actually, although… We didn’t hand in an outline for that reason, because I was aware of the fact that it was not…[inaudible]… There is certainly a procedural core and I think that’s really important so I don’t balk at that. I think it’s really important that you got that spine of the mystery on which we hang everything else. But I was aware of the fact that I had developed a story that wasn’t going to be sold. And I really…yeah. And I was very nervous about that and I did an outline and I was very worried about it…and Paul too… I’ll be forever grateful to him… Let’s just not show him the outline. [laughter] So he never…[inaudible]…the outline. And I just…I wrote a script and they liked the script. I guess they’d forgot. It had been so long. [laughter]

Jenelle: When the show was first casting, it wasn’t even called House. Hugh what was it about the character of Gregory House that drew you to the show? And how did you react when you found out it was going to be called House?

Hugh: Uh, well first of all, I was…I was very against it being called House. I thought it was a mistake. [laughter] Um… It is true. Generally speaking, I… My theory at the time it was a mistake to tell the audience what to be interested in. Let them…the audience should really find for themselves whether they want to be interested in the… receptionist or the…gynecologist or whatever it might be. And to be directing their attention toward this character…[inaudible]… I probably got other reasons, too. Um, but uh…when I first read it…I didn’t actually read the script…[inaudible]… I read a couple of scenes, that’s all. [inaudible] When, as you say, under title… And I assumed… Although I enjoyed them very much and could tell that whoever had written it was very, very clever. [Hugh, with adoring eyes, tilts his head in David’s direction] [lots of laughter] It never occurs to me for one minute that this would be the central character. That would seem to me to be the uh…the boldest, the most unusual, the most original thing about it at the time was to uh…was to actually have to…make what would have been a classically peripheral character. Um, to make him the center of it, to make a sort of jagged, weird guy…uh, the central character, instead of the um…the um…handsome smooth cheeked guy which was traditionally what television was about. That was a bold move. Yeah.

Jenelle: Is that what drew you to him? The opportunity to…play this sort of nasty fellow?

Hugh: Um…not…not a nasti… No, not the nastiness particularly, because I can play nice just as well. [hammy expression] [laughter] [inaudible] It wasn’t specifically the nastiness, it’s just the um…it was the…it’s all for me…you were talking about whodunits and whatdunits and whydunits. It’s for me…it’s not the what but the how. It’s the how the thing was done. And I don’t really mind…I was… I think most actors would agree that when…when looking for things that they feel they can do well or things that will inspire in some way, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Jacobean drama or it’s a western or it’s a sitcom, the only thing that matters is…good or bad. Um, and, if I ran Blockbusters, for example, I would not have categories of science fiction, and western or adventure. I would just have good down one end…[laughter] Eventually, I would probably close the bad end. [laughter] And maybe sell coffee. [laughter] Um, that seems to be the only, um, those are the only categories that really have any meaning. I get that for the audience, and also for the actors, and I could, straight away, that this was…this was just beautifully…executed. It was just so elegant and interesting and funny and dramatic. It just seemed to have everything. I knew instantly that that would be a show that I would definitely want to watch. If I didn’t get the role, I would watch the show anyway, probably be seething with envy. [laughter] ‘Cause uh, I’m not going to mention any names, but uh…you know, some other House, uh, strutted through…down the hallway. But I knew I would definitely want to watch it.

Jenelle: I think by now, like most of us are feeling…[inaudible]…story…[inaudible]…and you sent in an audition tape from the bathroom of your hotel room of Flight of The Navigator?

Hugh: Uh, yes, Flight of the Phoenix.

Jenelle: Flight of the Phoenix?

Hugh: Yeah.

Jenelle: Oh, God. [inaudible]…kid’s movie. [laughter] …[inaudible]… Where would that fall under Blockbuster’s…? [laughter]

Hugh: No comment. [laughter] Yes, that’s right. It happened to be… Television’s a very, sort of, seasonal business. You know, they…they…[inaudible]…the crops and then they harvest the crops at specific times of the year and at that time there were actually several actors on…on Flight of the Phoenix who were doing the same thing. We were all taking in turns to help each other out and make takes that we would send off, and uh…you know, we would put these things in a Fed Ex envelope, and then…

David: Who read the Wilson part?

Hugh: Uhh…Scott…Campbell read the Wilson part. And I also read it. I tried out for Wilson, as well. Because it wasn’t clear when they sent me these pages, they didn’t specify which…I was supposed to read, so I read both of them. And, uh, they offered me both. [laughter] I said, ‘I’ll try, but [laughter] God knows I’m only flesh and blood.’ Um…

David: Shaving…[inaudible]…

Hugh: Um, and yes, so Scott Campbell he…he did …and then Jacob Vargas operated camera…[inaudible]… Um, they did a fantastic job.

Jenelle: And if you haven’t seen it, I just found out it’s on Youtube.

Hugh: [mock excitement] Oh, great! [laughter and applause]

David: It’s also on the season one DVD. [laughter]

Jenelle: I think I actually heard, uh, from David and maybe you can give us some insight; how did you know when you saw this tape… Um, I’m assuming you had a lot of say in the casting of House. How did you know you had your guy? Did you know?

David: Yeah, it was one of those weird, classic Hollywood stories that I normally don’t believe, but um, ‘cause… Well first of all, I was a fan of Hugh’s comedy work. I grew up in Canada. …[inaudible]… Um, but I grew up in Canada and I’d watched Fry & Laurie and I loved it. When I heard he might be auditioning, I really wanted to fly in so I could meet him, but I didn’t think for a moment he could do it. [laughter] And but, it was…

Jenelle: Would do it or could do it?

