Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall also reveal what to expect in season 2 of the Paramount+ romantic comedy.
Paramount+
A version of this article originally appeared inEntertainment Weekly’s Awardist Emmys Kickoff special print issue.
It begins with the oddest meet cute ever.
Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley in ‘Colin From Accounts’.Credit:Paramount+
And thus the tone is set for one of the funniest romcoms in years,Colin From Accounts.
A lot of the shows onscreen generational gap humor is mined from 35-year-old Dyer and 48-year-old Brammalls offscreen relationship.
It doesn’t matter how close to the bone it is, says Brammall.
Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall on ‘Colin From Accounts’.Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+
If it’s awkward, and as long as it’s funny, we have to use it.
That includes the time someone mistook Brammall for being Dyers dad at an airport.
To be fair, we just got off the long-haul flight, he insists.
Annie Maynard, Patrick Brammall, and Harriet Dyer on ‘Colin From Accounts’.Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+
She looked fresh as a spring apple.
I looked like an old leather bag.
There was a cute dude nearby and I was like, Oh, yikes, this stuff happens.
Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall on ‘Colin From Accounts’.Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+
I’m a fairly distracted driver, but I am, stereotypically, the less distracted gender.
PATRICK BRAMMALL:The male voice does spring from you pretty effortlessly.
DYER:That’s why they need to split the vet bills.
Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall on ‘Colin From Accounts’.Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+
It’s like an ongoing thing with them.
He hit the dog, but I did flash my nipple to distract him.
BRAMMALL:Its probably 60-40 his fault.
Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer on ‘Colin From Accounts’.Lisa Tomasetti/Paramount+
How exactly does that work?
And then we got a book of different dogs.
It was almost like a flip book.
DYER:It was like Tinder.
BRAMMALL: There was a Boston terrier, a French bulldog, a dalmatian.
And we just flipped through.
DYER:You knew straight away some of these dogs are way too fancy.
We thought a poodle or a sausage dog were very noticeable dogs.
They were too flashy.
You’d know when they go missing.
And it turns out that a border terrier is its own fancy breed, but they look so scruffy.
He looks like the everyman of dogs.
BRAMMALL:An everydog.
You want a dog that on the Venn diagram everyone can kind of get on board with.
You don’t want people going, Oh, that’s too yappy.
Or That’s too scary.
DYER:And he never ever messed up.
We never had to go again for the dog.
In fact, he was a little too good.
We’d be like, F—, he looks kind of computer-generated.
BRAMMALL:He’s just sort of sitting there.
DYER:So still.
I don’t know if he’s on some sort of medication.
I want a prescription for whatever Colin is on.
BRAMMALL:Yeah, whatever he’s got, I want some of that too.
He’s so chill.
He’s on cloud nine.
He’s very happy to be there, let’s just put it that way.
Why a brewery for Gordon?
How did that become his profession?
DYER:A brewery felt social.
I have to say, I got viscerally angry with Ashleys friends in the birthday brewery episode.
Is that just because Im an old fuddy-duddy now, or were they particularly obnoxious?
DYER:Do you know what’s interesting?
Our editor of that episode looked at reviews, and that episode is reviewed the poorest.
It’s still reviewed well, but it made people mad.
And his take on it was that millennials were like, We’re not all like that!
But I actually think it just annoyed people.
I think whether you were older or younger or male or female.
My girlfriends from high school messaged me and they’re like, Ashley was so rude!
and I was like, Calm down, okay?
These characters don’t have to be perfect.
That’s the whole point.
BRAMMALL: But that’s great.
because they’re emotionally attached to the characters.
That’s a great result for us, and so much fun to shoot.
BRAMMALL:And it’s tricky because I’m super cool in real life.
So it’s a real stretch.
How do you all settle things when you do not agree on a creative decision?
BRAMMALL:It’s pretty rare that we have differences.
Whoever wrote the episode will probably have the final call on it.
But honestly, if one of us feels that strongly about it…
I don’t think we’ve ever had a thing where webothfelt that strongly about it.
I’ve got a real gut response sometimes, so maybe I win a bit more.
How much does work life bleed into your personal life?
We quote season 2, which hasn’t come out yet, to each other all the time.
Has the reaction been any different from international audiences as opposed to Australian?
Are the comedic sensibilities similar or a bit different?
DYER:It absolutely crushed in the U.K. That was because it was available on a free service.
which anyone can get.
But their humor, I think they loved it.
Obviously, we are a penal colony from England.
We have a connection there, but they just loved it.
Australia also loved it.
It was just funny.
It was all part of the funny meet cute.
A lot of people are concerned about the welfare of the dog.
That’s a big cultural difference.
And we get it.
We are in love with our dog, but culturally it’s just a different thing.
DYER:And it didn’t come up at all in Australia either.
Australians are largely, Stand in the backyard.
Your dog stays outside.
Whereas here you’ve got the option to get it a seat on a plane.
It’s kind of wild.
Well, I’m a cat guy.
I didn’t care what happened to the dog, so it’s all good.
We should warn you, in season 2, we kill a lot of cats.
At the end of season 1, it’s like, Let’s go get our dog back.
So we pick up season 2 and they’re trying to get their dog back.
DYER:We had to do that in a satisfying way.
It was tricky plotting.
We know he’s coming.
It was tricky, but we think we did a good job of that.
BRAMMALL:We’re really excited for people to see it.
DYER:We tried to just make season 2 20 percent better in every direction.
PATRICK BRAMMALL:And it’s still the ripple effect of that very first inciting incident.
It’s not like something new happens in season 2.
It’s not like Gordon hits a cat, although I know you would hate that.
Did you guys know you had a season 2 when you shot the finale for season 1?
DYER: No, no, no, no, no.
BRAMMALL:It just felt like a satisfying conclusion.
We’ve kind of given ourselves a job that we’ve written in.
People will just cancel all their subscriptions if theyre not given season 3.
But we didn’t know during season 1.
We thought it could have been one-and-done.
Oh, that’s fun.
Let’s get that character to do that.
I think we put together a good season.
I’m excited for people to see it.
DYER:Yeah, me too.
But we don’t know what we’ll do next if we have to go again.
