Hugh Laurie, once one of TV’s highest-paid stars at $700,000 per episode on House, admits he still feels guilty about his success. Even after global fame as Dr. Gregory House, he says he sometimes feels like a “fraud” for playing a doctor instead of becoming one — the career his late father, a respected physician and Olympic gold medalist, had hoped he’d pursue.

Laurie originally planned to follow his father into medicine while rowing at Cambridge, but his life changed when he joined the Footlights comedy troupe, meeting Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. Acting soon replaced medicine, leading to decades of British comedy classics and eventually the role that made him a worldwide sensation.

Despite House’s fame and two Golden Globes, Laurie struggled emotionally during the show, admitting he sometimes wished for a minor accident just to get a day off. After the series ended, he returned to playing a doctor again in Chance, though the guilt about abandoning medicine never fully disappeared.

Now 64, Laurie remains one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, but he still feels he “took shortcuts” his father wouldn’t have approved of. His confession raises an emotional question: can someone honor their parents’ legacy even when they choose a different path?