David: Could do it. [David and audience laughs] I mean, he was a comedian. He was a comic actor. He was doing sketch comedy, you know. But apparently, he was also an actor. [laughter] But he um… It was one of those moments, where, you know, I would like to say, you know, we’d put him on tape and the network fought us tooth and nail but we insi… But everybody in that room, you now, Bryan, Katie and myself saw the tape, and we all went, ‘That’s our guy.’ Then we had him come in and audition for the network. And there was like no debate. There was no discussion. It just… He was it. And that character you see now is…the way he was right from the…[inaudible]…[laughter]

Hugh: It… It’s… Yeah, it’s amazing to me ‘cause I am, out of, uh…twenty odd years doing this… [inaudible]…thirty. It’s almost thirty. Uh, I auditioned for things, you know, many, many hundreds, might even be a thousand times. I don’t… I probably got three jobs from an audition. Uh, out of about… And this happened to be one of them. And I’m very, very… It’s like, uh, it’s the most extraordinary lottery win.

Jenelle: Do you… Are you good at auditioning, or do you…?

Hugh: Terrible. [laughter] Absolutely… Uh, I think it’s a completely separate skill from the skill of acting. Um…and unfortunately… Eh, not…not that…that there’s anyone to blame for that; the producers aren’t to blame for it, the directors aren’t to blame for it, it’s just that…very awkward process to try and, uh, match up the right person for the right role. It’s a… You know, it’s a lottery. Some people rise to it. Some people don’t. Some people do their best work in that moment, and then… You know… You get to the set and it sort of never quite comes back. …[inaudible]…the other way around. It…it…it’s impossible to know. It’s a weird sort of…a…alchemy. That’s a stupid word to use. [laughter] It’s a very strange process.

Jenelle: Can we ask…? Can I ask…? ‘Cause they’re going to take the brunt of this. What’s your worst audition…ever?

Hugh: Uh… The worst audition ever? Boy that’s a very large category. [laughter] I remember auditioning for a role in a…in a movie that was to be shot in France. And I, at the time, was about thirty…five years of age, and the character aged from thirty-five to seventy. And, uh, they put on…on a, sort of, letter they wrote attached to the script. They said, ‘We can age you with make-up, on a…if necessary.’ [laughter] I knew that was going to be trouble. That was a…[inaudible]… [laughter] I mean, they’re all horrible. Basically I come out…I always come out of all auditions with the blood singing in my ears, thinking, ‘Why, why did I do that? Why did I do that? As, I think, probably everybody does. Um, the only difference I recognize at the time, was… I… This is one I did work very hard for. I’m very lazy normally. And… And I tried to be nonchalant about it. I tried to remove the power…from uh…these people who were going to be telling me my fate by saying I don’t care. Well of course I do. Everybody does care. We pretend not to as a trick, as a sort of psychological trick. But in this case I actually worked very, very hard and I’ll…[inaudible]… I was in a hotel room for a couple of days, just going up and down, up and down, thinking about doing it over and over and over again, so I knew that whatever, whatever happened… I knew that when I came out, it would have been what I wanted to do, and if I didn’t get it, I didn’t get it. That, that’s…[inaudible]…about that. But I knew at least I wouldn’t come out and smack my forehead, and go, ‘Why did I do that?’ It was sort of what I wanted to do.

Jenelle, Uh, can we talk about the formation of the character? Did you… try out different looks? Like with and without the beard, with or without the accent? His wardrobe is consistently very distinctive. Awesome…[inaudible]…t-shirts. [laughter] Um, what did you guys…? Did the writers work with you on that? Did you sort of…get on that look early on? How much say, if any, did you have?

Hugh: Uh, well I think that Bryan Singer as I remember… Because I was doing the Flight of the Phoenix film I was unshaven. And he saw that, and he sort of uh…he…responded to that. He liked that. He didn’t uh…

David: He told me it was…[inaudible]…[laughter]

Hugh: Really? Yeah. I want someone who looks just like you. [laughter] Um, I remember…I remember contributing the sneakers, because I thought there was something poignant about a…a disabled…uh…character wearing athletic shoes. A guy who had a sort of yearning for an athletic past that he had...[inaudible]. There was something…uh… I just thought there was something poignant about that. And that’s um… The t-shirts and stuff, I don’t… I, I remember we had a panicky thing when shooting the pilot. We would actually shoot a take and then go, “No, no, no, that doesn’t look right.” And then I’d go and change my clothes and do it again. We did that a few times. A lot of trial and error.

David: We were all huge Miami Vice fans. [laughter]

Jenelle: Uh, knowing that the show was going to last at least five years, would you, looking back on that, have done anything differently? Maybe insisting that you shaved, or…?

David: I’d have given you the British accent. Yeah. I think… Actually, that…that was discussed. I mean his accent, I think, is impeccable, but he…he obsesses over it; which is probably why it’s impeccable. But, uh, I know that’s…that’s one of the things that really challenges you. [inaudible] And um…it would certainly…make it easier…

Hugh: I would have a lovely day, in a way, yes. [laughter] I’d have a lovely day; very nice people, food’s excellent [laughter], very congenial…apart from this…uh…this sharp pebble in my shoe, which is the…the American accent.

David: That I…I foolishly made a creative choice. [laughter] I…I knew we had an unusual character and I didn’t want to give the American audience something simple to latch on to; to sort of dismiss it.

Hugh: He’s horrible and foreign. [laughter]

David: He’s horrible…[inaudible]… He’s horrible and…I guess that’s the way they are in England. [laughter]

Jenelle: Could have been French. Um… I wanted… Actually, because you brought up the accent, I want to talk about it, because there’s still so many people I have to fight on a weekly basis who won’t believe you’re not American. It makes me crazy. Uh, they refuse to believe you’re British in real life. Do you...?

Hugh: Thanks for fighting. [laughter] I don’t mind if you just give in. Uh…[laughter]…thank you.

