Идея появилась давно. Статьи публикуются разрозненно в новостном блоке. Там особо не по обсуждаешь. В рамках библиотеки открывается журнальный столик, где мы все вместе соберем статьи мадам (?) Барнетт и мистера Хэндлина и обсудим их.
“That shifted the focus of this season more to the relationship between House and Wilson, and I think that was good for the show. We’ve dealt with it through the years, but not as much as we’ve been able to this season.”
естественно, разве он может сказать, что это bad это же его шоу.
Ramon: Faith is not a disease. House: No, of course not. On the other hand, it is communicable, and it kills a lot of people.
врать про ЛЭ - благородное дело - потешить ее уязвленное самолюбие. врать про то, что нынешний поворот оказался удачным для сериала - зачем?... я полностью согласна, что удачным. До сих пор ношу баннер с финалом прошлого сезона, если вы вдруг не заметили - потому что ощущаю полную свободу в этом. Надышаться ею не могу! и радуюсь! ))))) (оффтоплю? сорри!)
Сообщение отредактировал dandelionwine - Воскресенье, 20.05.2012, 20:56
врать про ЛЭ - благородное дело - потешить ее уязвленное самолюбие.
не думаю, что она читает подобное. И не думаю, что он врет. Они в с ним в прекрасных отношениях Кстати, видимо и ХЛ врал, говоря, что для него это было шоком, и РШЛ? Главное, я так понимаю, они это делали для Лизы, чтобы потешить ее самолюбие. ВАУ!!! Я знала, что они к ней прекрасно относятся, но в вашей интерпретации, они ради нее даже своим добрым именем жертвуют, публично обманывая аудиторию. Мне нравится ваша точка зрения, пожалуй.
Quote (dandelionwine)
врать про то, что нынешний поворот оказался удачным для сериала - зачем?... я полностью согласна, что удачным.
а вы считаете, что эта статья была посвящена лично вам??? Тогда прошу прощения.
Ramon: Faith is not a disease. House: No, of course not. On the other hand, it is communicable, and it kills a lot of people.
а вы считаете, что эта статья была посвящена лично вам??? Тогда прошу прощения
нет. но я тоже - аудитория. Часть ее. И согласитесь, таких как я - довольных - превеликое множество. Вам ли не знать - вы же с нами как Дон Кихот отважно и неустанно боретесь.
Quote (yahnis)
в вашей интерпретации, они ради нее даже своим добрым именем жертвуют, публично обманывая аудиторию.
разве это обман? это немножко иная подача фактов... и опять же - ради благородного дела - женщину не выставлять на посмешище. Я их за это только уважаю. А были бы ЛЭ с Шором в добрых отношениях, она бы чаще появлялась поблизости...
И согласитесь, таких как я - довольных - превеликое множество.
да да имя вам легионы
Quote (dandelionwine)
Вам ли не знать - вы же с нами как Дон Кихот отважно и неустанно боретесь.
с мельницами? интересная аналогия, мне нравится.
Quote (dandelionwine)
Everybody lies!
а теперь говорите, не обман. Определитесь все таки
Quote (dandelionwine)
А были бы ЛЭ с Шором в добрых отношениях, она бы чаще появлялась поблизости...
поблизости чего?? Шора? Да уж куда ближе(судя по фотографии с Рош а шана ). И с какой частотой это должно происходить? Ну чтобы вам было понятно, что они друзья.
рать про ЛЭ - благородное дело - потешить ее уязвленное самолюбие. врать про то, что нынешний поворот оказался удачным для сериала - зачем?... я полностью согласна, что удачным. До сих пор ношу баннер с финалом прошлого сезона, если вы вдруг не заметили - потому что ощущаю полную свободу в этом. Надышаться ею не могу! и радуюсь! ))))) (оффтоплю? сорри!)
House Comes to an End: Producers and Cast Recall Creating a Curmudgeon
Часть 2 House Comes to an End: The Cast and Producers Retrace the Series' Highs and Lows
Bolstered by American Idol, House quickly became a huge hit. At the end of the third season — which remains the show's highest-rated — the producers blew up the formula and forced House to rebuild his entire diagnostic team. It was the first of many bold (and controversial) storytelling choices. In Part 2 of our oral history, the show's creators and cast look back at the show's most memorable plots.
