Alex Strachan CanWest News Service
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- He uses words like "parsimony" and "equanimous" and "propinquity" but he's not at all intimidating to talk to. He doesn't lash out at children -- not in public, anyway -- he doesn't bully underlings and he doesn't hit anyone with a walking stick. James Hugh Calum Laurie -- Hugh Laurie to those who know him, and Dr. Gregory House to the 22 million viewers who watch House in any given week on Global TV and the Fox network in the U.S. and Canada -- is actually a swell fella.

A 2007 Emmy nominee, a double Golden Globe winner and recipient of this year's Screen Actors Guild Award for best male actor in a drama series, Laurie has every reason to be a stuck-up English snob, but he isn't. Born in Oxford, educated at Eton and Selwyn College, Cambridge and a former champion rower (junior cox) for England's national rowing team, he initially thought he might pursue a career in anthropology and archeology.

But then came a gig with the legendary comedy ensemble group Cambridge Footlights -- a kind of Monty Python for upper-crust society 'nobs -- and a close friendship with Emma Thompson and her pal Stephen Fry.

Laurie and Fry buddied up for A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder series, before turning to more serious drama.

He auditioned for House on a home video while filming a remake of the 1965 Jimmy Stewart adventure film Flight of the Phoenix in Namibia. House's Canadian creator, David Shore, and director Bryan Singer liked what they saw so much they tapped Laurie to play a character the Peabody Award committee would later call an "unorthodox lead character, a misanthropic diagnostician" treating "cases fit for a medical Sherlock Holmes."

Now, Laurie's old friend Emma Thompson would like in on House in a possible guest role.

In just three seasons, House has experienced a meteoric rise in the ratings: It ranked 24th out of 115 primetime programs in its debut year, with 13 million viewers in the U.S. It jumped to 10th in 2006, with 17 million viewers, and again this year, to seventh, with 22 million.

Laurie thinks he understands Dr. House's appeal.

"He's a character who is worth putting up with. First of all, the fact that he saves lives -- that's a pretty endearing quality ... His honesty, his anarchy -- I think these are attractive qualities, though possibly best seen at a certain remove."

When viewers last saw House, he had driven away much of his staff with his bursts of vitriol. They will all return during the coming season, though Laurie would not say when or under what circumstances.