Jenelle: Uh, did you work with a dialect coach, or did you always have an ear for accents?

Hugh: Uh, I wor…I worked with a dialect coach for about fifteen minutes, uh, and I could tell that it wasn’t going to work. [laughter] Um…I mean apart from everything else, the pace of television production is just…way too fast for you to be able to…spend any time dwelling on the, uh…intricacies of the word… You know how Americans say, or how Bostonians might say the word, um… “cylindrical”. Uh…you’ve just not time for it. You’re sort of… It feels a lot… You know…you’re…you’re…falling down stairs all day long. That’s how it feels. Trying to do a Rubik's Cube. And there just is no time to, sort of, stop…and ponder these things. You just go to…

David: Bryan Singer did not want, for that very reason, Bryan Singer did not want us to audition any…British actors. Just because of the pace of television. He just thought it was impossible. And he didn’t know you were English when he saw you and he thought…[inaudible]…[laughter]

Jenelle: And I’ve heard you keep the American accent on sets, between takes. Do you try to stay in character, or you just don’t want to…

Hugh: Uh, it’s not really in character. I don’t stay in character, because that… I would be punched in the face. [laughter] Um, I-I stay in American because yes, it…it…it’s…I-I think it would be… It would be odd for me to be going back and forth. I’d be, sort of, grinding gears all the time. And I think then I’d be aware of the fact it would be odd for the crew to be hearing…the switch. I didn’t want them to be uh…to be conscious of them being conscious. You’ve got a part… I mean part of the trick of acting is to create an atmosphere around yourself that is, sort of, um…relatively unruffled when you do what you need to do, and not to have…not to be aware of all the extra moments when people, uh…noticing things, or…to have things sticking out. You know, so… That was my own decision and have stuck to it.

Jenelle: When you got the part originally, did you do anything to research the role? Meet with doctors, uh…what’s your typical process…[inaudible]?

Hugh: [inaudible] process. [laughter]

Jenelle: What technique did you use?

Hugh: Uh, I am techniqueless and processless. Um, well I uh…well the first most important thing I did, and…and call it method if you like, I was born the son of a doctor. And that’s inevitable. [laughter] A lot of actors won’t go to that sort of trouble. [laughter] So I grew up with this…what is to me, a wonderful sort of reverence for the practice of medicine and belief in the empirical and the scientific. Uh, doctors are rather heroic figures, um…so House was a heroic figure, right from the start, although people described him in…in unkind terms as a jerk or this, he’s mean or he’s obnoxious. Well yes, he may be, but…I…to me he’s rather heroic. I’ve always thought of him as heroic, actually.

As for the actual medical research, I honestly, honestlydid try. [laughter] I arranged to go to a couple hospitals, um... [inaudible]…and then dates of the pilot kept moving, and…all of a sudden there was no time. You know, we’d be shooting on Monday and get here, you just got to get here. So I’m still waiting to do my research. [laughter] When the show ends I’ll have a bit of time.

David: [inaudible] You went to the hospital…[inaudible]

Hugh: I did. I went to… Yeah, that’s right. I suffered an industrial accident. Um, I went to a Canadian hospital. And uh, was stitched up. I had five stitches in my eyebrow on a Friday. And boy I’m a quick healer. This is one of… I’m boasting at this time. [laughter] I was ready to go by Monday morning.

Jenelle: What happened?

Hugh: I walk… You’ll probably notice that the set is comprised of these plate glass windows. SO fashionable. [laughter] Um…wood is just so last century. [laughter] So everything is glass everywhere. Glass is put in, glass is taken out. The glass had been out all day, we’d been walking back and forth, and the glass had been put in without anyone telling me. So they said, ‘We gotta go, we gotta go! Run, run, run, run, run!’ So I ran towards this…[inaudible]. Jennifer Morrison laughed until… I actually thought she was the one who was going to have to be taken to the hospital. [laughter] But fortunately the stitches were actually right in the eyebrow so they were concealed the rest of the day. Then I went off to the hospital where I was very well treated by the Canadians. The Canadian health care…[inaudible] [applause]

Jenelle: In the show’s first season, information about House’s personal life kinda came to us in bits and pieces. It wasn’t until, I guess, near the end of the year in like the last three episodes that we even discover why House has a limp, which we learned in the aforementioned Three Stories. [inaudible] Uh, Hugh going in did you know House [inaudible] disability? David, did you know at that point?

David: I knew the medical condition, thank you.

Hugh: Amateurs. [laughter] I’m sorry. [laughter]

David: I knew the medical condition. I didn’t know the full back story with the ex and the uh, and I knew at some point it had been misdiagnosed. I knew there had been a screw up in that regard. I mean…the details… I mean, will come along.

Jenelle: [inaudible]…some time.

Hugh: [inaudible]…attention. An old acting trick. [laughter]

Jenelle: And at what point did you share the back story with Hugh?

David: Um, when I gave him the script. [laughter] To which, I think, you were actually…I remember you were concerned we were doing too much too soon?

Hugh: Actually, I think you’re right. I now… that you say it, I do remember thinking that. What a fool I was. [laughter] Which is why you didn’t listen to anything I’ve said since then. [laughter]

David: Apparently [inaudible] done everything perfectly.

Hugh: That’s right. I did. Yes, I thought that this is precious…treasure that we have. The revelation of how we got to where we got to and how this character was formed. There was something tantalizing about this sort of Quasimodo figure, who sort of disappears. He’s hiding from his patients, he’s hidden from his colleagues, and he’s hidden, to some degree, from the audience. And the…how much of that you pay out, and the speed at which you pay it out, is a very delicate thing, which he does so brilliantly. I was completely wrong. I I…

David: No, but one of the things actually that I think that you have to be careful of, and I agree with you fundamentally, not surprisingly…[laughter]…is um, you…we’ve got this hopefully complicated, interesting character. You kill the character when you tell the audience why he is who he is. And so I was a little concerned even with that episode that people would go, ‘Oh the ex-girlfriend did that to him. That’s why he’s angry.’ And so I think we went out of our way, before that and after that, to reinforce that he was a bit of a jerk even before that happened. And, the whole ten million events went in to forming Dr. House’s every single…

Hugh: Pretty much like people. [laughter]

David: That’s what we were going for. [laughter] That was the model we should use.

