Hugh Laurie - English twit develops some muscle.

By HELEN BARLOW

Actors don't come much more English than reserved, diffident, ever-so-polite Hugh Laurie.

Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he speaks with perfect diction. And he specialises in that self-deprecating humour the English do best.

It was at university that he began his performing career, teaming up for comedy revues with Emma Thompson, with whom he had a brief affair.

Two decades later, he had his biggest success with a father-to-a-mouse role in Stuart Little.

Laurie then returned to his comedy roots with Maybe Baby, reuniting with another of his earlier collaborators, comedian Ben Elton.

Maybe Baby was inspired by the experiences of Elton and his wife as they tried to get pregnant using the IVF programme.

"There are lots of sex scenes," Laurie admits. "I'd never done anything resembling a bed scene in my life before. I was losing my film virginity, as it were, and that was a very strange experience.

"It felt hysterical when we were doing it, but some bits were very difficult, having to let go when the camera's rolling. Being English, it's hard to let go and to trust that it's going to be all right. It's scary."

Elton, who had co-written Blackadder and Mr Bean with Richard Curtis, saw Maybe Baby (which is based on his book, Inconceivable) as a chance to replicate the winning formula of Curtis' Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill.

Maybe Baby, his first film as director, also features Rowan Atkinson, as a gynaecologist, and Emma Thompson, as a New Age health freak.

While we might remember Laurie from Blackadder, in Britain it was Jeeves and Wooster, a series with his best friend, Stephen Fry, that made him a household name.

Laurie is recognisable from a wide range of movies, too, although he never really stood out until Stuart Little.

His first major role was in Kenneth Branagh's Peter's Friends, and he had small parts in Plenty, Sense and Sensibility, The Borrowers, Spiceworld and The Man in The Iron Mask.

He played Jessica Lange's pompous brother-in-law in Cousin Bette, and was dastardly as an evil dognapper in 101 Dalmatians. Then came Stuart Little, and success that was something of a surprise.

"I'd done 101 Dalmatians the year before and I'd thought that was a bit strange," says Laurie.

"I hadn't really seen myself doing this kind of family film so I was in two minds about doing another.

"Then they said, 'How do you fancy working with Geena Davis?' That was the big attraction, the Geena Davis thing."

The fact that Laurie is 1.8m helped in his casting alongside the athletic, long-limbed actress.

A former champion oarsman, the 41-year-old is surprisingly muscular for someone who always seems to be playing a weedy Brit.

And there's plenty of his physique on display in Maybe Baby. The story requires him to have sex whenever his wife (Joely Richardson) decrees that the time is right.

When his character, an executive with BBC television (one of the film's co-producers), gets the call, he jumps on his motorcycle and roars off home, ripping off his clothes as soon as he gets to the front door.

Laurie has had no trouble having offspring himself. He lives in north London with his wife, Jo Green, and they have three children aged 7, 8 and 11.

He recalls taking his kids to watch the filming of a romantic scene in Maybe Baby.

"We kissed and we did the shot and I turned around and I asked my son what he thought of that. He just went [Laurie puts two fingers in his mouth].

"It would be nice to get some approval from my children for once.

"They would much rather I did something like Stuart Little - provided they like it. I'm in big trouble if they don't. They've got to go to school and hold up their heads."

Did Stuart Little pass the test? "That was okay. That gave me some credibility."

* Maybe Baby is screening at Rialto, Berkeley and Hoyts cinemas