Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#550
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Hugh Laurie represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Hugh is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hugh Laurie appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hugh. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, tv movie, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Armando Iannucci, Etan Cohen, Brad Bird and others, Hugh Laurie helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023) as Self - Contributor · Sense and Sensibility (1995) as Mr. Palmer · The Canterville Ghost (2023) as Grim Reaper / Gardener / Swordsman / Monster / Old Duke (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #550 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1992–2023
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
Most frequent director
Rob Minkoff
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Rob Minkoff
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.5
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2020s
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Canterville Ghost, Blackadder: A Cunning Story, The Amazing Maurice — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Stuart Little, The Man in the Iron Mask, Spice World.
Most productive era
1990s
7 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.64 films | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Action | 6.42 films | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.15 films | 5.93 films | 5.53 films | 6.72 films |
| Crime | — | 6.71 film | 4.31 film | — |
| Romance | 7.41 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Peter's Friends
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Roger Charleston.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2023Blackadder: A Cunning Story
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Self - Contributor.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
19 of 19 films
as Maurice (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Grim Reaper / Gardener / Swordsman / Monster / Old Duke (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. (voice)
Directed by Rob Letterman
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Self - Contributor
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self - Contributor gives Hugh Laurie a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Maurice (voice)
The Amazing Maurice (2022)
Performance score7.3
The Amazing Maurice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maurice (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Palmer
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Performance score7.2
Sense and Sensibility asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Palmer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Grim Reaper / Gardener / Swordsman / Monster / Old Duke (voice)
The Canterville Ghost (2023)
Performance score7.1
The Canterville Ghost asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grim Reaper / Gardener / Swordsman / Monster / Old Duke (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Self - Contributor
Start here. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest statement of what Hugh Laurie does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hugh at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Blackadder: A Cunning Story — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Sense and Sensibility — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Amazing Maurice (2022)
Keeps the adventure register of Monsters vs Aliens but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Canterville Ghost (2023)
Same director as The Amazing Maurice, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Rob Minkoff
Director
2 films together
Notably Stuart Little
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter's Friends
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Sense and Sensibility
Stephen Herek
Director
1 film together
Notably 101 Dalmatians
Peter Hewitt
Director
1 film together
Notably The Borrowers
Bob Spiers
Director
1 film together
Notably Spice World
Randall Wallace
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man in the Iron Mask
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Street Kings
Peter Ramsey
Director
1 film together
Notably Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space
Rob Letterman
Director
1 film together
Notably Monsters vs Aliens
Tim Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Hop
Brad Bird
Director
1 film together
Notably Tomorrowland
Etan Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Holmes & Watson
Armando Iannucci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Personal History of David Copperfield
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rob Minkoff
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Stuart LittleAng Lee
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sense and SensibilityDavid Ayer
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Street KingsRandall Wallace
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man in the Iron MaskKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter's FriendsRob Letterman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Monsters vs AliensArmando Iannucci
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Personal History of David CopperfieldBrad Bird
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TomorrowlandPeter Ramsey
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mutant Pumpkins from Outer SpacePeter Hewitt
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BorrowersStephen Herek
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
101 DalmatiansTim Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HopBob Spiers
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spice WorldEtan Cohen
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holmes & WatsonSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Sense and Sensibility
as Mr. Palmer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sense and Sensibility
as Mr. Palmer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Holmes & Watson
as Mycroft Holmes (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Hugh Laurie has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
31 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Street Kings
as Captain James Biggs
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sense and Sensibility
as Mr. Palmer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Holmes & Watson
as Mycroft Holmes (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Man in the Iron Mask
as King's Advisor
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Man in the Iron Mask
as King's Advisor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Valiant
as Gutsy (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spice World
as Poirot
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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