演员工作室：休·劳瑞（Hugh Laurie）

Good lord! American audiences are fantastic! An English audience wouldn’t make that amount of noise if the building was on fire. It’s just amazing.

As far as I’m concerned, this building tonight is on fire.

Excellent.

ONE

Let’s begin, as always as the beginning, where were you born?

I was born, to the best of my knowledge, in Oxford, England.

Who is W.G.R.M.Laurie?

He was my father. I know that, that’s an easy one, I know that one. William George Rahnald Mundell Laurie.

There you are. The brits do have a way with names.

Yeah, passports were about that size in those days.

My brother also got four, Charles Alexander Lyon Mundell. I got three because I think they just were losing interest by the time I turned up.

And what are those names?

James Hugh Calum.

Which of your father’s names did he elect to be known by?

He went by Rahnald, and contracted to Ran. He was known as Ran Laurie.

And your mother’s name?

Patricia Laidlaw

Just plain? Just plain Patricia. The women don’t come off nearly as well in England?

No, it’s a different age, isn’t it, you see?

Did you have any siblings?

I had, have three sibling, two older sisters and an older brother.

What was your father’s profession?

He was a doctor.

I’ve read that he was also a fair and very decent and very good doctor.

He was, indeed.

Did religion play ana important role in your home?

Belief in God didn’t play a large role in my home but a certain attitude to life and the living of it did. My parents turned into Scottish Presbyterians Church in Oxford(苏格兰基督长老教会). And my mother, I suppose, she was a Presbyterian by character, by mood. Pleasure was something that was treated with great suspicion, pleasure was something that had to be earned, but even the earning of it didn't really work. Till this day, I carry it with me. I find pleasure a difficult thing. I really do. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know where you put it."

You've described your mother as "not liking you" for quite protective moments.

Yes, I was a frustration to her.

Why?

I don’t actually know and perhaps I’ll never ever work it out. But I think there were big chunks of time when I think she didn’t like me.

What is the Dragon School?

The dragon is what called the preparatory school in England. You go from 7 to 11.

In an article you wrote for the Daily Telegraph in 1999, you described yourself when you were at the dragon as being in truth a horrible child.” I spent a large part of my youth smoking Number Six, and cheating in French vocabulary tests, I wore platform boots with a brass skull.”

Are we talking the truth here? Or should I tear this card up?

No, no, that’s actually true. This is true. I was horrible. Pretty horrible now, but I was horrible then. You see, that is the interesting thing. I think you have to come to terms with this, as you grow up, whether or not, when you look back at your childish self, which of the two versions of yourself is the authentic one, which of you is the real thing? The ten-year-old James Lipton?

The ten-year-old James Lipton. First of all, he was as tall as Hugh. Memory plays tricks. Given the moral constraints of your family, did television play any part in your childhood?

Television was rather frowned upon, has been one of those additional luxuries, that was sort of for other people, for Catholics(天主教徒).

What about movies and theater? You weren’t far from London, was that part of your growing up.

Rare, pretty rare. I acted myself at the dragon. I can remember there was a school drama competition. I won a prize. I won a book token or something. But I do remember my parents being in the audience and I can remember I happened to be looking at their faces as my name was read out, not in anticipation, cause I didn’t know I was gonna win this thing.

This is when you were nine?

I was nine years old and my name was read out” the winner is ……”, and I just happened to be looking at them and they looked at each other, they didn’t know I was looking at them they looked at each other and smiled and it was a very significant moment for me. It felt like the first time I’ve seen them…take a real……I’ve done something that really satisfied them, something that really pleased them and they were proud of.

You appear to have a very enviable education. Where did you go from the dragon school?

I went to Eton, which is what we call a public school, and most emphatically is not a public school.it is the most private of private schools.

Etonians speak a unique language?

Well, it’s English. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be……

We will be the judge of it. Did you cap-beaks?

I did cap-beaks.

You call that English?

What is capping a beak?

A beak is a master, a teacher. To cap is to touch the brim of you hat as a sign of respect even though you are not wearing a hat. I can’t explain it. But it was a gesture you were supposed to make to every teacher you passed. You were supposed to raise your finger to the level of where the brim of your hat would be.

Were you a wet-bob?

I was a wet-bob.

But it’s English.

It sounds preposterous, all right, all right.

What is a wet-bob?

We were on a very beautiful stretch of River Thames and rowing is a very big sport there, and that was what I opted for. So I was a wet-bob.

One of the many Eton traditions is the Eton boating song, one of the great traditions of this series is my pension defer hectoring my guests to sing a few bars.

TWO

How did you arrive at Cambridge after Eton?