Jenelle: When you started playing this character, you didn’t have all the answers. Did you fill in your mystery for House and did you ever turn out to be wrong? Like maybe you thought House has a great relationship with his dad or something?

Hugh: No, I don’t think I would have imagined that. This didn’t seem to me like a character who’d been brought up in a particularly happy household. Um, no I think part of me when playing this role, part of me is also playing the role of the audience. I am as intrigued by the character as other people are. Maybe they are more intrigued. I don’t know… I don’t know how intrigued people are. [laughter] That’s not for me to say. Um…

David: Some!

Hugh: Some…are partly intrigued. [laughter] And so I am… I find the mystery, the mystique of this character as intriguing as anybody else. And there are some things I sort of don’t want to know. Well, there are some things I don’t know about myself. Uh, they could be…historical facts. Although there are plenty of those I’ve forgotten. But I mean why one is the way one is? What is the actual chemical formula that has produced this particular collection of cells that behaves in this particular way? It’s unknowable. And I think it long may continue to be unknowable. Because as David said, once you give a sort of past explanation why a character…then, you’ve lost the drama. And also you’ve lost the connection to humanity, because that’s not how people are. People are not reducible to um, some form of algorithm that will explain why they do what they do.

Jenelle: David mentioned that he was familiar with your comedy career. We actually call it Laurie & Fry at my house, but…[laughter] Fry & Laurie and the greatest T.V. series ever, Blackadder. But those were [inaudible]… I think the longest running show was twelve episodes or something. Were you prepared…? How do you keep prepared for the pressure of a five year…

Hugh: Uh…that…yes. That is, you know. Yeah. Um…

David: Anybody who knows…[inaudible]

Hugh: There are some days when the juices aren’t quite flowing, but I find that… You know I sometimes approach the day or the set or a week with a heavy heart. Thinking, ‘Oh my god this is a huge amount of stuff to do and it’s gonna be tricky and how are we gonna…?’ But once you get in to the spec… Acting is all about this moment. But here comes another moment. Oh, here’s another moment! It’s about tiny, tiny little slices of time and behaviour and thought, and once you get into the experiencing of those or the creation of those they become…that becomes the fuel. You know, that’s interesting. And the realization of what it is, what’s the best way of trying to do something, or the expiration of what’s the best way to do something. And what is the funniest way to do something, or the most dramatic way to do something or the truest way to do something. I should have put that first. Um, is a really fascinating…That’s why actors act, I think. Because that is fuel. It’s very, very absorbing. So, although I sometimes I trudge to the set in a very grumpy sort of frame of mind, but once I do it, I generally, generally become so wrapped up in the problem. Actually, the problem is a big Housian.

Jenelle: Um, David I think was joking when he said he didn’t think you could play this part?

David: [stutters] I was… I did not… I was wrong… I mean, that’s before I met him. That’s okay, isn’t it? [laughter] I mean we read a lot of people and they couldn’t do it, you know, so… [inaudible]

Jenelle: Did you ever…

David or Hugh: No…[inaudible] [laughter]

David: I didn’t do it…[inaudible]…I was just so mean to the fifty people who’d come first. [laughter]

Hugh: There was one scene… You probably don’t remember this but there was one scene that I think we were using as a sort of audition scene which contained a reference to Mick Jagger, except it wasn’t Mick Jagger, it was the philosopher Jagger. And apparently half the people that went in, went ‘Ja-gger’. A lot of people disqualified themselves. [laughter] At least I got that one right. [inaudible]

David: Auditioning for Cuddy’s part. It was the acting lesson…[inaudible] Auditioning for Cuddy’s part we had Jagger and Mengele in the two scenes she did and at a certain point I said whoever comes in and pronounces both those names right wins the part. [laughter] It was really kind of… I mean we tricked them with philosopher Jagger but still it was followed by the philosopher Jagger. The philosopher Jagger says, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ I would have thought that would have been the tip-off. [laughter]

Jenelle: Did you yourself ever have doubts that you could do this part? I mean you’d done dramatic parts in the past, but were you worried?

Hugh: I still am. I was born worried and I will die worried. [laughter]

David: By the way I have gotten past my doubts. [laughter]
Hugh: It’s probably why I think it’s one of… I don’t know… I am paid to worry, really. That’s um, you stop worrying and you’re… Yeah, I really did and I…
David: You think that’s what we pay you for? [laughter]

Hugh: In a way. In a way. Because at that point, when you’re doing a pilot, you know…if the worst that can happen is you make a terrible pilot and it doesn’t get on the air and no one ever hears from them again. That has happened. And it happens actually quite often. And there’s no, there’s no disgrace in that. Nobody dies.. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a pity, but… Particularly if it’s something… Especially for a writer, it’s something you’ve invested in, you know, heart and soul. That’s disappointing. But at that point, the stakes are relatively low… I mean it’s a…it’s a pilot, it’s a one off thing, Once you launch off in to a season of… Actually we didn’t launch off in to a season, originally.

David: We got picked up for twelve.

Hugh: Yeah. So you sort of get…

David: Then five more.

Hugh: Then five more.

David: Then four more after that.

Hugh: Yeah. Yeah. But now I did worry.

Jenelle: Sort of the proverbial actor question, but what’s easier for you, comedy or drama?

