Hugh Laurie began his film career with Plenty in 1985. Laurie was very much a junior member of the cast in this drama, which included a veritable legion of star names: Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, John Gielgud, Ian McKellen, Sam Neill and Sting among them. Laurie then took another small part in the romantic drama Strapless in 1989, before an alliance with other up and coming British stars gave him the chance of a fuller role in Peter’s Friends in 1992. Peter’s Friends starred Laurie’s own friend and television co-star, Stephen Fry, as well as an ex-girlfriend, Emma Thompson, and her husband, Kenneth Branagh, who also directed. The film, something of a cross between a romantic comedy and a drama, was only partially successful, but all the members of the cast would go on to bigger and better things.
Laurie and Thompson were to team up again in 1995 for Sense and Sensibility, for which Thompson wrote the screenplay. Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman starred alongside Thompson in a pleasing Jane Austen adaptation, much enhanced by Laurie’s turn as the taciturn Mr Palmer, in which he displayed some of the grumpiness he was later to make his trademark in the television series House.
Hugh Laurie in Animated and Family Films
Like many British comedians, Hugh Laurie has found success voicing animated characters in films. Laurie’s voice-work began in 1995 playing a bird named Peeps in The Snow Queen, which also featured David Jason and Rik Mayall. This was followed in 1997 by two more animated roles in The Ugly Duckling and Treasure Island, in which Laurie played Squire Trelawney.
A darker turn followed, with a part in Carnivale in 2000, which was directed by Tim Burton’s art director, and included many features associated with Burton movies, such as disturbing imagery, and Helena Bonham Carter. Work with more comedy legends followed in 2005, with Valiant, which, considering a cast which included the likes of John Cleese and Ricky Gervais alongside Laurie, was only moderately successful. Laurie’s latest animated effort came in 2009 with Monsters vs Aliens, in which he voiced Doctor Cockroach, and starred alongside Reese Witherspoon and Hollywood’s current King of Comedy, Seth Rogen. Once again, and despite some nice moments, the film did not quite reach the heights which might have been expected of it.
Besides animated films, Laurie has also featured in various other family movies, often adaptations of much loved works of children’s fiction. Laurie played the henchman, Jasper, in the live action version of Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmatians, and he also appeared in The Borrowers in 1997 and the swashbuckling musketeer movie The Man in the Iron Mask in 1998. But the work in this sphere for which he is perhaps most famous is perhaps Stuart Little (1999) In the film adapted from the E.B.White classic, Laurie took the role of the head of the Little household, with Geena Davis and Jonathan Lipnicki playing his wife and son, and Michael J Fox providing the voice for Stuart. The movie was Oscar nominated, and spawned two sequels, the second of which Call of the Wild (2005) was entirely animated.
Laurie goes from Spice World to Street Kings
Laurie’s film output has often been restricted to cameo appearances, some more notable than others, and Spice World (1997) which also featured Stephen Fry, was as forgettable as any. But he did take the lead role in two films shortly after the turn of the century: the oddball comedy Chica de Rio in 2001, in which he starred as a Samba loving would-be bank robber; and prior to that, he took the lead in the Ben Elton comedy Maybe Baby in 2000. Based on Elton’s novel, Inconceivable, the film told the story of a couple - Laurie and Joely Richardson - struggling to fall pregnant. Rowan Atkinson, who had worked with Laurie and Elton on television’s Blackadder, also featured in the cast, but the film was disappointing, containing too little comedy and too little pathos to succeed.
A believable American accent, and award winning performances in House have meant that Laurie has escaped being type-cast as a bumbling upper-class Brit, and recently he has moved away from comedy, and into more dramatic films. Flight of the Phoenix (2004) starred Dennis Quaid in an action adventure, while Street Kings (2008) was a surprisingly effective crime thriller featuring Keanu Reeves and Forrest Whitaker. As Laurie’s fame in America keeps his profile high, it is possible his movie career is really only just beginning.