Well that was largely a result of family tradition. My father went to Cambridge and I applied to the same college. He had a very distinguished career there as an athlete, as an oarsman. And I was already sort of shaping to try in my feeble way to follow his footsteps, so that was why I decided to go.

There was quite a bit if that, wasn’t there? Following his footsteps.

There was, there was.

What did you read in Selwyn College?

Anthropology and archaeology. And I’m gonna come clean now and say that I know absolutely nothing about either of those subjects. It’s absolutely shocking. I attended the university really as a……well you may call it jock. I mean, I went there to row, and you said that I read rowing. That’s essentially what I did.

But didn’t you when you were 20 discover something wrapped in a sock in the attic of your family’s house?

I did, yes. I discovered an Olympic gold medal that my father had won. He was an Olympic gold medalist.

Hou did your rowing career end?

I contracted what we call Glandular Fever(腺热). You have another name for that.

Mononucleosis(传染性单核细胞增多症).

That’s what I got.

Didn’t that begin sort of more active career as an actor?

Well, it did. Because certainly, I wasn’t gonna pay any attention to my academic career. That one without saying. I had to find something to fill the time. Something not too strenuous, and I chose acting. I went along to an audition. The club is called footlights club. It’s a revue comedy club, and I auditioned a show, and I almost said the rest is history but that would be pathetic. You know that’s how I got involved.

I’m about to say it. The Cambridge footlights club is the most famous student comedy club in the world, in fact. It’s given birth to some of the great comedians in the last fifty years. Timothy Birthal, John Cleese.

A lot of pythons(派森，英喜剧团体).

You’ve left out a name, Emma Thompson.

Emma Thompson, yes. That’s unforgivable.

And two come, we only discuss one. (Ex-girlfriend)

Yes, I went to audition for this show, and this show was what we call a Pantman. Pantman is sort of bazaar Victorian hangover, a sort of mixture of volt wheel and……

And homoeroticism(同性恋倾向).

Yeah, there’s an element to that. There certainly, there’s a big drag on it. So I auditioned and got a role in the show and Emma Thompson was the lead. And she claims that she sort of spotted me and we became friendly, as a result.

I want it on the record that I didn’t bring that up.

No, and I don’t mean to bang the auld lang syne. We got on very well. That’s better. It’s a big improvement.

A certain number of people who will watch this on television think of this gentleman as a grizzled, grim guy with three days growth of beard. You have never seen him in any other avatar and are in for a shock.

What degree did you receive when you graduated at Cambridge?

I actually never did graduate.

How did you become involved in the most entertaining history lesson in TV history——Blackadder?

Rowan Atkinson had written with Richard Curtis a series, it was a very expensive show, it didn’t do terribly well. The BBC were on the point of cancelling it, that’s to say, not renewing it. And the very brilliant producer John Lloyd, basically went on bend the knee, begged them to recommission it on the understanding that, you know, they would only do it with four actors in two sets. It became enormous success in that second season. The last one of which, I happened to play a role.

You certainly did. To any in our audience who are only familiar with Dr. Gregory House, prepare yourself for another shock.

In 1996, what made you decide to embark on a literary career with one of the more difficult forms——a novel?

You know, I don’t remember forming a clear idea to actually do a novel. I think I decided as we’ve all decided I’m sure many times of my life, I decided to keep a diary. I became so bored by my own diary that I actually found myself just making stuff up.

In his New York Times review of The Gun Seller, Christopher Buckley wrote, “somehow, Mr. Laurie managed to make these people simultaneously funny and scary”. Can you see it as a film?

I’m trying to do exactly that, even now. Not right now, I’m talking to you right now, but I mean later today.

What is The Gun Seller’s dedication?

I dedicated the novel to my father.

How did he feel about the book?

I think he was touched by the dedication. I think he’s pleased that it did well, but I, we didn’t discuss it much.

How much of your career did your mother live to see?

She died 16 years ago. You know she’d seen me able to pay my bills and make my way and I had achieved a certain amount of notoriety. I think she was proud, but again, it was not something we shared.

Were you and she close in the last years of her life?

No, we rather grew apart if anything. She did not approve of my marriage, she did not approve the circumstances of my son’s birth and she rather sort of froze me out actually.

One account of your reaction when she died reads “he didn’t cry nor has he done so since”. Is that so?

Yes, I mean that, of course that sounds terribly cold, it doesn’t mean I didn’t grieve her death……I cried……I simply mean that I’m only talking about the physical act of crying. I’m not talking about crying a s representing an absence of feeling. I certainly did mourn her loss very deeply and continue to do so. I continue to have a sort of dialogue with her in a way. I continue to……I think of her very often. The fact that I actually didn’t produce tears was not sort of indicative of any……

No, it’s not dramatic or significant, it’s just a fact.

Yeah.

