The comedian and actor takes us through his life in television, including the British sitcom that changed his life and the trauma of 80s Telethons.
You may know him best as Murray from Flight of the Conchords, or Stede Bonnet from Our Flag Means Death, but Rhys Darby is taking time away from the small screen to return to the stage this year. While he loves nothing more than “getting the skinny jeans out and having a jump around onstage”, Darby explains from his LA home that his first tour in 10 years – The Legend Returns – has also come out of necessity.
“I’ve been concentrating a lot on TV and film here in Hollywood, but ever since the strikes, the industry has gone into a weird space,” he told The Spinoff from his LA home. “There were so many streamers and so many opportunities, and now I think they’re all starting to collapse. A lot of it is because of where we are headed with AI – I think we’re turning a big corner with how television is made, and I’m blessed that I’m not just sitting here waiting by the phone.”
He intends to confront some of his concerns about AI and Big Tech onstage, which is ironic for a performer who spends more time than most making robot noises. “It is a funny juxtaposition, because I do love sci-fi tech like robots, spaceships and UFOs. I used to just make jokes about this kind of stuff, but now I have to actually deal with it in my own life. Hopefully my silly sense of humour is just going to lighten everyone up, rather than feels like it has an agenda to it.”
But there’s another motivation for Darby’s long-awaited to live comedy. “The world has been pretty crap since the pandemic,” he says. “Instead of doom-scrolling and looking at the news, you’ve got to keep creating and having fun and being silly and being kind, because that, for me, is the key to humanity. That’s also what makes us that’s different from the rest of the animals – although some of my cats do make me laugh very hard.”
My earliest television memory is… Watching BBC comedies with my mum is a really strong memory for me. Dad’s Army was our ultimate favourite, but there was also Open All Hours, Fawlty Towers, Hi-de-Hi!, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Steptoe and Son, Blackadder. Monty Python’s Flying Circus was my personal number one because of the silliness of that show and how it broke boundaries with comedy and absurdity, it completely inspired me to to become a comedian. That’s really what made me who I am, because I would watch these comedies with these funny, funny actors in them, and I would just feel really warm around them. It definitely inspired me to want to be one of those people one day.
A TV moment that haunts me is… I’m taken back to the Telethons, which we used to have in the late 80s. There were always famous actors that might have come in from America or the UK, and they would be doing something out of the ordinary like taking their shirts off and doing press ups. Sometimes they’d even be kissing, and that’d be weird. Telethons were weird like that, because you’d be used to these actors as their characters, and now there they were as themselves. But then again, adults still call me by my character names, even now.
The NZ TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… I do like the Pixie Caramel one where the guy is lined up against a firing squad, and he asks for a Pixie Caramel as his last request. He takes so long to chew it – because it has the longer lasting chew – that all the guys with their rifles just fall asleep. It’s so funny and silly, I loved that and the Milky Bar kid ad and the Creme Egg ad and the Crunchie Train Robbery ad. I like ads with a bit of action in them.
What I will say is New Zealand makes really good ads, because we know how to be creative with not that much money. Now that I live in America, the ads here are just the worst. They’re really bad and the comedy in them is bad, they are always talking to a really badly animated inanimate object. They obviously put all their effort into their TV and film stuff, and when it comes to the commercials, it’s just really not what we would settle for back home.
My TV guilty pleasure is… I do like period shows. For some of my old army buddies, that’d probably be embarrassing to admit. Basically, I love costumes. Bridgerton, Downton Abbey, the Gilded Age – I’ll watch anything with costumes. I like the time travel aspect of it, imagining that you’re in a different time where there’s no artificial intelligence or cellphones or people doom-scrolling or social media. I think a lot of that stuff is actually the scourge of humanity right now. I like the times where you’d have to write a letter to reach someone, or you’d have to ride on a horse to get somewhere. There’s something romantic about having to wait. We don’t have to wait for anything anymore, I think we’ve lost the joy of suspense.
My favourite TV project I’ve ever been involved in is… It’s a hard one, because Conchords was my first TV show. It was with my mates and it totally blew my mind, because I never thought I’d ever get to America and be doing Kiwi comedy for the world. It really was a huge moment and made my own career flourish, but ultimately I would have to say Our Flag Means Death. Not just because I am in a costume, but because of the representation on that show and the subjects that we dealt with. I think it was done beautifully and set in a time where you had this juxtaposition of horrific pirate violence mixed with silliness, love and kindness. It was a beautiful thing to make, and I’m really proud of my work on that and the work of a huge number of New Zealanders.
My dream TV project to work on is… The original Battlestar Galactica. I would be a new hot shot pilot, like Starbuck, but I’d be funny, and still I’d have my accent. Everyone would be really interested in where I’m where am I actually from, and I’d just say “well, just like you guys, we’re all from Earth, and we’re trying to get back to it”. I think that would be pretty cool.
My most controversial TV opinion is… Remakes: do we need them? Some work and some don’t. There’s some really great nostalgic stuff in the 80s like Magnum PI and MacGyver, which got remade and lasted quite a few seasons, although I dropped out after watching a couple of episodes. But then there are some shows that might have worked really well in the 80s, and you watch them back now and they’re dreadful. There is racism and sexism and all this stuff that is not funny anymore. We’ve changed as humans and we’ve become better, and sometimes it is good to update a concept and make sure that it’s more inclusive and everyone can enjoy it. So actually maybe I think remakes are both good and bad – not very controversial.
The last thing I watched on television is… The Day of the Jackal with Eddie Redmayne. I highly recommend it.
Rhys Darby’s The Legend Returns tour begins in March – click here for more information.