{"id":827438,"date":"2026-07-27T18:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827438\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:16:12","slug":"the-real-love-story-behind-colin-from-accounts-i-wouldnt-want-to-write-with-anyone-else-colin-from-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827438\/","title":{"rendered":"The real love story behind Colin from Accounts: \u2018I wouldn\u2019t want to write with anyone else\u2019 | Colin from Accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"

It began, as all great romances do, with a nipple flash. When Colin from Accounts<\/a>, the little comedy that could, started airing back in 2022, the world fell in love \u2013 hard and fast. It was a surprisingly prickly Australian show about Ashley, a student doctor (Harriet Dyer), and Gordon, an older, brewery owner (Patrick Brammall), who fall in love after she pops a boob at him, he hits a dog with his car, and they jointly land an astronomical vet bill and a new pet.<\/p>\n

The show shared its name with its furriest star \u2013 full name: \u201cColin from accounts payable, who is working on the big merger\u201d \u2013 and it was as charming as the title suggested, winning fans across Hollywood and the world. That Brammall and Dyer were actually a couple, now married with two kids and a dog (no wheels), just made everyone love the show even more.<\/p>\n

But Colin from Accounts is now ending with its third season \u2013 which some may feel is premature, but undeniably confident. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to flog a dead horse,\u201d Brammall says. \u201cIt definitely feels right.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Dyer adds: \u201cIt is not that the horse is dead yet \u2013 we don\u2019t even want to find it is having trouble breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wrapping their show, which they both also write, has yet to fully sink in for Brammall. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s hit me, honestly,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was lots of mini moments \u2013 \u2018Oh shit it\u2019s the last time I\u2019m gonna do this, it\u2019s the last time I\u2019m gonna do that\u2019.\u201d Dyer, meanwhile, has had three \u201cbig old cries\u201d: \u201cThe last one was when I was in the editing suite and I just looked around at the little grey room and it came out like vomit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season one of Colin was a will-they-won\u2019t-they story. Season two said well-they-have-but-should-they? Season three asks could they again? The new episodes open three years after Gordon made an excruciating marriage proposal to Ashley at a friend\u2019s wedding: Ashley and Gordon have since split up and are dating other people, but are reunited when Gordon unwittingly makes a doctor\u2019s appointment at Ashley\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re actors by trade, so we love pretendies\u2019 \u2026 Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer in season 3 of Colin from Accounts. Photograph: John Platt<\/p>\n

A married couple with a hell of a lot of chemistry playing exes is fun to watch. \u201cAnd it is fun to play,\u201d says Brammall. \u201cObviously, we love playing the stuff where we\u2019re falling in love, but we love having big arguments just as much. We\u2019re actors by trade, so we love pretendies. I had a ball. I think Harri did too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season three has \u201ca slight forlorn quality and an awkwardness \u2013 it\u2019s almost like taking them back to the start\u201d, adds Dyer. \u201cAll tension is good, I think. Yearning. It\u2019s very easy to play that, especially with someone that you know so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Splitting Ashley and Gordon up just seemed like a fun, creative road to go down; the three-year time leap, meanwhile, was practical. \u201cI\u2019m almost 38 and Ash was 30 in the second season \u2013 we had to catch up a little bit!\u201d Dyer laughs.<\/p>\n

The couple have previously said that they have one big fight<\/a> each season. What was it over this time?<\/p>\n

\u201cGolly gosh, I think we didn\u2019t have one,\u201d Dyer says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been having to get very economical with our energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brammall laughs. \u201cThe last two seasons we\u2019ve had one kid. This time we had two and it\u2019s like, who\u2019s got time? Who\u2019s got the luxury of having a big fight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose days are over,\u201d Dyer adds. \u201cNow it\u2019s like, how do I say this in the least offensive way so we can make this butter cheese pasta and put the girls to bed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Happier times \u2026 Gordon and Ashley in season one. Photograph: Tony Mott\/Binge<\/p>\n

