Before becoming television's most lovable Vicodin addict, Hugh Laurie spent a good twenty years on British airwaves with BFF Stephen Fry on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, and Jeeves and Wooster. He's also a concert pianist and is really good at Sudoku. Laurie basically is Gregory House, but nicer, and British. And not a doctor.

It's good news then, that Laurie will soon be rewarded for his diligence and good work with a pay bump from Universal Studios that will leave the 49-year old one of the best paid actors on television. Laurie is expected to rake in $400,000 zone per episode, which is still $100k less than his doppleganger Jack Bauer's alter-ego Keifer makes at also-on-Fox 24. Still, $9 million a season is nothing to sneeze at; if every episode of House has 45 minutes of actual programming, Laurie will earn a cool $8,888 a minute just to keep that wonderful American accent going.

He's still nowhere near Friends-level of payment, but hey, not everyone can be a David Schwimmer.