HUGH Laurie hates the sound of his own voice.

The House star admits he often watches his programs with the sound down because he drives himself mad.

“I hate watching myself on screen,” he says. “Worst of all is hearing myself. I’d rather see myself with the sound down actually.

“Actually no, even that’s not good. I’ve never liked my voice. I don’t think anyone ever likes hearing their own voice.”

Laurie — who earned $10 million from June 1, 2008 to June 1, 2009, according to Forbes — revealed earlier this year that he’d never return to the stage after he was driven to despair after appearing in the West End production of Gasping in the 1990s.

“I couldn’t do it again,” he said. “I actually started to have out-of-body experiences and it was really very frightening.

“I would sort of lean my body and float around the upper circle and sit next to people and eat their crisps. It was really strange.

“It was actually quite frightening. I really did think I was losing my mind. I just thought this is what stage actors do — this is something you have to go through. It isn’t normal — it can’t be normal.”

A slim — and unshaven! — Hugh Laurie hit the red carpet for the House M.D. season six Los Angeles premiere Thursday night.

The actor, 50, recently revealed that he doesn’t find himself all that funny. (continue)

Hugh Laurie isn’t worried about what the future has in store for his character on US TV show House.

“I don’t care what happens I only care how it happens. House could become a nun or an arms dealer or a transvestite,” the British actor said during a special Q&A with fans at the Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles.

“I don’t really mind as long as it’s done well. It’s the how not the what,” he added.

Hugh also revealed how he’d managed to beat George Clooney in a recent poll of the ‘Hottest Fake Doctors’.

“Most of those votes were mine because there is a way of setting up a program that will vote multiple times,” Hugh confessed.

Laurie also revealed that he’s keen to get his pal Stephen Fry to make a guest appearance on House.

“I can only oil the wheels as much as I can and I keep dropping his name,” he said.

“I keep saying ‘he’s alright really, despite what you may think’, but it’s obviously a question of finding the right role, the right moment.”

“The bloke’s never off the television,” Hugh added. “He’s off doing documentaries around the world about the panda or whatever it is. He’s quite hard to get and very expensive. I’m not sure we could afford him!”

Hugh Laurie thought he was losing his mind performing in a play.

The House star admits he was driven to despair after appearing in the West End production of Gasping in the 1990s.

And the British actor has now vowed never to return to the stage.

“I couldn’t do it again,” he said. “I actually started to have out-of-body experiences and it was really very frightening.

“I would sort of lean my body and float around the upper circle and sit next to people and eat their crisps. It was really strange.

“It was actually quite frightening. I really did think I was losing my mind. I just thought this is what stage actors do — this is something you have to go through. It isn’t normal — it can’t be normal.”

Hugh Laurie doesn’t understand Twitter.

The House actor has signed up to the popular social networking site and has gained thousands of followers — but he thinks it’s all pretty pointless.

“As I look around my friends’ tweets I see banality on all sides. I don’t understand the purpose of it,” he said.

“I think if people were able to take these 140 characters [allowed in each post] and develop a poetic Western form — a haiku of our own in which all human existence could be compressed into those 140 characters — that would be a satisfying thing, but that’s not what I see when I read them.”

British actor Hugh Laurie admits he’s scared to buy a home in America — in case it gives him bad luck.

Laurie, 49, is convinced his smash hit TV show House will be canceled as soon as he puts down a deposit on a property, so currently rents an apartment in Los Angeles while his wife, Jo — who he has been married to since 1989 — stays in London with their three children, Charlie, 20, Bill, 18, and daughter Rebecca, 15.

“It’s a very difficult thing,” Hugh told a Scottish newspaper. “I constantly marvel at how grown-up my children are, how grown-up they’re being about this.

“I worry about parenting at this sort of distance, but they are being so generous and so cool about it that – I mean, it might be because they’re English, and they won’t reveal their psychological damage until they’re in their late forties.

“I’m just convinced that the day we put down a deposit on a house is the day that we get canceled. (continue)

Hugh Laurie doesn’t think he’s funny.

Speaking to Parade magazine, the House star — who is also known for his comic touch in shows such as Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie — insists he’s not all that humorous.

“See, I don’t think of myself as funny,” he said. “I think of myself as rather grave, actually. And I’m suspicious of fun. I never quite know what that is or how to deal with it or how to generate it. That’s my fault. I know it’s a burden on the people I’m with. It’s tiresome.”

Laurie also admitted his big fear is being embarrassed.

“I’m reasonably easygoing,” he said.

“Messing up my lines or making a fool of myself is where you find my fears.

“Like a lot of English people, I’m prey to embarrassment – the dread that everyone’s sort of sniggering at you, that you’re going to look like an idiot.

“I think that sort of halts us all.”