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Dr. House, Can You Spare Me a Dime?:

How Hugh Laurie's appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio" made me regret being a young intellectual

27 September 2006

A girl, 19 or 20, blonde shoulder-length hair and wearing a cheerleader’s kind of smile, stood in the last row of the lecture hall. With microphone clasped between her hands, with a face of expectant, exuberant finality, she asked the question that had been nagging her all evening. Maybe all her young adult life. “Mr. Laurie,” she said. “Can you tell me, will House have a romantic relationship with Dr. Cameron, Cuddy, or Dr. Wilson?”

Now, people tell me that I take things too seriously and, reluctantly, I have come to believe it’s true. Just two weeks ago, I escalated an argument with a superior at work over his use of the word “amongst” in a press release. Last year, at graduate school, I fought with a colleague about the film “Memoirs of a Geisha.” He liked it; I did not. “Because,” I said, “it’s neither a memoir, nor about a geisha.” He blocked me with his hand, saying I was reading way too much into the title. Last presidential election, I was so giddy with seriousness I stayed awake, pacing, in anticipation of that moment when I, fellow citizens, would perform in the democratic process. Since I do not drink coffee, seriousness must be mine. It keeps me active and wired, bouncing and twitching in line at the polling station. I may have been heart-broken at the end of that Election Day, but in the morning, I was alive within its solemnity.

Being too serious is, I often find, an advantage to a writer – especially a writer on the arts. With the film and television industries in this country so seductive, with so many young people clamoring toward a Hollywood lifestyle, it’s a good idea to have a few serious people around to temper them. Tweed-wearers, dictionary-readers, these types. To think critically, to analyze their creations, to keep them advancing the boundaries of what they are doing, and to tell them, “Please God, do not keep making the same old crap!”

Welles wouldn’t have made “Citizen Kane” if he wasn’t just a little too serious. Fellini wouldn’t have been frustrated into “8 ½.” And imagine that Van Gogh painting, “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.” Vince would have had two picture-perfect ears. No, give me seriousness, and give me “Starry Night.”

Which is why my abrasive reaction to that first question, asked on Bravo television’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio” Monday night, August 28, is not so disconcerting. At least, I’ve been telling myself its normal. I think in the shower, and after the show aired, I found myself toweling off a little too vigorously, agitated and annoyed. “Why is that question bothering me?” I thought. “What is my problem?” If I had kept it up much longer, my second question would have been answered by a grand headline: “Brooklyn Resident Dead in Bathroom after Being Too Serious.” Seriously.

“Inside the Actor’s Studio” is enjoyable to me on its face because it reminds me of all the worst parts of college. The smarmy, self-indulgent professor – though, thankfully, a tweed-wearing one. Over-crowded classrooms. Do-gooder students laughing at any tedious joke to gain the approval of teacher and guest. I like it because it takes me back, and makes me appreciate the level of critical thinking I did gain by paying attention in those packed classrooms, not all that long ago. Air the show at 9:30 am instead of the usual eight in the evening, add the constant sound of jackhammers and pump in the smell of molding cheese, and the nightmare would be complete.

But apart from enjoying the vicarious pain of the show, I occasionally find myself inspired by it. Several years ago, in an Emmy-winning episode, comedian Mike Myers said something I have not yet forgotten. “Poop is funny.” Meaning that funny is funny and distinctions of high or low art are irrelevant so long as the object achieves its purpose. You want a laugh? “Poop.” I used Myers’ line on a desperate grad school application and got in; I’m forever glad to know that academics have a sense of humor.

The August 28 episode of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” featured as guest the venerable British actor Hugh Laurie. Title star of Fox’s hit medical drama “House M.D.,” Laurie, describing himself as an asshole, reviewed a career that featured notable stints on many BBC programs and an occasional turn onstage and in print. The audience learned about his impeccable range, his many talents, and his unique point of view when it comes to performance. “If it’s fun,” he said, “I think it can’t be any good.” In short, we spent the episode learning there was more to the Hugh Laurie than Dr. Gregory House. He was turned on by eye contact. Off by financial advice. His favorite curse word you can guess – though, unlike others, he said it boldly and proudly. He would be a rock star, in another life. At the pearly gates, if they exist, God would say, “No hard feelings.” At the very least, he proved himself a comic visionary. At most, the most underappreciated and talented British actor of a generation that includes Rowan Atkinson, Emma Thompson, and Laurie’s friend and collaborator, Stephen Fry.

