My realistic acting is starting to cripple me

TO find fame and fortune in America Hugh Laurie had to adopt a trademark limp for the role of Dr Gregory House.

IN PAIN Hugh Laurie s days as Dr House may be ended by the agony of pretending to have a limp IN PAIN: Hugh Laurie's days as Dr House may be ended by the agony of pretending to have a limp

But that realistic limp could force him out of the TV series that earns him £250,000 an episode because of the pain of contorting his body.

“The show might last to series seven, eight or nine but I don’t know if I will,” he said last night, “because I’m starting to lose my knees a little bit.

“It’s a lot of hip work. There’s things going badly wrong. I need to do yoga.”

The 50-year-old star, a winner of two Golden Globes and just nominated for his third Best Actor Emmy, is about to launch the sixth series of what has become the most watched television drama.

More than 80million ­people tune in every week to follow the cantankerous, cane-wielding ­clinician as he unravels medical mysteries.

Laurie, the son of a doctor, was best known in Britain for his roles in Jeeves And Wooster and the Blackadder series before “almost falling into” House after a haphazard video audition in a tiny bathroom while filming Flight Of The Phoenix in Namibia.

His performance was so convincing that he was taken for an American actor.

“I have no idea why people like House so much and I am almost too superstitious to ask the question,” said Laurie.

“I don’t know. I feel as if someone’s going to blow a whistle at any moment and say, ‘Right, that’s it. This is all a big mistake. We meant the other guy, the other show.’

However, success has come at a price. The actor is often lonely and homesick for his family in Britain.

“We can finish filming between midnight and 4am. Then I’m straight back to bed. It’s not really a life, actually.

“If this had happened 10 years ago, when my kids were small, it would have been very easy maybe to just yank them out of school and put them in school here. But now they’re teenagers and they’ve got their own life . ”

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