In the Season 3 finale, House (Hugh Laurie) fires Chase (Jesse Spencer), while Foreman (Omar Epps) and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) resign. Although those characters remained on the show, Season 4 began with House hosting a massive competition to build his new team. Among the prospects: Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn) and Dr. Amber "Cutthroat Bitch" Volakis (Anne Dudek). David Shore (creator, executive producer): You want to be ahead of your audience. If you're shaking things up after the audience has asked you to shake things up, it's probably too late. [The original team] had been on three-year fellowships. We never imagined the show would go three years, but it felt dishonest to just keep them going in that position forever. And it also felt a little odd that people would keep working for somebody who was this difficult forever and ever.
Katie Jacobs (executive producer): We had the luxury of trying things before we were told to do things. The network was very supportive. We went to them with this idea of opening up Season 4 in this kind of Survivor game.
David Shore: I came up with this idea that rather than interview 45 people and hire three, House would hire 45 and fire 42 of them. It just felt right, and it had a game show element that this character would play into. It didn't feel like a gimmick.
Anne Dudek (Dr. Amber Volakis): There was this huge hoard of actors who had nothing to do with the show, who all kind of showed up with deer eyes. It was nice because we could really relate to each other. We really did bond because it was a bizarre experience.
Kal Penn (Dr. Lawrence Kutner): What impressed me the most was walking into the actual audition. There were about 10 people in the waiting room, and usually when you audition for something, all 10 of you look the same, relatively speaking. My first reaction was, "Oh, we must be all auditioning for different projects," because the age range went from 20 to 70, there were men and women, every different ethnicity. When I realized we were auditioning for the same couple of doctors, I was so excited that [the producers] wanted to find actors that would fit the roles for reasons other than what they looked like.
Anne Dudek: My first instinct was, "Oh my God, [Amber] is the female House." They kept writing these evil and awful things that my character kept doing. I was trying to maintain some sort of redemptive quality to her, but the direction was always, "No, no -- she's just evil." I sort of had a sinking feeling as I was working on it that the more fun it was for me to do the extreme and the outrageous, the less likely she was going to actually be kept on the team. I thought, "There's no way they're going to keep me because this character is just crazy." David Shore: I realized going along, "Oh, House isn't just firing people — I'm firing people. We'd write a script and I'd realize, "Oh my God, these actors are running for their scripts to turn to the back page to find out whose time is done."
Jennifer Morrison (Dr. Allison Cameron): [In Season 4] I just always had to take the stance of trusting the writers and trusting what they wanted to do with the show. It was frustrating because I just wanted to work more. The little bit that I did have, I would come in and be happy to have, but if you're going to be on a television show and you're going to be committed to it for all those years, you want to actually be working, not sitting around
David Shore: That was a very tricky thing. I look back on that and I like what we did with [Cameron, Chase and Foreman]. I think they took on a different voice and a different feeling and a different maturity. They sort of grew up there. But they weren't in a lot and it was difficult to find places to use them. It was awkward.
House hired Kutner, Thirteen and Taub and decided to let Amber go. The character returned, however, when it was revealed that she had begun dating House's best friend, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).
David Shore: There was one moment in one episode where Wilson and House realize that Wilson is, in effect, dating House and the two of them are both horrified. That worked out very nicely.
Robert Sean Leonard (Dr. James Wilson): I love those episodes. They were fun to work on because I was so used to working with Hugh every day. It was nice to change it up a little bit.
Anne Dudek: I really liked that, in that continuation, you saw a different quality to this person. You saw her outside of a purely competitive environment. [Ambition] comes from a place of fear of being too manipulated yourself. My idea about Amber was that she was incredibly insecure and in need of something like falling in love anyway. So, it kind of made sense.
Amber died in the two-part season finale, "House's Head"/"Wilson's Heart" which featured House trying to remember the events that led to a bus crash and the death of a "Jane Doe." "House's Head" won the Emmy for best direction for Greg Yaitanes.
Greg Yaitanes( director, executive producer): It was literally one of the best scripts I've ever read for television. What came to mind was a very specific vision for that episode, both in performance and in the look of the transition between what was real and what was imagined — the process of searching your own memory. That episode was special to me, not just because I won the Emmy, but because my son was born the day after I finished it.
Katie Jacobs: That episode was supposed to air after the Super Bowl, but then the writers' strike happened. I always knew that Greg would be the best director for that. So when he won his Emmy for directing that episode; that is a great source of pride for me. It's my proudest moment [as a producer]. That's just where I get off: creating a space for everybody to do their best work.
