Video Interview: Stephen Fry

NEW YORK: Stephen Fry discusses his new BBC Two project Planet Word and talks about his passion for working both behind the camera and in front of it.

Last week, the British comedy duo of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie made their first TV appearance together in 15 years. The twosome celebrated the 30th anniversary of their comedic partnership, which has seen them teaming up on such hits as Blackadder and A Bit of Fry & Laurie, with a one-off special on UKTV’s Gold, in which they reminisced about their friendship, personalities and professional lives.

Over the last decade and a half, both Fry and Laurie have established enormously successful solo careers—Laurie as the acerbic Dr. Gregory House on the hit FOX medical drama, and Fry as a writer, producer, director and all-around man about British media.

With his writing, Fry has contributed countless columns and articles for a number of newspapers and magazines, has written four best-selling novels and two volumes of an autobiography. As a solo actor, he hosts the BBC quiz show QI, has completed two series of Absolute Power with John Bird for the BBC and has appeared in numerous single dramas, among other projects for television. He also presented the documentaries The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, HIV and Me, The Machine That Made Us and The Gutenberg Press, all for the BBC. Fry chronicled his travels across America in Stephen Fry in America and joined Mark Carwardine in search of endangered animals on the verge of extinction in Last Chance To See, both for the BBC. And the list goes on.

Through his production company, Sprout Pictures, founded in 2004 with Gina Carter, Fry has a number of event dramas, comedy and documentary projects in the works. The latest is Planet Word, a five-part series on language for BBC Two.