And then, that question. On “House,” Dr. Allison Cameron is Dr. House’s protégé, Dr. Lisa Cuddy his boss, and Dr. James Wilson, played by the impeccable Robert Sean Leonard, his only friend. “Will House have a romantic relationship with Dr. Cameron, Cuddy, or Dr. Wilson?”

She, the student-actor, asked the invited master-actor, in her one opportunity to pull from his years of knowledge one insightful remark, if his CHARACTER, one of the hundreds he’s played and one over whom he has no writerly control, would ever fall in love. Whether he was gay, no less, and in the hissing sort of laughter coming from the crowd, I had a terrible flashback. To every nagging, middle school bully who got a laugh out of his sycophants by calling a glasses-wearing boy gay. To every awkward dance where the girls would huddle for conversations like, “Does Charlie like soda pop, 'cause if he does, we, like, have so much in common.” To every childhood broken crush, and every mistaken love. You see what I mean about being too serious?

Some time after my thought-provoking shower – thankfully before I led myself to a bathroom aneurysm – I realized that the true problem with the girl’s question was not the question itself, which was innocent enough. It was its insipidness. It seemed made to shock, and the girl seemed unaware as she continued over the sounds of the students around her that her question was not for Laurie at all, but for his show’s writer. “’Cause,” she said, “There are pages and pages on the internet about the whole House/Wilson relationship thing.” She was not prodding for intelligent remarks, not asking for advice on how better to undertake the assailable career of an actor. She wanted a scoop. And in a master class, you know what that is called? She’s a bum. She’s asking for scraps, peddling for instant satisfaction from a man with so much more to give. If only we ask the right questions.

What the student asking a question of Hugh Laurie should care about is his tenacity, for spending twenty years in bit parts, his only starring film role in “Stuart Little,” before garnering any sort of American recognition with “House.” An actor should care about Laurie’s nationality: Laurie’s shockingly strong native English accent compared to his character’s pitch-perfect American one, and Laurie’s true feeling that European actors will always have the advantage in the acting-with-foreign-accent market (which, to me, accounts for all the embarrassing accent work in recent American movies set overseas; see the forthcoming “Marie Antoinette” for an example). A student should care about his longevity: Eton and Cambridge-educated, Laurie never graduated from acting school and yet, still, inspiringly, he is here.

Instead, today’s young actor is consumed by a culture of celebrity, overcome by the life of a fictional character, and unable to understand the difference. This I do take seriously, because far too many times in my young life have I come across young practitioners of the arts who dream of becoming big shots and who have no clue how to think about their chosen fields. In fact, it seems like we’re all getting worse.

To me, film and television matter. Acting matters. Inspiration matters. When given the opportunity, we need to challenge the experts to be inspiring. We all need to be better students and better learners. And if that means more 9:30 am classrooms and rotten smells, then let us welcome that too. “That guy you played that one time in the place. Will he ever love again?” That doesn’t cut it. Hearing it asked to Laurie, when he must have been confronted with so many other questions more demanding, made me wish I truly didn’t belong. That I was much more than just a little too serious.

Laurie, for his part, answered well, as honestly as he could. “That’s not my place to say,” he said, a smile creeping across his face. “I suspect if the show runs long enough, we’ll see all three play out. As for the Wilson line, if Bob is up for it, I’m game.”

Laughter, some applause. Laurie turned to the next student, a young man, who delivered the episode’s second and final question. “How confident would you be diagnosing yourself, after having done ‘House?’”

“Ugh,” I think. “Here we go again.”

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Photo Caption. Steely Hugh. Actor Hugh Laurie, star of Fox television's, "House M.D."

