Want to hear all about how Dr House is actually a suave as balls English guy from a not so suave as balls English guy? Check out the video version of this article. If you want to see what it looked like before we ruined it with my face, the original article is below.

House is basically a show about if Sherlock Holmes travelled through time to be an asshole American doctor, the person playing that asshole American doctor is one, Hugh Laurie, who was so convincingly American in his audition, the director himself didn’t realise he’s actually British.

What makes this doubly hilarious is, as stated in the image above, the director of the show, Bryan Singer, was adamant that Dr. House be played by an American actor because he was convinced that British actors simply couldn’t muster up a convincing sounding American accent. Singer was so sure of this fact that he’d actually stopped considering any audition tapes from British actors entirely and instead tasked the casting people to redouble their efforts on hiring a “quintessentially American person“.

Apparently this little titbit escaped Laurie’s notice and he sent in audition tape anyway, reportedly filmed in the bathroom of the hotel he was staying in because it was the only room with a bright enough light. Laurie also decided not to change out of his day-old clothes or shave, because he felt that a guy like Dr House wouldn’t give a shit about his appearance. Also, according to a later interview with Laurie, he didn’t even have a cane so he had to make do with an old umbrella. Singer apparently watched the tape and hired Laurie on the the spot.

Let’s just recap for a second so we’re all on the same glorious page here, Hugh Laurie, a British actor, filmed an audition tape on the shitter for a TV show for which the director had absolutely insisted that he would only consider an American actor for the role, and he got the gig.

To make things even funnier, Singer was totally unaware that Hugh Laurie was English to the point that upon seeing his audition tape, he turned to his crew and said:

“See, this is what I want: an American guy”

Not wanting to disappoint Singer, they called Laurie and gave him the part. We have no idea how Singer reacted when he met Laurie and heard his actual speaking voice, but we’d pay an unreasonable amount of money to have it turned into a ringtone.