Hugh: Uh…uh…um… [laughter] What’s the proverb, by the way, that that comes from? Um…

Jenelle: [inaudible]

Hugh: I…don’t really think… I don’t actually think of them as being that separate. I’m backed by a sort of Blockbuster theory. [laughter] I think…that you know, truth is… Right, here’s an analogy; tennis. You’re playing tennis. Well, is it… Some players flourish on grass and some on clay. But it is essentially the same game. And some players can do, you know, both at sort of the same status. Some do slightly better at one than the other. But essentially it’s the same game. I don’t think of as being um, now I’m going to put on my dramatic face. [laughter] Because if a thing is funny, it’s usually… I mean outside of a sort of a… just straightforward clowning…and we have got a little bit of that in House, it’s true, but… But apart from that, I think of it as all one deep, sparkling ribbon. [laughter]

Jenelle: David, as the show went on and you got to know Hugh better as an actor and a person, did you incorporate any of his qualities in to the character. I mean we know he is an accomplished pianist…

Hugh: Be very careful. [laughter]

Jenelle: But were there any personality quirks or hobbies that were…

David: Well in that way… I mean it kind of was one of those things that Hugh can kind of do anything, and so we just threw it right at him. [laughter] Um, but we would write ‘House plays the piano’ and he’d play the piano. You know, we’d write ‘House juggles’ and he’d juggle. We’d write ‘House skateboards’, you know, and that didn’t…[inaudible] [laughter] But he did it. He did it! I mean it was really… It’s not even, you know… We’re assholes in the sense that, a nice approach would be to go to Hugh and say, “What can you do? What can’t you do?” and incorporate that. We just write the damn stuff and then he finds a way of doing it. It’s kind of amazing.

[laughter as Hugh is making funny faces]

He catches the ball with his cane. [laughter] You know… I don’t think we even wrote that. You just went and did that one day on the set.

Hugh: I feel I kind of invented a new game and I think [inaudible] run about two hundred and twenty. Yeah… yeah. [inaudible]

Jenelle: Has playing this part changed the way people perceive you? I mean both in and out of the industry? Like, what sort of people approached you when you were more known for your comedy work versus what you do now?

Hugh: Uh…I try to avoid people coming up to me. [laughter] I hit the sunlight to avoid… No, I um…I’m a shy sort of a fellow. I don’t actually, sort of, put myself in the way of it…very often. There’s a gas station on La Cienega I go to and he watches the show occasionally. [laughter] No, I don’t think… It’s odd. I must say it’s odd to have two separate existences in two different continents. I mean I have known it one particular way over there, and then got a chance, an amazing opportunity to, sort of, start all over again over here. And I think it’s probably to the benefit… It’s harder to get an unknown character to play the lead on a television show. Networks are a [inaudible]… ‘Who is this guy? We don’t know anything about him. We don’t know if the audience is going to like him.’ But if it works, there are actually many advantages. The character doesn’t come with any um… There are no preconceptions about him. So I think that’s an amazing opportunity to be able to come and, sort of, invent, firstly a character, and also a sort of a…career, I suppose. Um, I don’t know why I hesitated over the word ‘career’? [laughter] It just didn’t come easily. It’s an amazing chance. It’s not something that people get to do very often and I feel very, very [inaudible] that the chance came my way.

David: Related to two of the recent questions, um, I think that…to take off from what Hugh was saying about not being a big difference between comedy and drama. I think too often actors find a joke in a script that just…there eyes light up and they go, ‘JOKE! JOKE! I get to really milk this.’ And…[laughter] it’s a, you know, one hour…and directors sometimes get really excited about slightly comic script and they don’t know how to do it and the way you do it ultimately is just by pumping the reality of it, by playing it as if he was [inaudible] and not be going ‘Joke! Joke! Joke!’ Where usually if you’re telling a joke but you’re just playing the reality of the moment and Hugh does that very well. And I think the fact that he came from that world, he may just have been gifted from birth, but I think the fact that he came from that world, meant…[laughter] probably he was gifted from birth. He was definitely gifted from birth. This guy… He um… He takes.. I don’t think he felt need to prove he was funny. And so he would have a lot of these funny lines in the script and he would sometimes come up to me and go ‘I think we’ve got too many jokes in this scene.’ Although one of the brilliant things he’s able to do is… One of the many brilliant things…[laughter] I’m gonna just keep going. [laughter] He um… He can take… In the middle of a dramatic scene he can take a joke, tell a joke and we don’t lose the dramatic import of it, and that’s because he’s playing the reality of it. Because he’s not playing the joke, as such. [inaudible]…it’s funny…

Yes?

Hugh: No, I just wanted to stop you. I don’t have anything to say. [laughter]

David: But as [inaudible] play it real.

Hugh: I do think… I’ll make this observation which is partly a compliment to David’s extraordinary writing. What… What…

David: [inaudible] [laughter]

Hugh: It’s like a [inaudible]bath, which we will do it later, obviously[laughter]. It’s a facet of his writing…the wit is absolutely integral to the characters’ nature and their abilities, and you could argue… I’m not going to, but you could, [laughter] that humour…the whole nature of humour…a joke…what is a joke essentially it is very a…and this is the most tedious exercise on earth, trying to analyze humour, but I’m going to do it for just ten seconds. Some people would reduce it to the ability to be able to see connections between disparate things, to see that there is a similarity between this thing and that thing that most people at that moment don’t see and the delight of a joke is the sudden realization that yes, they are alike. Very often that’s what a joke boils down to. And that is a facet of House’s ability of a diagnostician, as a doctor, is to when everyone else is just seeing data. And they’re seeing a whole bunch of information. He is able to pick out connections, patterns in things that other people don’t necessarily see. Whatever part of the brain that generates his…jokes is also generating…is also working at the same time on the problem solving. I think they’re not unconnected. I think that one of the reasons that his…the humour of House…the humour of the show and of the character is what’s so satisfying about it is that it is absolutely connected to who he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing. I just made that up. I’ve never…[laughter] [inaudible]…five minutes from now, but right now, right now, it’s true. [laughter]

Jenelle: I want to talk about some specific episodes of the show… I want to start with an episode from season one that I’m sure we all remember called Detox. It’s where House stays off vicodin for a week and suffers withdrawal. It’s a remarkable episode. Hugh, how difficult was it for you to play that? And again, did you do research or did you just jump in to it?

