Gregory House
Gregory House, M.D. | |
---|---|
House character | |
First appearance | "Pilot" (1.01) |
Last appearance | "Everybody Dies" (8.22) |
Created by | David Shore |
Portrayed by | Hugh Laurie |
In-universe information | |
Nickname | House |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Head of Diagnostic Medicine |
Significant other | Stacy Warner (ex-girlfriend) Lisa Cuddy (ex-girlfriend) Dominika Petrova (wife, separated) |
Gregory House is a fictional character and the
In the series, the character's unorthodox diagnostic approaches, radical therapeutic motives, and stalwart rationality have resulted in much conflict between him and his colleagues.
The character received generally positive reviews and was included in several "best of" lists.
Character history
Gregory House was born to
House loves his mother but hates his father, who he claims has an "insane moral compass", and deliberately attempts to avoid both parents.
House first attended
Approximately ten years before the beginning of the series, House entered into a relationship with
House could not forgive Stacy for making the decision after he obviously did not want it, and this was the reason Stacy eventually left him.
In season seven, when Cuddy, who is House's girlfriend at this point, has a brush with death, House goes back on Vicodin in order to cope with the fear of losing her. Near the end of season seven, House finds out the experimental drug he had been using caused fatal cancerous tumors in all of the lab rats in the experiment. He gets a
Personality
"Dr. House is a fascinating and daringly cantankerous enigma, the proverbial bitter pill who also happens to be a highly intuitive medical genius. He despises interacting with patients and prefers dealing with diseases – with medical mysteries that leave other doctors scratching their heads in befuddlement." |
— Tom Shales describing the character.[9] |
House frequently shows off his cunning and biting wit, and enjoys picking people apart and mocking their weaknesses.
Laurie describes House as a character who refuses to "obey the usual pieties of modern life" and expects to find a rare diagnosis when he is treating his patient.[43][44] Many aspects of his personality are the antithesis of what might be expected from a doctor.[34] Executive producer Katie Jacobs views House as a static character who is accustomed to living in misery.[45] Jacobs has said that Dr. Wilson, his only friend in the show, and House both avoid mature relationships, which brings the two closer together.[46] Leonard has said that Dr. Wilson is one of the few who voluntarily maintains a relationship with House, because he is free to criticize him.[46]
Although House's crankiness is commonly misattributed to the
House openly talks about, and makes references to, pornography.[53] In "Lines in the Sand", he returns the flirtations of an underage female who is a daughter of a clinic patient.[54] He regularly engages the services of prostitutes,[21][55] of which his former female diagnostic team member Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), who once had a crush on him, is aware.[56] He also likes to gamble, frequently making wagers.
House speaks
House is an
"[House] enjoys pursuing the truth, and he knows we all see the world through our own lenses. He's constantly trying to strip himself of those biases, to get a clean, objective view of things." |
— Shore to Variety.[64] |
House frequently says, "Everybody lies", but jokingly remarked he was lying when he said it.
Social behavior
House does not have much of a social life, and his only real friend is Dr. James Wilson.[36][44] Wilson knew House before the infarction and looked after him when House's relationship with Stacy ended.[47] Dr. Wilson's moving into House's apartment after his failed marriage in "Sex Kills" symbolizes his taking emotional refuge in his friend.[68] Although they frequently analyze and criticize each other's motives, Wilson has risked his career to protect House, including having his job terminated in the first season as an effort of Edward Vogler to dismiss House, and having his practice damaged by Detective Michael Tritter in an investigation of House's narcotics consumption.[53][69] House has quietly admitted, at several instances, that he is grateful for Wilson's presence, including referring to Wilson as his best friend. When Wilson resigns and moves away from both New Jersey and House's friendship in the season 5 premiere, House is desperate to have his friend back, and hires a private investigator (Michael Weston) to spy on him.[70] The two ultimately reconcile at House's father's funeral in a scene similar to their first meeting, only this time Wilson breaks a stained glass window with what appears to be a bottle of wine or alcohol in a moment of anger directed at House.[18] In the series finale, House fakes his death both to get out of going to prison and to spend five remaining months with Wilson before he dies of cancer, after having spent the past third of the season helping him through difficult, risky and ultimately unsuccessful treatments and reckless "bucket list" wishes.
