Hugh Laurie Kneels Before Emma Thompson's Star

Thompson's old schoolmate and her Nanny McPhee Returns costar help induct her into the Hollywood Walk of Fame

It wasn't the way Hugh Grant knelt down for her in Sense and Sensibility, but Hugh Laurie got on his knees for Emma Thompson all the same.

Laurie, Thompson's longtime pal, colleague and ex-boyfriend from her Cambridge days was on hand to celebrate the Oscar-winning actress and screenwriter's career Friday as she was presented with the 2,416th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

"Everything she did just oozed talent," Laurie recalled. "She said talented things, she wore talented clothes, she rode a talented bicycle, she made talented spaghetti. She is a truly remarkable person, a very good friend, and I could not be prouder."

Also spooned into the celebration, thanks to studio public relations, was Maggie Gyllenhaal, Thompson's costar in the upcoming Nanny McPhee Returns.

"She's cooked me roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, while acting and writing and producing a huge, multimillion-dollar studio movie," Gyllenhaal said. "This comes through in all of the things she writes and the movies she acts in."

Thompson's star is in front of the Pig 'n Whistle pub on Hollywood Boulevard, which the British thesp called "appropriate."

"It's the last thing you step on before you get your first drink and the last thing you step on when you reel out," she joked.

(Originally published Aug. 6, 2010, at 3:38 p.m. PT)