Hugh Laurie was born to parents Patricia and W.G.R.M. Laurie. Known as Ran, Lauries father was a doctor and a champion rower, who won gold at the 1948 London Olympics in the coxless pairs. Laurie was the fourth of four children with an older brother and two older sisters. He received a first class education at the Dragon School, a prestigious Oxford preparatory school, and then at Eton.

At Eton, Laurie excelled at rowing, winning the national junior coxed pairs title and representing Britain at the 1977 Junior World Championships. He went to university at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1978, to study anthropology and archaeology but a bout of glandular fever prevented him from making the Cambridge crew for the annual rowing race against Oxford University. The break from rowing due to illness led him to join the Cambridge Footlights, a theater group that has launched many successful comedy careers.

In 1980, Laurie achieved his goal of rowing for Cambridge, only narrowly losing to Oxford in a hard-fought race. The same year, with Laurie as president of the Footlights drama club, the company went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and won the prestigious Perrier Award for their revue show 'Cellar Tapes'. The hit show was taken to the West End and then was filmed for television.

'Blackadder', the brainchild of Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, was in its second series when Laurie appeared in two episodes in 1986. The following year he appeared in 'Blackadder the Third' for the entire season. Playing on his posh accent and good looks, Laurie's portrayal of the simpering idiot George, the Prince Regent, to Atkinson's conniving and bitter butler Blackadder caught public attention and typecast him as an upper-class twit for years to come.

1987 also saw Laurie team up with his old university collaborator Stephen Fry. The two launched their sketch show 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie', which showcased their intelligent, dry and off-beat humor. The show ran for eight years and made the pair household names in Britain.

In 1989, Laurie married Jo Green, a theatre administrator.

The mid-1990s saw Laurie branch out into films, music, and writing. He moved away from his bumbling fool roles, appearing in Ang Lees adaptation of Sense and Sensibility alongside Emma Thompson in 1995, and voiced a number of characters in childrens films like The Snow Queens Revenge and The Ugly Duckling. In 1996, he played a clumsy villain in 101 Dalmatians in addition to publishing his first novel, The Paper Soldier, a thriller. In 1997, Laurie appeared in the films The Borrowers and the Spice Girls vehicle, Spice World, with a small role in the Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster The Man in the Iron Mask the following year. The childrens film Stuart Little was a hit in 1999 and he returned in its 2002 sequel Stuart Little: The Animated Series.

In 2004, he scored the role that would make him famous in the United States. Ditching his aristocratic British accent, Laurie adopted an American drawl and landed the role of Dr. Gregory House in the medical drama 'House'. His limping, pain-killer addicted, cynical genius of a physician earned him Golden Globe awards in 2006 and 2007.

Although the series kept him busy, he still had time to work on film projects such as Flight of the Phoenix, which was released in 2004, followed by 2005 computer-animated film Valiant and Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild. He also made a number of appearances on 'Saturday Night Live' in 2006 and 2008, as well as starring in the action-crime film Street Kings, alongside Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, and Chris Evans.

The animation Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) saw Laurie provide the voice of Dr. Cockroach, PhD, a role that was followed by a portrayal of himself as House in the animated television series 'Family Guy' in 2010. He went on to have another voice part in an episode of 'The Simpsons' in the same year and was also cast for leading parts in Arthur Christmas (2011), a 3-D computer-animated film, and romantic comedy The Oranges.

After the filming of House concluded in 2012, Laurie has worked on a number of television and movie projects, including the big-budget Disney film Tomorrowland (2015) alongside George Clooney, and a recurring role as U.S. Senator Tom James in the HBO political comedy, Veep.

He and his wife, Jo, have three children, a daughter, Rebecca, and two sons, Bill and Charlie.

In addition to his acting career, Laurie has been a life-long musician and can play piano, guitar, drums, harmonica, and saxophone. In 2010 it was announced he would release a blues album with Warner Bros. Records. In April 2011 Let Them Talk was released, featuring collaborations with other well-known artists, including Tom Jones and Irma Thomas. This album was followed by a second, Didn't It Rain, which was released in 2013.

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