Anne Dudek: It was really amazing to have a full span of someone's experience. I don't see a whole lot of writing of characters like this on television. Like, who would place the "cutthroat bitch" all of the sudden in a hospital bed where she's facing the last moments of her life? I feel so blessed that I got to be the actor involved in such well-written and well-produced episodes. I won the lottery in some ways. This is exactly what you would want as an actor. Exactly.
Although Foreman and Chase remained on the show to the end, Cameron was eventually written out after she divorced Chase for knowingly killing an African dictator.
Jennifer Morrison: I was devastated when they told me that Cameron was going to leave. That was not a happy conversation for me. But obviously, that show changed my life tremendously, and I have incredible gratitude for it.
David Shore: Jennifer was fantastic, but we made a decision that we felt we'd run the course with that character.
Jennifer Morrison: By the time she was leaving, [Cameron] was very confident in what she was capable of, and a lot of that was because House had taught her to stand up for herself. In a weird way, over that time, House taught her to stand up to him, and the only thing left to do, unless he was going to change and grow, which he was unwilling to do, was for her to leave.
The show shocked audiences again with one of its best-kept secrets: the sudden suicide of Kutner.
Kal Penn: There was an opportunity to serve in the White House. I said to myself, "My first love will always be film and acting, but there's always a time to have fun and do things like that. If you have the opportunity to help serve your country, you have to say yes."
David Shore: If he came to me saying, I've been offered an arc on another TV show, I might have said no. But he wanted to do something with his life and I'm not going to stand in his way. I was proud of him for doing that and I appreciated him coming to me months and months in advance so that I would have time to think about how to do it right.
Kal Penn: David said, "OK, let us figure out what that's going to look like and we'll get back to you." Ten days later, I find out I have three episodes left and Kutner's going to shoot himself in the head. I'm like, "Is this your way of telling me you're angry with me?" It took me by surprise. I asked him, "Have I been playing this guy depressed the last two seasons?" That's what they wanted to achieve: Unfortunately, just like in real life, people who take their own lives don't often show any symptoms. They said, "We know that this is going to piss the audience off. It's going to make them very sad, it's going to make them go through the same emotions as if somebody had done that in real life. We want to convey that as realistically and respectfully as possible."
David Shore: I was shocked at how surprised people were, but I guess it's the type of thing you expect at the end of a season. It was actually kind of cool to be able to shine a light on an issue. The other thing it gave us was that [House] prides himself on having answers for everything and being able to figure out everybody. And yet a person he had worked with for almost two years does something and House is baffled by it.
House Comes to an End: The Cast and Producers Retrace the Series' Highs and Lows
Kutner's suicide had long-reaching effects. The final episodes of Season 5 found House hallucinating about having sex with Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) , as well as seeing visions of Amber and Kutner. When he realizes he's lost touch with reality, he checks himself into a psychiatric facility. The Season 6 premiere, "Broken" was directed by Jacobs and began a season featuring a sober House.
Katie Jacobs: The notion that I had at the end of Season 5 was not to go inside the psychiatric hospital, but to lose House behind the doors of Oz. [We'll] Just have three months pass like we usually do and then he'll show up. I said, "No, as a fan I'm going to want to see that journey." I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to do an episode that actually had more the structure of a movie. You didn't have to know anything before — you could see it from beginning to end and it would be complete. When I turned it in, the response, generally speaking, was, "People are looking for a reason to tune out in Season 6, and I think you've just given them the reason."
David Shore: We're terrified every episode that the fans are going to check out. We had done a number of departure episodes prior to that, but that was probably the biggest departure. We're starting the season, and none of it is set in the hospital. But it was huge.
Katie Jacobs: I didn't do it to be risky. I was following the character and it turned out to have a huge audience. I remember the network came down and brought a glass of tequila. But it was very scary. I remember I was so scared I brought my agent into my office and I said, "You're going to watch this and you're going to tell me if this is terrible. Do not let me pull my pants down and the show's pants down in front of an audience." I also remember Sunday before it aired we were lucky enough to be nominated at the Emmys. Mad Men won, but Monday night, "Broken" aired and I think it had like 20 million people watching it. I would much rather have a big audience than any trophy.
