Hugh Laurie Retiring After House Ends

Courtesy: FOX/Justin Stephens

Hugh Laurie, the 52-year-old actor who was named the most watched leading man on television by the Guinness Book of Records, has announced that he plans to quit the medium, when his hit drama series, House, wraps.

In an interview with U.K.’s Daily Record, Laurie explained that he wouldn’t be interested in doing another show when House ends; namely because “I have been rather spoiled here,” said Laurie. “I can’t imagine there will be another [series] quite like this… I think I am extremely lucky to have had the one shot that I have had at it, and I wouldn’t go looking for lightning to strike twice.”

Instead, Laurie plans to move on in another direction of the business.

“I think I will probably be as interested by either writing or producing or directing or some other aspect,” contended Laurie. “I find the whole field of it fascinating.”

Laurie, of course, has had a successful career in both television and film. He appeared in The Borrowers, Sense and Sensibility, 101 Dalmatians and a trio of Stuart Little movies, as well as the British series The Cellar Tapes, Blackadder, and A Bit of Fry & Laurie.

Yet, he credits the critically acclaimed House, which is in its eighth season on Fox, with upping his self-assuredness as an actor.

“That’s a huge amount of experience and that sort of experience gives you a confidence in a way,” noted Laurie. “I think that I have a confidence that I might not have had. I’m slightly more confident now [than] when I started.”