L-R: Harriet Dyer as Ashley and Patrick Brammall as Gordon in Colin From Accounts, episode 8, season … [+] 1, streaming on Paramount+
Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall are used to people getting confused about Brammall’s role in their series Colin from Accounts.
“We have a lot of neighbors who go, ‘Oh, we’re going to watch the show.’ [Then they look at Patrick] and say, ‘We assume that you’re Colin, right,’” says Dyer.
“Yeah, they think it’s a workplace comedy,” says Brammall.
“Everyone thinks it’s him, going through the trials and tribulations of accounting,” adds Harriet.
In fact, the actual Colin from Accounts is…..a dog.
Set in Sydney, Australia, the series centers on Ashley and Gordon, two singles who are brought together by a car accident and an injured dog whom they name Colin. Now, coupled up, the two find that navigating their relationship is a bit tricky, but they’re committed to giving it go.
Ashley and Gordon are played by real-life husband and wife Brammall and Dyer, who also created the series and serve as executive producers and writers on the show as well.
Brammall says that the couple did actually have a real-life canine inspiration for the series.
“There was a time where we fostered a dog for a couple of weeks. It was her idea. And [the dog] had a name that it wasn’t resonating for us and so, we called him Colin from Accounts.”
Dyer adds that, “And it was pretty much verbatim — the scene in season one, where it was like, ‘He needs a human name, like Colin, Colin from Accounts.’”
Explaining the evolution of the series, Brammall recalls, “Harri wrote the first pilot years ago, and it was an idea that we had, and she just wrote it basically as an exercise, it slowly gathered steam. And when it started becoming obvious that it was going to become a show, we got serious about it.”
After plotting each season, the duo divided up the individual episodes.
“[For season two], Paddy wrote episode one, and then I wrote episode two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And that’s the opposite to season one, where I did odds and he did evens. But we also do like a pass on each other’s work, respectfully. There’s a bit of kind of passing back and forth.”
Working together as real-life partners has its advantages, says Dyer.
“It does become quite efficient, though, because if you’re trying to fix something and then you’re watching TV or making dinner or bathing the kid, you can suddenly go, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be this,’ and you don’t have to drive to the office and explain it to the person or pick up a phone or send an email.”
However, she also says, “Like, that can also be a little bit unhygienic in terms of your brain. But thankfully, we love each other and love the show, so that helps,” then concludes with, “So yeah, there’s pros and cons, but I would say overwhelmingly positive.”
While season one was about ‘will they/won’t they,’ Dyer says that season two is more focused on, ‘should they have?’
“There’s still a lot they don’t know about each other. We haven’t met his family, we don’t know about skeletons in closets, stuff like that. So, there was enough to kind of pace out the season,” she explains.
Overall, Dyer says that the ‘spinal column of the characters and the series’ is that “we definitely wanted to [show] that people are imperfect, love is messy. The amount of times we see this clean version of love, whether it’s film or TV or even like in reality, but, like, people are gross, they do bad things, and…”
“And make bad decisions all the time,” Brammall says, as he finishes her sentence.
“Yeah, they make bad decisions but you’ve kind of got to root for them,” Dyer then adds.
As for working with their co-star, the one who actually plays the title character, Dyer says that his name is really Zak, and that, “He’s just a really good boy. He’s well-trained, got a really good trainer. We’ve literally never had to go again for the dog. Like, actually, he was such a good boy in one of the episodes of season two that I had to ask the trainer to, like, walk around behind the camera, ’cause he looked, like, animatronic. He was just like that.”
‘Colin from Accounts’ is available for streaming on Paramount+