David Shore: I can't recall us struggling with sober House because he was never quite comfortable with his sobriety. We knew, at some point, we would have to get him off the pills. But the thing was, it's not about him getting clean. The Vicodin is real and it's an issue and something that has to be dealt with, but it is not the emotional issue that is driving House's life. And so it was much more important to get to the emotional issues behind his problem.
A huge part of the emotional exploration of House came from finally putting House and Cuddy together as a couple in Season 7. They eventually break up after House relapses.
David Shore: You can't dance around an issue forever. We had to put them in a relationship. I am proud of the way we kept House and Cuddy even when they were "House and Cuddy." We didn't turn them into a smiling, happy couple. They still had their issues. They just happened to be sleeping together. Katie Jacobs: I wanted to tell that story, and I think it needed to be told. But I never imagined it would go on for a full season.
Greg Yaitanes: I may have not been the biggest fan of their relationship in terms of the journey it took. But in terms of how they came together and why they split up, I felt it was so beautifully handled. I think the breakup of House and Cuddy in "Bombshells" — that single scene where she comes to leave him — both actors did some of the best work of their careers.
The season finale following their breakup featured House ramming his car into Cuddy's home.
David Shore: I know that was very controversial. Most of the firestorms I expect, to some extent. What surprised me was that people seemed to actually think that House was trying to kill Cuddy, which is just not true. He looks through that window beforehand. He knows nobody's in that room. It was him putting his fist through a wall, basically. At the end, he's smiling, which to me was saying to the audience, he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, which was to simply do some damage. And then he pays a huge price.
Due to failed contract negotiations, that would also be Lisa Edelstein's final episode on the show.
David Shore: Things happen that you have no control over. You deal with things as they happen. I wanted Lisa to stay on the show. I wish she had stayed on the show. I made my desires known very strongly and it did not work out that way. That was not a pleasant time for anybody. Having said that, you deal with it and you go forward and you do the best that you can, and I think we've done some really great stuff this year.
Odette Annable and Charlyne Yi joined the cast for the show's eighth and final season, which began with House in jail and featured a number of episodes that raised thematic questions about consequences. The series finale, in fact, finds House plagued by knowing he could possibly return to jail for six months while his best friend Wilson is expected to die from cancer in only five. It's a bittersweet ending to one of TV's most complicated bromances.
Hugh Laurie (Dr. Gregory House): For better or for worse, [House and Wilson] are bound together. They share a way of looking at the world, and I think they need each other.
Bryan Singer (director, executive producer): Wilson is Edith Bunker to House's Archie Bunker. His caring for House enables us to care for House, and the fact that he knows how to handle House helps us handle House. He was my window into House.
David Shore: One of the things we've done on this show that is not portrayed very often on TV is male friendship. I think the House-Wilson friendship is one of the defining features of this show. Romantic love — you can do it well and it should be done well and it should be on TV all the time. But the male friendship thing — it's one of the things I'm proudest of in the show.
So, how's it all going to end?
Omar Epps (Dr. Eric Foreman): David is trying to end this the way he wants to, not the way he thinks people want it to. In some series finales, it's like they're giving people what they think they want to see instead of continuing the creative process. This will end in the way that it needs to end.
David Shore: This was never about me being able to tell a whole story that has a beginning, middle and end. This was about me being able to tell a whole bunch of stories that have a beginning, middle and end. This is a bonus for me that I can wrap it up and go out in an interesting way.
Robert Sean Leonard: It's not going to tie up everything — that's not with this is about. I think the show is going to end very abruptly and in a very surprising way because, as happens in life, you don't live the ending. You just live your life.
David Shore: Human lives don't lend themselves to three-act structures. Moments in human lives lend themselves to three-act structures. Life is about trying to change. It's about trying to get better and trying to increase our happiness and increase the meaning in our life. If we can change just a little, it's a huge success.
Hugh Laurie: I think the audience will be happy, not because House has learned some life lessons — that's not what he's about. I think people will be happy for him. There is something defiant about him, and I think the worst possible thing would be to see his spirit broken. I would find that depressing and that would make me unhappy. The fact that he's still got a "mud in your eye, to hell with you all" attitude, I sort of love.
David Shore: All writers like to write flawed characters. All networks like you to write simple, nice characters. The fact that we succeeded with a deeply flawed character, I hope that's going to continue to open doors for other deeply flawed characters on TV. And the basic message of this character — the message of seeking objectivity, a pursuit of truth, not just blindly accepting what you're told — I think that's what this character stands for and that's, to me, what the show always was.
