Link: New York Post Online Edition: entertainment.
House - Fox TV
I'm not much for medical shows - the only doctors I want in my TV entertainment are coroners and forensics experts - but I gave House a couple of spins since it stars one of my favororite comic thesps Hugh Laurie. The series seems well written and Laurie and his supporting cast do a fine job but the one gnawing, nagging hiccup in the show - for me - was Laurie's obviously fake American accent. I hate bad accents whether it's a Brit mangling an American accent (and even greats like Michael Caine seem to have problems with it) or an American crapping all over Brit dialects (far too many too mention). So Laurie's affected delivery proved to be a significant distraction.
Imagine my surprise when I thumbed throgh todays NY Post and read (in the TV section) ....
"Bryan Singer, who directed the pilot, didn't want to see any more English actors [audition for the role of House]," Shore says. "He said, 'House is a prototypical American. We can't have someone faking an accent.'
"The next day, we got Hugh on tape; Brian didn't know who he was and he said, 'This is exactly the kind of guy I'm looking for.' "
Full article here
So, now I'm wondering if I'm just hypersensitive to the whole accent thing - after all I already knew full well Laurie was English - or if these Hollywood types have tin ears.
I also noted that the pilot's dirctor Bryan Singer - the director of X-Men, The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil and so on "...didn't know who he (Laurie) was..." How does a top Hollywood director not know Hugh Laurie?
This reminded me of the year The Usual Suspects was winning Oscars and one of the prime movers - either Singer or the script's author - claimed not to have known that the title of their film was derived from the famous line in Casablanca. Their Oscars should have been revoked in the spot.
Anyway - watch House on Fox Tuesday's if you're at all a fan of well produced medical melodrama.
