Saturday, 17 January 2009

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Hugh Laurie: I made a suicide pact with pals

Actor and his schoolmates didn't want to reach 40

Hugh Laurie admits to struggling with depression in the past

House star Hugh Laurie was so worried about getting old when he was an adolescent, he made a suicide pact with his mates.

‘I think I suffered from the arrogance of youth,’ Hugh tells the February issue of Playboy.

‘When I was 15, I and a group of school friends took a sort of pledge that we wouldn’t live beyond 40. We decided we’d kill ourselves.

‘In fact there were some hardcore members of the group - I wasn’t one of them - who wanted to make it 30. “I hope I die before I get old” sort of thing.’

Hugh, 49, admits he was always getting up to mischief when he was a kid.

He'd pretend to be his dad, who was a physician, when he answered the phone.

‘Being my father’s son, I sounded like him, and before I could say: "This isn’t the doctor", they would jump in and say, “Doctor, thank God! It’s all exploded. I can’t stop it,”’ Hugh recalls.

‘And with no obvious juncture for me to step out of the way, I would, you know… Let’s just say I’d reassure them.

'You’re an adolescent. You’re craving attention. “Well, it sounds like you’re doing the right thing there,” I’d say. Or “Oh yes, it will probably be all right. Call back if the swelling worsens.”

'As far as I remember, I never lost any patients.’

Hugh plays brilliant but troubled Dr Gregory House in the FOX show.

Alison Adey