От MTV 'House' Is Discharged After Eight Complex Seasons We say goodbye to Hugh Laurie's challenging and entertaining Dr. Gregory House on Monday night.
By Tami Katzoff
On Monday night (May 21), we say goodbye to Dr. Gregory House, one of the most iconic TV characters of this young century. For eight seasons, he's been confounding us, challenging us and, above all, entertaining us with his quirky brilliance and cutting wit.
On paper, the character doesn't seem to be very appealing: a crippled, self-destructive, drug-addicted doctor who distrusts, ignores and avoids his patients and alienates his friends — not exactly an endearing guy. But in the hands of the mighty Hugh Laurie, it works.
Laurie was barely known here in the U.S. before he took on the role of House. English folk knew him as a masterful sketch comedian and half of the dynamic duo (Stephen) Fry and Laurie. When he was brought across the pond to star in the new American drama series, he sparked the still-ongoing trend of talented Brit actors migrating to U.S. television.
Like the various "Law & Order" series, "House" is a procedural — there's always a medical mystery to be solved. Unlike "L&O," "House" is less about the cases and more about the people. One of the most contentious relationships on the show was between Dr. House and his boss, hospital administrator Dr. Lisa Cuddy. Lisa Edelstein's Cuddy was alternately lusted after and antagonized by House, and when they finally paired up after years of sexual tension, the fans were either ecstatic or repulsed. The romance ended because of House's Vicodin abuse, and the friendship ended because House, in a jealous rage, drove a car through the front of Cuddy's home.
Many fans would agree that House's true soul mate was Dr. James Wilson, perfectly portrayed by Robert Sean Leonard. Wilson stood by House through defiant drug addiction, detox, a stint in a mental institution and more than one trip to jail. Some would say Wilson, as House's only real friend, was the consummate enabler; I would say he was House's lifeline, his one unbroken link to the rest of humanity.
When we last saw them in the penultimate episode, Wilson was sick with cancer and House was heading back to jail. Monday night's episode is titled "Everybody Dies," a play on one of House's most favorite and infamous slogans "Everybody lies." Whatever happens, I expect there will be more than a few tears shed by the end of the night. I've already stocked up on tissues. I'll leave the Vicodin alone. http://www.mtv.com/news....twitter
Robert Sean Leonard - he's a man I would put my life in his hands, and almost have on occasion (с) H. Laurie
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Bedside manner is overrated. Despite a tactless, cantankerous demeanor, Gregory House has been a welcome TV guest since 2004.
After eight seasons, Hugh Laurie hangs up his cane as brilliant diagnostician Gregory House.
House has enjoyed a healthy eight-season run that included audiences of 20 million and more at its peak, four Emmy nominations for best drama and six for star Hugh Laurie.
Tonight, Fox wraps up Dr. House's tale with a two-hour goodbye (8 ET/PT) divided between a retrospective and the final episode.
Laurie, who created one of the more captivating characters of recent times, shares his viewers' sentiment: "I like him."
But why like a guy whose behavior can be downright antisocial, whether he's dealing with patients with mysterious, bizarre (though often surprisingly curable) symptoms, or colleagues on the elite diagnostic team he heads at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital?
"First of all, he's funny. That's an important ingredient to the way his mind works, professionally as well as emotionally. He's also entertaining, which explains why the character Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) tolerated him for so long," says Laurie, enjoying a breezy afternoon on a balcony terrace at the Chateau Marmont hotel.
"And there's something defiant about House. He just wouldn't bend to conventional demands of good manners or authority. He also wouldn't bend to fear of death or loneliness," Laurie says. "For all his morbid self-destructiveness, I tend to think there is something full of life about House."
The unsentimental House has been a totally different kind of TV doctor, nothing like the avuncular Marcus Welby, the heroic Doug Ross of ER or the earnest young surgeons of Grey's Anatomy. You wouldn't see any of them start to strangle a patient with his own medication line, as House did in last week's episode.
But patients will put up with a lot when a doctor has House's success rate. In a recent episode, a hospital pathologist demanded to be treated by House, based on his track record.