Hugh: I did as much as the short period of time would allow, which is to say not very much. I read as much as I could and I spoke to as many people as I could, but that wasn’t very many, I’ll be honest. And of course, also, when you’re doing a dramatic scene, you’re always faced with a judgment of what is true…the difference between what is true and what appears to be true. What is authentic…is not true…appears to be true. What is authentic and what is true are not necessarily thing same thing. And there are moments when you think…you know, consciously you know this isn’t actually how it is but in some sense this is truer than reality. Know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? I think I’ve lost it myself. Um… [laughter] And, so we just sort of set out on that one… just trying to explore what seemed like the truest way for that character to go through the experiences he was going through without it necessarily being a faithful replication of an addicts descent in to Hell…whatever [inaudible] might be called.

Jenelle: I think that was the first episode I can remember watching and thinking that it was the first time I started to worry that this was the character that you took with you at the end of the day. Are you able to leave it behind on sets, or…?
Hugh: Yes! Yes, I am. [laughter] I’ve had some… There’ve been some… You know, there’ve been some tough moments. Tough moments for David, I’m sure. It’s a very large undertaking and there are… It’s sort of a long campaign and there are times when it doesn’t go your way. And I have got very, very…sort of down about it. It was actually David who pointed it out there is a sort of price to be paid. A small one of sorts, in just constantly living in a world of misanthropy and bitterness and cynicism. You’ve got to stand in the shower for a reasonable length of time to get that off. Because, although, I do find the character heroic. I’m immensely fond of him. I love House. I love House, but… you know…there are… He’s not an easy person to be. Were he real, I wouldn’t want to be him. Nobody would want to be him. He’s not a happy man.

Jenelle: What has been the hardest scene for you to do, maybe, from an emotional standpoint? And David, as a writer in creating this character what’s maybe the hardest thing you’ve had to put this character through?

David: You go first.

Hugh: No, I’m all talked out now. I’ve sort of…hyperventilated. I’ll think. You go. [laughter]

David: Actually, you know what? The two hour that starts this season, in some ways, is the most difficult.

Hugh: I was going to say that. [laughter}

David: Aside from it being the commercially smart thing to say right now. [laughter] The episode you haven’t seen yet…

Jenelle: That airs September 21st on Fox.

David: But it’s true. We’ve taken House out of his comfort zone and put him in an institution and forced him to deal with his own issues, as opposed to being able to avoid them by dealing with somebody else’s issues. I suspect that was particularly difficult for Hugh because it’s…in a way it’s the same character but in some ways it must have been like acting a different character for two hours. Well, for seventeen days, actually.

Hugh: Yes, it was. It was. It’s true. Apart from everything else, we were in a different place. A different set. Large number of new actors. I mean, actors specific to that episode. So it did feel very, very different. And the biggest difference of all is that, as David said, the um…I don’t know about comfort zone exactly, but House’s greatest redeeming feature is his gift. His gift to heal; raise the dead on occasion. And the tension… The, sort of, contract with the audience or with the patients or whoever he comes in to contact with. How much of this are you prepared to put up with in order to get that. That’s the sort of tension of it. And in this particular…in the opening to this season, that is taken away. He’s not, in a medical sense, healing. He’s not solving problems. The problem he’s solving is his own…in himself. So in that sense, it’s a risk. It’s very ambitious and was, I suspect, difficult to write? No?

David: Yeah…[inaudible] comfort zone, too.

Hugh: Uh, and difficult to play. I mean it was a very difficult to know… You were then forced to actually really start asking who… Without his gift…without his… You know, the big, sort of… I can’t think of a noun… Noun…? Writer, come on writer?

David: [inaudible]

Hugh: Okay, without this big writer, [laughter] who actually is this character? And that was a difficult question for everybody to answer. I don’t know if we succeeded but I hope so.

Jenelle: Sort of along those lines, since we have David here, sort of an opportunity to talk about how the show has really never been afraid to shake things up. At the end of season three, all of House’s associates left. He hired three new doctors. Can you tell us where the idea for that came from? Were you worried about messing with the formula? The ‘if he ain’t broke don’t fix him’?

David: Um, I don’t have a problem with a formula, as such…[inaudible]…got a bit of a bad reputation somewhat unfairly. I think probably with the execution. At the same time, though, I also like doing the ones that depart from that. I think those keep the formulaic ones fresher and vice versa. You obviously can’t depart every week or you’re not departing from anything. Departure doesn’t apply. [laughter] But it’s uh… I honestly try, I don’t know why, but I honestly…when I first started writing… I think it’s because I was a little older or something, I really didn’t write for anybody else. I mainly wrote stories that I found entertaining, and I hoped that somebody else would also find them entertaining. And I was really at peace with the idea that if they didn’t, that was okay. And I’d go back to my old…[inaudible…possibly “heart”] which wasn’t that bad. So, we just tell the stories we want to tell as we’re going along. It seemed, you know, if after three years it seems right that House…that people… I mean, it seems ridiculous that people would stay working for this character indefinitely. I mean it just doesn’t feel real. And so that didn’t feel real and so we decided to do something different. We decided to have them leave. Without really knowing what we were going to do to replace them, we decided to shake things up because it seemed right. It seemed like the natural place to go and literally one morning, It was actually…one of those, you know, Eureka moments. I was in the shower and I was thinking ‘How do we do this?’ and suddenly it struck me to do a Survivor game. I said it’s such a cheap gimmick on any other show, but I think on this show, it actually makes sense. House would not interview forty-seven people to hire three, he would hire forty-seven people and fire forty-four. [laughter] . And so it made sense and we had fun with it.