THREE

The commonest cliché about the comic genius and I won’t trouble you by saying that you possessed it is encompassed in the character of Pagliacci(歌剧《丑角》)——The Crying Clown. In 1996, you spoke of diagnosing yourself as being clinically depressed.

Yes, I did, I did.

How did you really reveal itself?

It revealed itself during a charity, I try to think again what the term will be over here, I think demolition derby, would that be right?

Yes, sure.

I was taking a part in this race for charity and I was driving around a circuit. Two cars collided in front of me and one of them bursted into flames. Like a real……it was like a big sort of like a movie. And as I went past this wreckage, the thought hit me that I was bored. I was actually bored and I thought no that can’t be right. Boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars. I need to talk to someone about this.

To whom did you talk?

I started seeing couple of shrinks here and there.

Was that helpful?

Yes, it was. I mean……I think I was in a bad way for whatever reason I don’t know.

You’ve said “I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery.” Calvinist(加尔文主义，主张原罪说) to the core.

Calvinist, yeah.

Who wrote and directed “Maybe Baby”?

My very good friend Ben Elton.

And who appears in it?

Joely Richardson, Rowan Atkinson’s in it, Emma Thompson’s in it.

It was a reunion.

It was in some ways, yeah.

Did that make it fun?

Yes, it did. Well, fun here it’s like pleasure, fun is like pleasure.

Why do I keep asking these stupid questions? I’ve got the wrong guy here for that kind of question.

I’m a miserable person to work with, I really am.

Are you miserable when you’re working?

I’m afraid yeah, I’m horrible to work with.

Because I don’t want it to be fun. If it’s fun, I think we can’t be any good.

FOUR

We arrive at the doorstep of House MD.

American television is a very seasonal business and the pilot crop was about to be harvest and I was to play the character of…I have got the character of House and the character of Wilson. And I knew that Wilson wasn’t for me.

Why?

Well……The physical description he was described is “having a handsome boyish face”. And I thought that’s not for me…loot at me, but I also assumed as, who wouldn’t have done at the time that Wilson was the central character. Because until that point in American drama, you know, handsome boyish face meant the hero and you know the crotchety guy with the limp, he would be the sidekick, he would be the peripheral character, so……

Dennis Weaver.

Right, I was stunned when I actually got the full script, and realized my God it is all about this. By the way, I didn’t have the clue of the title. Because it wasn’t called that then. It wasn’t called House.

I wanna know where you acquire that pitch-perfect Gregory House speech? That’s pretty good.

Do you think?

Wanna hear me do an English accent and laugh?

Yes, actually, yes actually I do.

You’ve said that your American accent includes a touch of Hungarian(匈牙利) and Pakistani（巴基斯坦） depending, in your words, “on how tired I am”.

Did that suck?

No, it was very, it was very……

I’m simply trying to demonstrate that what he does is incredible. Now you see I screwed it up. Where did you get your American accent?

I misspent youth. I don’t know.

TV, films?

Yeah, all non-Americans are much more familiar with all things of American all aspects of American culture through films and television that Americans would never be able to be about other countries, about other cultures. I mean that’s just the fact.

One of the most interesting aspects of the character of Dr.House is he is at the first blush the least likely candidate ever to top the amoral key of the American prime time show.

People get sort of upset by him in many ways and I never did, I always liked him right from the start. I think it as something to do with the practice of medicine. I think with that in people’s minds that comes the idea that this person must be devoted to my welfare, to doing good. And if this body of knowledge is companied by a sarcastic apparently unfriendly demeanor, that is somehow upsetting. It’s almost like a nun, you know, swearing or it’s just sort of…it doesn’t quite accord with people’s pictures of how doctors should be.

You’ve said that “the boldest thing they’ve ever done is to put some a mean, unsympathetic character at the centre of the show”. By way of illustration……

You’re walking a tight rope, you gotta find that balance. Or do you not give a rat’s ass what the audience thinks of Dr.House?

Don’t give too much of the rat’s ass.

You’ve said that “I think that the show puts an interesting question to the audiences: would you rather have an unkind person who is right or a kind person who is wrong? Maybe down deep the unkind person and a kind one are the same person simultaneously.” Witness the scene with young cancer patient he just described……

As Hamlet’s remark to his mother Gertrude “I must be cruel, only to be kind.” That’s one of the center pieces of this show

It it, yeah.

You said that Dr.House to you is a hero.

Yes, he is. He’s the man with ego, he has his vanities. But by and large, he’s not in it for applause. He don’t do what he does because he wants people to think better of him and that I think is a heroic quality. Yeah, I also, of course rather hero worship my father who was a doctor and I have always found the practice of medicine rather by its nature, a rather heroic one.