House's weaknesses, including an addiction to Vicodin and chronic leg pain that causes him to limp, helped humanize him, says Englishman Laurie, who perfected the limp and an American accent for the role. "Sympathetic instincts are aroused when you see people who are in pain. You want to heal them or protect them in some way."
From a different angle, series creator David Shore says, "He's a 15-year-old boy. He just does what he wants to do, which is a very attractive thing. We worked very hard to make it smart and funny, and Hugh is unbelievable in that role. I can give all the credit in the world to Hugh — and I am."
House in a predicament
One of those immature stunts — clogging the hospital's toilets with paper, causing damage to an MRI machine — puts House in a predicament in the finale, as his parole for an earlier act of destruction is revoked and he is ordered back to jail. He is supposed to serve six months, one more than the life expectancy of best friend James Wilson, an oncologist who has cancer.
"House is faced with a very difficult situation with Wilson, and he assesses what his future should or will be. How does he deal with that?" Shore says. House has "always been a good friend. I like the fact that we're ending the series focusing on the House-Wilson relationship."
Strong characters such as Wilson and Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) make House a better character, he says. "He's only as good as the people who battle him. … Any time somebody went toe-to-toe with House and won, and Lisa did that as often as anybody, it was great."
Over the years, House dueled with other able colleagues, including Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps), Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde) and Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson). They put up with a lot of grief, some humorous, some less so, to bask in his genius. (Morrison and Wilde will appear in the finale, as will Amber Tamblyn, who played med student Martha Masters, and Kal Penn, whose character, Lawrence Kutner, killed himself.)
"They thought he was brilliant, and they were just sponges soaking it up," Epps says. "Certain people and departments are above and beyond the rest in their field. House was that guy. The core of House represented the truth. He was always trying to get to the truth of the matter. That's one of the reasons people responded to the character."
Foreman, who became the hospital's dean of medicine during the run of the show, "tried to keep him within the boundaries of reality," Epps says. "House has a childlike quality, in that he's forever curious, and I think Foreman echoed the audience in the sense of: 'Hey, you can't do this in the real world.' "
If House the character has demanded more from an audience than the typical TV hero, so has House the series. "It was about something. It tackled ethics and morals and existential questions of religion, sex, love and marriage. It took on a great many things," Laurie says.
"It aspired to take on big ethical questions: Is it worth using bad means to achieve a good end? What are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve a desired outcome? How much are you prepared to pay in psychic and moral terms to achieve good results?" he says. "House is a character and an idea that tried to test those limits."
Going out his own way
House premiered Nov. 16, 2004, to modest ratings, starting well short of hit status. "I just wanted a large enough audience so I could keep telling my stories," Shore says.
He got far more. Fox backed House in its early struggles, eventually giving it the prime slot after TV's most-watched show, American Idol. House's audience boomed, and it became one of TV's top hits. In its peak season, 2006-07, the show averaged 19.3 million viewers. The numbers have slipped in recent years, and the show is averaging 8.6 million viewers this season.
Shore, with Laurie and executive producer Katie Jacobs, decided to end the show this season because of uncertainties about the future in such matters as budgets and casting.
"My worry was, if it's not going to get resolved in time, and it was looking like it wasn't going to get resolved in time, we're going to wind up not being able to end the series the way we want," Shore says. "If we can't do it the way we want to do it, let's go out while we're still feeling good about it."
The time feels right to Laurie, too. "You cannot have a character on the ledge threatening to jump forever, because at some point the crowd gathered below is going to start to drift away. The guy's got to jump or climb back into the building."
Will viewers see that in the finale? "You probably will. House reaches a point at which he physically and emotionally confronts the question of to be or not to be. Well, I suppose I shouldn't tell you which way he goes," Laurie says, pausing. "You can probably guess."
'House's' Hugh Laurie on 'The Cumulative Effect of Dealing With Misery' As the Fox medical drama ends, THR listens in as creator David Shore and star Hugh Laurie spar one last time about the nerve-racking audition, the global impact and saying goodbye.
This story first appeared in the May 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Hugh Laurie's eternally cranky Dr. House is set to hang up his cane after eight seasons, five Emmys and Guinness World Records status as the planet's most popular current television program (watched by 81.8 million people in 66 countries). Days after the Universal Television-produced series wrapped production, Laurie and House creator David Shore, both 52, sat down at Chateau Marmont for a conversation about the Fox series and its impact. In doing so, the pair revealed why the British star was forced to adopt an accent, how the network would have preferred a younger lead and whether the bantering duo will ever again work together.
Hugh Laurie: When did you first realize that you needed to come to me on bended knee, begging for me to work with you?
David Shore: When you came to me, begging to work for me.
Laurie: You've got a twinkle in your eye, which tells me, but not the reader, that you don't remember any of the circumstances of our first meeting.
Shore: I do. I remember what you were wearing -- a pin. Which means I can extrapolate from that, you were wearing a jacket as well.
Laurie: No pants, oddly.
Shore: You were wearing a pin that said, "Sexy." You said it was an ironic pin. Really. That's what sold us on you, which is, by the way, the way Hollywood works. I remember we'd seen your audition tape, which you made in Africa. It's on the season-one DVD. I believe it's one of the extras.
Laurie: Without my consent or without any consultation whatsoever, I believe.
Shore: You're yelling at me? It sounds like you're yelling at me.
Laurie: I'm not yelling. Yet.
Shore: We had met with many people, and I was growing weary. I was happy with what I'd written, but I was starting to think: "Maybe I'm naive to be happy with what I've written. Maybe I've written something that cannot be portrayed." I was starting to think, "It's my fault, not theirs." And then you came in and convinced me that it was their fault. We flew you in from Africa, and I remember meeting you in [producer] Bryan Singer's office on the Fox lot. You read for us, and then we brought you over to Fox to audition, and you were once again fantastic. I had been a fan of your work, but I didn't realize what an excellent dramatic actor you could be. I knew your comedy work.
Laurie: I do remember specifying, slightly cheekily, that I needed business-class seats to fly over. I remember saying that to my agent, just to find out whether you were serious. Apparently you were. But when I got there, I remember Bryan had two tuna salads in front of him as I read the first scene -- and he didn't really raise his face from the salads all the way through. I thought, "I've just come whatever it is, 8,000 miles, and here's a man with his face buried in a tuna salad."
Shore: If I recall, you'd spent time in a hotel room just rehearsing that scene over and over again.
Laurie: That's absolutely correct because I'm a terrible auditioner. I've probably auditioned a thousand times, and I'd guess I've gotten only three gigs from an audition. Then I got there, and I was nervous. Every single shot we've done, I was nervous. If I'm on and I'm doing something in public with other people looking at me and forming opinions about me, I get nervous. I'm nervous now.
Shore: Fox initially wanted your character to be 25 years younger.
Laurie: They wanted him to be 16.
Shore: No, but they wanted him to be in his 30s, certainly. They kept wanting him younger, and we kept fighting them on that. But once you came in, there was no longer a fight. Do you think living with this character for eight years has psychically affected you?
Laurie: I know you do.
Shore: Yeah. In fact, I think it's affected me...
Laurie: No, I think you thought it affected me. And I'll be honest, in the two days since we've stopped shooting, I've noticed myself being much more cheerful. Of course, that could be the result of sleeping more than four hours. But I think you're right, and not because I'm of the Daniel Day-Lewis school, if Daniel Day-Lewis had a school. He probably doesn't, does he? Imagine if Daniel Day-Lewis ran a school on the south coast of England.
Shore: The Daniel Day-Lewis School for Boys. Nothing to do with acting …
Laurie: I don't go home and have to scrub myself with a wire brush to shake the character off. But, nonetheless, the character is a tormented one, and the subject matter is unhappy a lot of the time. I suppose there is a cumulative effect of dealing with the loneliness and the unhappiness, verging on misery at times, which just does go "drip, drip, drip" into one's basement.
Shore: It didn't occur to me for the first six years of the show, but now I'm realizing there's a psychological toll to living with a character as dark as this for eight years. So really what I'm saying is, feel sorry for the two of us. What's the question you get asked the most? Is it about the American accent? The accent's a tricky thing, isn't it? Do you hate me for insisting that you have one because I could have made him British on day one?
Laurie: No, I don't. I hated you for including "New York" in dialogue form because I can't say that. The R's. I can't say "murder," either. But I understood why you did it; the character felt American to me, too. I think, from an audience point of view, there was already enough they had to assimilate with this character: his drug use, his bitterness, his cynicism. To make him foreign as well could be too much.
Shore: My concern was by making him foreign, it would give viewers an easy way to not assimilate the rest, to not relate to him in any way. Meanwhile, we've done fine overseas. Did that surprise you?
Laurie: Massively. I don't understand how that's worked because somebody somewhere is doing some very fine translation work. I understand shows in which somebody has to defuse a bomb or catch the guy who's gone over the fence or rescue the kidnapped -- that you could understand in any language. You see that in Turkish and it makes sense. But this is such a verbal show -- such an idiomatic, metaphorical show. I don't know how the hell that works. I don't know what people are getting out of that, but they do.
Shore: How do you feel about the show ending? Because here's what I realized just moments ago: People keep saying, "You must be very sad" -- and I guess I should be, and there is a sadness. But I realized it's like my parents sent me away to summer camp for eight weeks, and I had a great time there, and I wound up staying for a year and a half. Now, after that year and a half, people are coming up to me going, "Are you sad that summer camp is over?" I was there for a goddamn year and a half! I shouldn't have been there nearly that long. I would have been thrilled with the eight weeks.
Laurie: Yeah. The sad thing is not to see all those guys that we saw every day. What was running through your mind as we tied it up?
Shore: It's the type of thing that I should have just sat back and enjoyed. But by directing it, you can't sit back and let the thing wash over you. There were a few moments at the end -- saying goodbye to Jesse [Spencer] and Omar [Epps], that was hard.
Laurie: That was particularly hard, I suppose because they were there right at the beginning. Robert [Sean Leonard] was the first one cast. But I met Jessie and Omar at the network test. In fact, I did a scene with them, and so when we got to their last scenes and it was announced: "That's it for Omar. Omar's done on the show" -- that was hard.
Shore: Yeah. Of course, I sort of hate the additional focus that gets put on the final episode. I resented the focus that was put on the hundredth episode, too. I appreciate the attention it gets us from the publicity point of view, but …
Laurie: You had a thing about the hundredth episode.
Shore: I did. What I said was, "If we had only nine fingers, would we have celebrated episode 81?" OK, I feel like I'm boring.
Laurie: I go to the shrink partly to discuss why it is I feel so boring. I've actually fallen asleep while I'm talking to the shrink.
Shore: Does the shrink fall asleep?
Laurie: He probably does, but he's got a way of keeping his eyes open.
Shore: Do you think we'll work together again? Because I would love to work with you again.
Laurie: Likewise.
Shore: You say it now that I've said it: "Yeah, likewise."
Laurie: Yeah, because you left me no choice. I'm saying it now, and then I'm calling it up later to withdraw it.
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BY THE NUMBERS: From acclaim to ad revenue, a look at how House, M.D. has fared $1.6 bil+: Advertising revenue the series has generated for Fox during eight seasons, according to Kantar Media. 200+: Territories to which NBCUniversal has licensed the medical drama. 170: Episodes produced. Laurie directed two. Bryan Singer helmed the first episode, which aired Nov. 16, 2004; shore helmed the finale for May 21, 2012. 60+: Guest stars, including Candice Bergen, James Earl Jones, Carl Reiner and LL Cool J. 25: Emmy nominations House has received, including six Laurie has garnered for outstanding drama actor. 10: Executive producers involved with the show, including Laurie, shore, Katie Jacobs and singer. 1: Dr. House was named the most discussed fictional character on Facebook for 2011.
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GLOBAL HOUSE: A sampling of what's happening with one of the most-watched shows on the planet
France: The No. 1 series among viewers 15 to 49, Dr. House (pronounced “docteur hoos”) has Feodor Atkine, Woody Allen’s brother in Love and Death, voicing the main role.
Germany: The No. 1 U.S. series among viewers 14 to 49 draws 3.5 million overall and inspired “House seminars” at Witten/Herdecke medical university on what not to do, bedside-mannerwise.
Italy: The No. 1 U.S. series on its channel in total viewers, the show has changed the meaning of M.D. in that territory to make its title there Dr. House, Medical Division.
Mexico: The No. 2 U.S. drama among total viewers (1.1 million) and adults 25 to 34, it has inspired the Facebook page “Dr. House for President of Mexico.”
Australia: It’s No. 3 in its time slot in viewers 16 to 39. co-star Jesse spencer kept his native accent and thus joined the Gumleaf Mafia, a group nickname for Aussie actors on American TV. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news....-326302 Скан журнала тут
Robert Sean Leonard - he's a man I would put my life in his hands, and almost have on occasion (с) H. Laurie
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