Jenelle: Did you know from the beginning who the final three were going to be or were the actors, sort of, actually playing the game of Survivor?

David: It seemed really amusing to us initially, but it was [laughter]…and then you realize that actors are people. [laughter] Something I’ve learned. [laughter] But we had series deals with five of them,. We had series option deals with five of them. We weren’t sure which ones they were going to be. And so you’re coming along with this script…you’ve got all these options and you realize we’re handing out these scripts and these people are all grabbing the scripts and flipping to the very last page. [laughter] Most of them knew that they weren’t there long term, but they weren’t sure how long they’d be there. They didn’t know if it was going to be one episode or eight episodes. And they’d flip to the last page and find out whose…[inaudible]. So, we tried to make a point of sitting down with the person who was the one going…[inaudible]. You know, it was actually a really interesting experience because we got these wonderful actors to do this really uncertain thing and it was really kind of cool. Not one of them left because we went… Literally not one of them left because…[inaudible]. But they were all really good which was a wonderful experience for us as writers because whichever character we decided would give us the most leeway…the most opportunities to play off of House were the ones we’d end up keeping.

Jenelle: Season four also introduced us to Amber, aka Cutthroat Bitch. So well played by Anne Dudek. Was that a case of you wanted to keep her around so you found ways to bring her back, first as Wilson’s girlfriend then as a ghost?

David: Yeah, I gotta…

Jenelle: A ghost, I’m sorry, I’m…

David: No..

Jenelle: Imagination… Favorite shows…

David: Yeah, actually, I guess it was. I mean she was so wonderful. She popped so well and we ultimately decided, and I’m not sure we were right, but we ultimately decided the character was so right the thing you want is for House to play off somebody who’s [inaudible] long term, she’s a little too House-like. Which was great for that. But then we just so loved her so that…it was so great, it was so much fun. We regretted our decision. [David laughs] So we knew… We had this idea for this wonderful episode at the end. Actually we were going to bring her back for much less time. The writers strike, in a weird way, worked out for us because it was going to be a two-part [inaudible] Super Bowl and two…and then rounding up the season finale which [inaudible] four episodes. [inaudible]…bring her back a little longer which would have made a much better story connected to [inaudible] and House gets to realize Wilson is dating Amber…[inaudible].

Jenelle: I want to answer some questions from the audience. [inaudible] pronounce names. Uh, Jeffrey? That was easy. Thank you. This one’s for Hugh: ‘The chemistry between your character and Wilson feels so genuine. Are you and Robert Sean Leonard close in real life?’

Hugh: Uhhh… Where’s Jeffrey? Oh, alright. Uh, yes. It would seem odd just sort of saying to…[inaudible]. It is my great, good fortune… I think without…this is no exaggeration…without Robert Sean Leonard, I probably wouldn’t go on. I would be in a lunatic asylum within about a month of starting the whole thing. Under the, sort of, burden of the whole…what I felt was the burden of the whole…adventure. But Robert’s the most wonderfully kind, wise, incredibly funny laconic companion. Lazy as anything. [laughter] He won’t do any [inaudible] one day of every ten. [laughter] Those are good days. Those days, for me, are like a little oasis of calm and good times. We have a very good time and we make each other laugh and we’re very, very lucky in that way. Very lucky. I mean I hope he will echo this. Sort of embarrassing if he wouldn’t. [laughter] But yes, I feel very… I don’t mean that I don’t have other… There are… As I said there are a wonderful collection of people to be working with but sometimes a thing, you know, can get a bit much. It can get a bit much and you need… Everyone should have a Wilson in their life. [inaudible] Wilson [inaudible]. [laughter]

Jenelle: This is… The first part of this might make you blush but the second part is actually a really interesting question. Richard R. ‘Do you think that Hugh has never won an Emmy because House is not a nice character and is there ever pressure from the network to make him more warm and fuzzy?’

David: I just don’t think his acting’s…[inaudible]. [big laughter]

Jenelle: The Teen Choice Awards disagree with you.

Hugh: I just don’t have the material to work with. [big laughter]

David: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. I can’t go in to their head. I know there have been not nice characters that… Michael Chiklis won the Emmy a few years ago, but they are few and far between. I don’t know. I’ve stopped trying to parse that process. You know, if you… The fact is if you give them that much credit then when you lose you have to really get upset. So you can’t get too excited if and when you win and you can’t get too excited if and when you lose. Because, you know you get thirty people in a room they’re going to pick one guy. Put a different thirty people in a room and they’re going to pick somebody else. [inaudible] What was the…?

Jenelle: I was actually curious about the warm and fuzzy question.

David: No one… Actually, no. I mean ideas are actually the more… I’m shocked at that. I expected that at the beginning. I…think if we’d been on CBS we would have gotten that. Actually I think if we were on any network other than Fox we would have gotten that.

Hugh: It felt, don’t you agree, that it felt, as if, for whatever reason, and I can’t remember these details… It felt when we started at such a…we started so quietly. We were following a show that had, a sort of, a negative viewing figure, I think. I can’t remember what it was.