It is rare that an Australian show set in Sydney would be completely devoid of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House shots the world expects. This wasn\u2019t a conscious decision; Gordon owns a microbrewery, so Brammall and Dyer made him work in a part of Sydney populated by them: the inner west. But the result has meant international viewers have got a glimpse of a city that doesn\u2019t feel too far from their own, bar the magpie song and gum trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn episode five of this season we go to a beach, but that\u2019s probably the first grain of sand in all the episodes of Colin. Which, yeah, as a Sydney show feels almost blasphemous,\u201d Dyer says. \u201cPeople haven\u2019t seen that side of Sydney, which makes it interesting. Something about terraces and warehouses \u2013 it didn\u2019t feel quintessentially Sydney, which gives it a universality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to sell Sydney to the world, we don\u2019t need to sell Australia to the world,\u201d Brammall adds. He remembers an early attempt to market Colin as \u201ca new Australian comedy\u201d, to which Dyer responded: \u201cDon\u2019t say Australian comedy. It\u2019s a new comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhy are we so quick to brand it as Australian?\u201d Brammall says. \u201cHow about we\u2019re world class and we don\u2019t have to do that? Let\u2019s tell the story we want to tell and the Sydney of it, the Australia of it, can follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are enough local references in there for the home crowd \u2013 the band T-shirts, the soundtrack, the occasional \u201ccunt\u201d dropped by a nana. But they once did get a note from an American executive about using the word \u201carvo\u201d: \u201cThey said, you should make that \u2018afternoon\u2019 so people in America know what we\u2019re talking about. And we were like \u2026 no. It stayed in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Colin\u2019s appeal comes from the palpable sense that every argument, every calamity, every embarrassment, has actually happened to someone in the show. A version of the poo incident in the very first episode happened to Dyer; the jibes about Gordon and Ashley\u2019s age gap ring true too (Brammall is 50, Dyer is 37; a fan once mistook him for her father).<\/p>\n

Even Gordon hitting Colin with his car after being distracted by Ashley\u2019s boob flash: Dyer once walked a pram into a pole after seeing a hot guy. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t my baby,\u201d Dyer says, as Brammall laughs. \u201cI wasn\u2019t a very good babysitter. The baby was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are also the more serious moments, like Gordon\u2019s fertility problems after surviving testicular cancer, which Brammall thinks was an unconscious link to his own infertility, caused by childhood illness. (Brammall and Dyer have two adopted daughters, Joni and Mabel.) \u201cIt\u2019s not until you read it later that you go \u2018Oh I see that connects to something in my life\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cThese little truthful thoughts or feelings or ideas or experiences can float through and generally, if it\u2019s funny or if it feels real, then it\u2019s in the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe touch on taboo subjects that you sometimes wouldn\u2019t dare touch. But we touch them kind of gently,\u201d Dyer says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd always with warmth,\u201d Brammall adds. \u201cWe do the light and the dark thing \u2013 get people laughing and then punch them with something really heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not all gold, but Pat and I are always trying to make it the best it can be,\u201d Dyer says. (Brammall: \u201cOh fuck yeah.\u201d) \u201cWe don\u2019t think that we are authorities on anything.\u201d (Brammall: \u201cOh fuck no.\u201d) \u201cWe\u2019re nervous today because we still care so much about whether people like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

People already love Colin From Accounts, including famous fans Nick Offerman, Lena Dunham, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Richard Curtis and Anne Hathaway; Brammall recently played the latter\u2019s boyfriend in The Devil Wears Prada 2. From such great heights, what does success look like for Brammall and Dyer now? Dyer answers instantly: \u201cbalance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the hours of this life are so demanding \u2013 it\u2019s not really designed for a married couple to leave and come home at the same time when you\u2019ve got little people looking for you,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, success looks like balance and finish reading my book. But we\u2019re definitely going to work together again because I wouldn\u2019t want to write with anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be an amazing life,\u201d Brammall says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It began, as all great romances do, with a nipple flash. When Colin from Accounts, the little comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-827438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}