Lisa Edelstein has said that despite his sardonic personality, House is a character who is reliant on people surrounding him.
House has also been known to act as a mooch at times, frequently stealing food from Wilson. In "
Development
Conception
"The title diagnostician of the show would be as smart a physician as Dr. Kildare and as sharp a sleuth as Gil Grissom of CSI, it was important to us that he be damaged, both emotionally and physically." |
— Shore on House's creation.[75] |
While the show was originally set to be a medical
Cathy Crandall, costume designer for the show, created a look for the character that made it seem like he did not care about his clothing.[80] She designed House with a wrinkled T-shirt, a blazer that is one size too short, faded and worn-in jeans and heather-gray rag socks.[80] It was Laurie's idea to have the character wear sneakers, because he thought "a man with a cane needs functional shoes"; the Fox studios' wardrobe department kept thirty-seven pairs of Nike Shox on hand.[80] House has worn T-shirts designed by famous designers such as Barking Irons and Lincoln Mayne,[80] but also by less known designers such as Andrew Buckler[81] and Taavo.[82] The shirts are usually kept tied in a ball overnight to get them to wrinkle.[80]
Casting
When casting for the part started, Shore was afraid that in "the wrong hands", House would "just be hateful".[75] The casting directors were looking for someone who could, as Shore described, "do these horrible things and be somehow likable without just, you know, petting a kitten".[83] When Laurie was asked to audition for the role of House, he was filming Flight of the Phoenix in Namibia.[84] Laurie had no big expectations for the show, thinking that it would only "run for a few weeks".[67][85] He planned to audition for the roles of both James Wilson and Gregory House.[83] However, when he read that Wilson was a character with a "handsome open face", he decided to audition solely for the role of House.[83] Laurie chose not to change his clothing, but to remain in the costume he wore for the film; he also decided not to shave his beard.[67] He put together an audition tape of his own in a Namibian hotel bathroom, the only place with enough light,[86] while his Flight of the Phoenix co-stars Jacob Vargas and Scott Michael Campbell held the camera.[67] He improvised by using an umbrella for a cane.[87] Laurie initially believed that James Wilson would be the protagonist of the show after reading the brief description of the character and did not find out that House was the main character until he read the full script of the pilot episode.[88][89]
After he had watched casting tapes for the
Parallels to Sherlock Holmes
Similarities between House and the famous fictional detective
Shore has also explained that the name "House" is a play on the name "Holmes" via its phonetic similarity to the word "homes". The pun does not extend to the meaning of the names, as the
Reception
Throughout the series' run, the character received positive reviews.[7][8] Tom Shales of The Washington Post called House "the most electrifying character to hit television in years".[9]
House was featured on several best lists. In 2008, House was voted by BuddyTV second sexiest TV doctor ever, behind Dr. Doug Ross (George Clooney) from ER.[100] TV Overmind named House the best TV character of the last decade.[101] In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly also named him one of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years.[102] He also appeared in Entertainment Weekly's "30 Great TV Doctors and Nurses".[103] He was elected TV's Most Crushworthy Male Doctor over Doug Ross of ER in a poll held by Zap2it.[104] Fox News placed the character among the Best TV Doctors For Surgeon General.[105]
For his portrayal, Hugh Laurie has won various awards, including two
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Bibliography
- Holtz, Andrew (2006). The Medical Science of House, M.D.. New York: ISBN 978-0-425-21230-1.
- Holtz, Andrew (2011). House M.D. vs. Reality: Fact and Fiction in the Hit Television Series. New York: ISBN 978-0-425-23893-6.
- Hockley, L.; Gardner, L. (2010). House The Wounded Healer on Television: Jungian and Post-Jungian Reflections. ISBN 978-0-415-47913-4.
External links
- Gregory House at the TV IV
- Dr. House modelled after Sherlock Holmes