David: [inaudible]

Hugh: It was Richard Branson. That’s right. Richard Branson. Americans were actually leaving the country rather than watch the show. [laughter] It had minus numbers. It felt like Fox’s attention was elsewhere and they just, sort of, let us do it, don’t you think? To some…to some extent. They weren’t sort of hovering around the set looking worried. They had…

David: They had other stuff to write about. We premiered in November about which time I think all their other scripted shows had been canceled. And yeah, Branson The Rebel Billionaire…Branson’s Quest… I mean the name went on. [laughter]

Hugh: So by the time they did finally turn their attention to us we had sort of just got enough of a foothold for them to understand that that was what it was. And…if it had anything going for it it was that. So don’t change that, I think…

David: They did initially… I remember they… They never… The [inaudible] of [inaudible] sent us a note saying, ‘Well that’s a mean thing to say.’ [laughter] But that was really the worst and I [inaudible] them back. I said, ‘Look, that’s who the guy is.’ Really, no. I remember the initial… I remember going to New York for the first upfronts for us and they had… First of all, you sit in that room and you watch the head having just complimented Fox…[inaudible]. [laughter] ‘Cause they really did let us do it. But I remember seeing the…they show the three minute clips of all their new shows and they’re kind of going, ‘One of these things is not like the other.’ [laughter] But their three minute clip package of us made it very much look like, ‘Damn it, we’re gonna solve this…!’ You know, they made it look like a cop show. I mean it looked like a team of heroes fighting against beaurocrats or something to find the answer. And I remember meeting our Fox curve guy who said, ‘So what’d you think of it?’ And I said, ‘I didn’t like it.’ And that apparently stuck with them. I didn’t remember that except he kept reminding me of it. And it took them a little while to figure out what this show was. And I think… Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I think we were kind of in the shadows and out of the way and…

Hugh: As I remember it, one of …maybe not the first line, but almost the first line that House answers in the very first show, Wilson is describing a series of symptoms one of his patients is suffering from and House responds with, ‘Cancer. Boring!’ [laughter] I mean, actually, when you think about it, that is a pretty astonishing association

David: It’s actually, ‘It’s brain cancer. She’s gonna die. Boring.’

Hugh: Oookay. [laughter] Well that’s about as close as I get to the scripted lines… [laughter] Um, but to actually have the word ‘boring’… Alright, let me give you this; the word ‘boring’ within ten sentences of the word ‘cancer’ was um…and incredible thing to do. And there are moments when it’s almost, sort of, sounds blasphemous to actually…to treat death…to treat disease in that way was an extraordinary…

David: They took… Actually, I remember some of their commercials they were gonna take the lines he’d said sarcastically and put them on the air as if he was saying them sincerely…[laughter] in the commercials. But actually it worked out fine because I remember we got to that scene… this was one of the many moments of the pilot where Hugh understood this character so well and saved my ass. Bryan did a great job. Bryan Singer [inaudible] a really good story. He was really great. He also saved my ass. I think it was that scene we decided this isn’t working in the right order. We need to rearrange this. And I’m sitting there being the insecure writer [inaudible] Hugh came up with, ‘Isn’t it great the first line out of this guy’s mouth is this?’ And Bryan, to his credit, went, ‘Yeah.’ [laughter] And so we, literally, after forty-five minutes, talked about having to undo this [inaudible]… We put it back exactly the way it was. And Bryan says it’s not exactly technically not the very first scene. And I remember Bryan shot the scene… It was the first scene you and he shot the scene on your feet…and the cane, walking down the hall. And we hear the first part of the conversation on that and then it pans out to your face and it’s the first line we hear out of your mouth.

Jenelle: Has there ever been any time when you held back and thought, ‘Oh maybe we’re going too far with this? Or anything you hesitated to say as an actor?

Hugh: I think there might have been, sort of, two maybe, but I honestly I’m not being, sort of, coy. I really can’t remember what they were. But I can remember saying to David, ‘Wow. [laughter] Really?’ I honestly can’t remember what they were and I can’t remember the outcome. Maybe we modified one and not the other or maybe it was a tie. I don’t know. How did we do…? How did we settle that?

David: I’m sure there have been times when I thought [inaudible]. I mean, within the writer’s room the rules is the punishment doesn’t have to fit the crime but there has to be a crime. House has to be trying to achieve something. He can’t just be saying something nasty for the sake of being nasty. It doesn’t have to be… What he’s trying to achieve can be ill conceived, can be some sort of rationalization, but he has to be trying to achieve something. And as long as he’s trying to achieve something we can let him say anything in pursuit of that goal.

Jenelle: This is a question from Sherri G. Something I think a lot of people have noticed. House is always playing with props or eating. Is that written in or is that something that you add?

Hugh: It’s probably a bit of both, yeah. I’ve always felt from the beginning that there was something… So many other things I loved about him and some other things, I suppose, is infuriating about him is that there is a very strong child-like quality. He’s a sort of hyperactive…or might have been a hyperactive teenager and sort of remained one. A slightly arrested development in some areas. Other areas, pretty well developed, actually, and intellectually. But there are some parts of him which are rather child-like. A game player, a fiddler, you know, some slight, sort of, attention deficit disorder. Someone who can’t really stop his brian from wondering how things work. The thing might be the human body or it might be a 1930’s radio that he wants to take to pieces and figure out how the valves work. That’s how I felt he always had to have something.

David: Uh, probably shouldn’t even [inaudible] this but there are days where I go, ‘Well, House is probably gonna do something but we can’t think of anything.’ And Hugh will figure out something on the set. [laughter]

Jenelle: Do you write that in the script? ‘Hugh will figure it out.’ [laughter] So the next time you get angsty about your accent, I just wanted to give you these cards where people compliment your accent as ‘impeccable’, I believe is the word that really pops up.

Hugh: Which is one of the words that I can’t say. [laughter]

Jenelle: [inaudible]

Hugh: Although I haven’t really got any time with her… [inaudible] [laughter]

Hugh: This is amazing. Thank you so much.

Jenelle: I want to thank you guys so much for being here. September 21. Thank you all. [applause]

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Kath Lingenfelter

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