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments:

A Lady May Vanish, but a Man Like Uhl Disappears:

The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006)

25 September 2006

Eisenheim comes to Vienna, makes orange trees grow, butterflies carry handkerchiefs, and mirror reflections disappear. He bumps into an old flame. He threatens to subvert the Austrian empire. He is arrested more than once, only to return for more. You wonder how he has time to keep his beard so neatly trimmed. But trimmed Eisenheim is, and so too Neil Burger’s movie telling his story, “The Illusionist.” Passed over by every major studio after its debut at Sundance and released in a cloud of words over who should retain producing credits (producer Bob Yari apparently steamed over the Oscar he was not allowed to share with partner Cathy Schulman for last year’s “Crash”), “The Illusionist” is surprising and entertaining faire. For one reason, Burger and company fully understand the touchy metaphor they approach with their subject matter, that film and magic are intertwined no matter how cynical or technologically savvy a viewer becomes. Like a magician rolling up his sleeves, “The Illusionist” openly respects its audience’s intelligence, and thus delves into the mysterious and fantastic without stretching for visual contrivance. This does not mean that the film is visually underwhelming. Burger, directing only his second film, benefits from the work of experienced and greatly underappreciated craftsmen: editor Naomi Geraghty, costume designer Ngila Dickson, cinematographer/Mike Leigh collaborator Dick Pope, and legendary composer Philip Glass. The imagery and sound of the film – in period, grainy, and tinged in yellows like a crisp Autumn day – simply does not boast; it is enough to make you believe. And equally impressive in their understatement are Ed Norton as Eisenheim and Paul Giamatti as the somewhat starry-eyed Chief Inspector Uhl. Moving us miles through a single glance, Norton brings alluring coldness to his heroic figure. Giamatti is simply the most pleasing actor to watch onscreen.

Burger’s script ultimately lets these controlled performances down, “ultimately” in the sense that what is wrong with the film was wrong from its beginning. Adapted from a Steven Millhauser short story and adopting the literary example of Mary Shelley, Melville, and Fitzgerald – to have an innocent bystander (Uhl, in this case) relay to even greater innocents (the audience) the astonishing feats and depths of a man about whom we should all be in awe - Uhl should control the story. He is, after all, there. We see only what he sees, and the story advances through his narration. But Uhl is no Nick Carraway. In fact, Uhl is nobody. Apart from a hobbyists’ interest in magic and working-class ties, he is painfully underdeveloped, and those minute details that bring life to the best first person narrators are absent: where he sleeps, his personal life, his motivations to admire the great man. Why does Uhl become so obsessed with Eisenheim? He is a hobbyist, but is it because Eisenheim is capable of constructing mysteries in controlled settings that he, as a professional, cannot even deduce? Or, is he, like Carraway and Ishmael, falling into an awe struck love? To put it redundantly, the story told to us in “The Illusionist” -- told to us by Uhl’s voice over and flashback -- is NOT the story Uhl would tell. It is the story Eisenheim would tell, if Eisenheim were still around to tell it. The well-crafted film suffers from this literary inconsquence. “The Illusionist” is not therefore great; for Burger’s second try, it comes marvelously close.

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The Illusionist (2006) ~ written and directed by Neil Burger, from the Steven Millhauser short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist"; produced by David Levien, Michael London, Cathy Schulman, and Bob Yari; cinematography by Dick Pope; edited by Naomi Gehraghty; original music by Philip Glass; costume design by Ngila Dickson; with Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel ~ in theaters now.

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments:

All the King's Men (Steven Zaillian, 2006)

Today in Stylus Magazine: Get out your Oscar ballots. All the King's Men has arrived...

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All the King's Men (2006) ~ written and directed by Steven Zaillian, from the novel by Robert Penn Warren; produced by Ken Lemberger, Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, and Zaillian; cinematography by Pawel Edelman; edited by Wayne Wahrman; original music by James Horner; with Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Patricia Clarkson, and Mark Ruffalo ~ in theaters now.

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey » Comments: