Age: 67
male
James Hugh Calum Laurie CBE (born June 11, 1959), known professionally as Hugh Laurie, is an English actor, director, singer, musician, comedian, and author. He is known for portraying the title character on the Fox medical drama series House (2004–2012), for which he received two Golden Globe Awards and nominations for numerous other awards. He was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama, earning £250,000 ($409,000) per episode of House. His other television credits include arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper in the miniseries The Night Manager (2016), for which he won his third Golden Globe Award, and Senator Tom James in the HBO sitcom Veep (2012–2019), for which he received his 10th Emmy Award nomination. Forced to abandon rowing during a bout of glandular fever, he joined the Cambridge Footlights, a university dramatic club that has produced many well-known actors and comedians. There he met Emma Thompson, with whom he had a romantic relationship, which later ended yet they remain good friends. She introduced him to his future comedy partner, Stephen Fry. Laurie, Fry and Thompson later parodied themselves as the University Challenge representatives of "Footlights College, Oxbridge" in "Bambi", an episode of The Young Ones, with the series' co-writer Ben Elton completing their team.
Calvin and Hobbes follows the humorous antics of the title characters: Calvin, a mischievous and adventurous six-year-old boy; and his friend Hobbes, a sardonic tiger. Set in the suburban United States of the 1980s and 1990s, the strip depicts Calvin's frequent flights of fancy and friendship with Hobbes. It also examines Calvin's relationships with his long-suffering parents and with his classmates, especially his neighbor Susie Derkins. Hobbes's dual nature is a defining motif for the strip: to Calvin, Hobbes is a living anthropomorphic tiger, while all the other characters seem to see Hobbes as an inanimate stuffed toy, though Watterson has not clarified exactly how Hobbes is perceived by others, or whether he is real or an imaginary friend. Though the series does not frequently mention specific political figures or ongoing events, it does explore broad issues like environmentalism, public education, and philosophical quandaries.
