Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall are a tad stressed – they’ve almost finished editing the long-awaited second season of their canine comedy Colin From Accounts, but they’re not sure they’ve got everything quite right.
“Tomorrow is the last day we can work on it and then we’re on a plane,” says Harriet, 35, sitting next to husband Patrick, 48, on a Zoom call.
He adds, “This is where all the ideas and the, ‘Hey, wouldn’t this be funny?’ all become very real. It’s like, ‘This is what they’re going to see.’”
The story behind Colin From Accounts is a great one – a real-life Aussie couple writes a quirky romantic comedy, shoot it with themselves in the starring roles, then watch it become a hit around the world, including in Aotearoa, where it’s the most-watched comedy on TVNZ+.
But that kind of fairytale success takes a huge amount of work. Harriet, who has appeared in Packed To The Rafters, Love Child and Rake, explains, “People don’t like to hear that something that looks so effortless is so much effort, but there is so much. We’ve been working on this season for a year now. Every day, going to work together…”
The actress, who plays medical student Ashley on Colin, starts laughing and Patrick, who plays microbrewer Gordon, joins in. He adds, “We cannot get enough of each other!”
Just to add an extra level of difficulty, the couple has done all this while parenting their young daughter Joni, whom they adopted in 2021, five months after tying the knot in Florida. They’ve brought her to work with them a few times, but it has its challenges.
“When she was an infant, you could put a dummy in and have her on set,” explains Harriet. “Now she’ll be like, ‘What’s that?’ in the middle of a take.”
At least the duo are seeing more of their daughter than they did when they were working on the first season. Back then, they’d get home after a long day and she’d already be in bed. Now, as a toddler, she doesn’t need as much sleep.
“We’re getting some of her each end of the day,” says Harriet. “But it’s hard because now she’s playing up a bit at night, so we might only get 15 minutes between her bedtime and our bedtime.” Patrick loves the extra time, but he adds, “We don’t see her enough.”
The couple met back in 2015, when they both worked on Aussie comedy No Activity. Patrick, who has starred on Home And Away and Offspring, moved to Los Angeles the following year and Harriet a year later. They’re still based there, but it’s not permanent.
“We will move back to Australia at some stage,” tells Harriet. “What keeps us over there currently is that we have a house, a car, a pet, insurance… We’re there because we’ve both worked there, it’s good living and it’s good money.”
The success of Colin From Accounts has opened up more opportunities in the US.
“Now we’ve got a lot of people who want to chat about future projects and that’s exciting,” Harriet says.
Patrick also has a recurring role as Uncle Rad in the cartoon sensation Bluey.
Joni is a fan of the Aussie kids’ show but doesn’t recognise her dad’s voice.
Harriet laughs, “I’ve seen Patrick actually go, ‘Hey, that’s Daddy,’ and she just tunes out. I don’t think she can work out that a voice in a TV is a person.”
So would Harriet like a role in Bluey too? “Oh, I’d love one,” she says. Patrick adds, “Who wouldn’t? It’s the high point of my career. I’ve never had more street cred than when I got a role on Bluey.”
The couple say they’d love to act together in another project, but not play love interests this time. Harriet explains, “We can’t continually put our own chemistry on screen because it has to thrive off screen. It’s like a garden – we’ve got to water it! But there’s a lot of different relationships we could play. I’m not even averse to playing brother and sister.”
Patrick quips, “You’re constantly wanting to play brother and sister. It’s weird!”
“No, it’s not weird,” Harriet insists. “We want to do lots of stuff together.”
“We’ve got lots of ideas,” Patrick adds.
“Because we know it works,” Harriet concludes.
Season two of Colin From Accounts premieres Wednesday on TVNZ+.
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