House displays little patience for metaphysical answers to scientific questions as he demonstrates in this episode which was called simply “House vs. God”.

Do you share House’s skepticism(怀疑主义者)?

I do. Big big chunks of it, yes. I’m not a religious man. Again I think this is connected to my father. My father was religious, oddly enough. But I, nonetheless, I suppose I was impressed by enamored of his devotion to medical science and I found, I’m a fan of science. I believe in science. Humility before the facts. I find that’s a moving and beautiful thing and belief in the unknown I find less interesting. I find the known and the knowable interesting enough.

I’d like a word about your colleagues in the hospital staff and the people who play them——Dr.James Wilson.

Robert Sean Leonard, an absolute pure delight. I know he wouldn’t say that about me.

Are you telling the truth,or……

Yeah, he finds some caustic way of making me sound like a complete idiot which I probably am.

Now you make yourself sound like a pain in the ass. You are not, are you?

I am. Well, you know that thing. You know that thing that they always tell you. If you look around you know, and if you look around the room and if you can’t see the asshole, then it’s you.

Dr.Eric Forman.

Omar Epps. He’s a sort of actor who can play a scene in ten different ways and sort of offer them to you as a choice like “I’m thinking doing this”.

Dr.Allison Cameron.

Jennifer Morrison. Completely gorgeous and……

As House has pointed out.

I believe it has come up, yes. I mean…Good lord, she’s half of my age and I’m getting slightly nervous now.

Dr.Robert Chase.

Jesse Spencer.

Where’s he from?

He’s from Australia. Yeah. Oh blimey, mate. He’s one of the sweetest men you can ever hope to meet and extremely good.

Dr.Lisa Cuddy.

Lisa Edelstein. Excellent, excellent, excellent fun.

When you began to play Gregory House, did you anticipate anything like the success of the show or your own success?

No, I mean I thought simly because based on the statistics……

I didn’t mean to upset you, I mean this is…I’m not trying to make you happy.

Oh, OK.

But the show is very successful and you’re great in it. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I think the show could be good, in fact, I think in an uncharacteristic moment of cockiness, I think I even predict it might strike a chord with certain people.

It may not escape that anyone notice that we’ve gone to the trouble of putting a piano.

I assume that was just here for the wedding they had earlier on, I didn’t realize……

No, we went great expense and trouble to bring it here for you. I know you are good at it. Would you just give us anything you want?

FIVE

We begin our classroom with the questionnaire that was first used by Marcel Proust(法意识流小说大师), and then brilliantly by Bernard Pivot(法主持人) for 26 years. And now, Hugh will suffer, but he likes to suffer. Hugh, what’s your favorite word?

Marsupial(有袋动物).

What is your least favorite word?

Whatever.

Deedo. Deedo is also a least favorite word of mine.

What turns you on?

Eye contact.

What turns you off?

Financial advice.

What sound or noise do you love?

I love the sound of the acoustic guitar being played badly.

Why badly?

I can’t explain it. It’s a physiological response. I am like a Labrador lying on his back having his tummy tickled. It physically does something to me that I absolutely love.

What sound or noise do you hate?

Ringing telephone.

What is your favorite curse word?

All the fuck cognates.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

I would like to be a singer in a rock’n roll band.

What profession would you not like to participate in?

Financial advisor.

If heaven exists what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

No hard feelings.

There are no hard feelings aren’t there if you excuse me.

Hi, I’m Laura. Do you think Dr.House belongs with or should have a romantic relationship with Cameron, Cuddy or dare I say, Dr.Wilson? you must be aware of the subtexts going on, I can tell you an amount of pages on the internet about the House-Wilson relationship is pretty interesting.

I suspect if the show runs long enough, he’s gonna run through all of them. What order that unfolds in is not for me to say. No, I think any of those relationships is of course believable. Two people can always find some comfort or attraction. I think all are possible.

Exciting.

Oh boy. Robert might have something to say about it.

Fans will be excited.

I don’t know about that. I don’t know how Robert would take that. But you know I am game.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is James and I am at medical school. I just want to know how much have you learned medically if you get a food poison from staphylococcus aureus, would you feel comfortable doing differential diagnosis with your primary care physician?

I can only say I’ve learned a huge amount of medicine from doing this role. I’ve also forgotten a huge amount of medicine. I am a gold fish, I am able to retain the necessary information for a short period of time. Sometimes counted in seconds rather than minutes and then it’s gone. I mean I feel as if at any moment when disclosing on some medical theory I do feel in that moment that I do understand the principle involved, the physics and the chemistry involved. But honestly if you ask me five minutes later, oh, not a clue. It’s very very annoying. Cause it would be great to come up with a medical degree at the end of it, and then you know that would be fantastic.