"For the past eight seasons, actor Hugh Laurie has played Dr. Gregory House on the Fox medical series House. House is brash, narcissistic, unsympathetic, addicted to painkillers, confrontational — and 100 percent American."

"Laurie is none of those things."

"'I am not playing House today, so I am dressed as an Englishman and speaking as an Englishman,' he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. 'I'm wearing a bowler hat and carrying a furled umbrella. It's nice to have a day every now and then off from the vocal exercises.'"