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Harriet Dyer takes my call while on a brisk morning walk through Sydney\u2019s Centennial Park. In the distance, her husband, fellow actor Patrick Brammall, walks with their four-year-old daughter, Joni, and dog, Walter, who has also made the trip from their LA base (their baby, Mabel,
is being cared for at their temporary Sydney home).<\/p>\n
For the past nine weeks, Dyer, 37, has been head down in an editing suite wrapping up season three of the hit comedy series Colin from Accounts, in which Brammall, 50, also stars and which the couple created<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been the maddest 18 months. Last year, while making workplace comedy DMV<\/a> in minus-20 degrees in Montreal, Canada, she was also writing the new season of Colin during filming breaks. Then it was off to Sydney to shoot the Australian hit series, in which she plays medical student Ashley Mulden opposite her husband, who plays bar owner Gordon \u201cFlash\u201d Crapp.<\/p>\n The career Dyer has long wished for is happening in real time, but she admits the hectic schedule of raising a family, chasing work goals and being present is hard to keep a handle on when you can\u2019t clone yourself. \u201cI saw an interview once where someone said that you can have it all, you\u2019ll just be really tired,\u201d says Dyer. \u201cAnd that\u2019s something I deeply feel because it\u2019s very true.\u201d<\/p>\n With frequent trips between LA and Australia and two kids under five, Dyer suddenly felt she was navigating some very choppy waters. Add the fact that Brammall took off to film the TV series The Dispatcher in Melbourne just 12 days after Mabel\u2019s arrival and it\u2019s easy to see how diary notes, calendar syncs and time-management apps can\u2019t relieve all the strain when life\u2019s throwing multiple balls at once. For now, coffee is a great pick-me-up.<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been many tabs open in my head in the last 18 months, and all I\u2019m craving is to just be a mum again,\u201d says Dyer. \u201cBut when it comes to being an actor, it\u2019s feast or famine; you just have to roll with it when it comes your way. Any time I felt like I was drowning with work, I\u2019d say to myself, \u2018This too shall pass.\u2019 Everything is temporary, and I know what it\u2019s like to be an actor who doesn\u2019t have work.\u201d<\/p>\n What neither Dyer nor her husband could have anticipated is the effect Brammall playing Anne Hathaway\u2019s love interest in The Devil Wears Prada 2 has had, making them Australian TV\u2019s \u201cIt\u201d couple. Dyer says the attention on their personal lives makes her uneasy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely noticed a big shift in people pointing and whispering about us since Paddy did The Devil Wears Prada 2 \u2013 and it happens every time we go out,\u201d says Dyer, who\u2019s sporting a Hilary Duff merch hat with the initials \u201cHD\u201d, the same as her own. \u201cThere\u2019s been an uptick in sloshy journalism about us, where anything we do is suddenly an article. That really stresses me because I am a very private person.\u201d<\/p>\n She reflected on the strangeness of it all in one particularly amusing Instagram post in which she spliced footage of her husband walking arm-in-arm with Hathaway at a red-carpet premiere with a clip of herself at home, with a screaming baby, watching him on the TV.<\/p>\n Ever since Dyer and Brammall wrote Colin from Accounts in Los Angeles (she secured a green card in 2017), life has been full throttle. Little did she know that a show that features a nipple flash and a dog being hit by a car in its first episode would become the success story it has.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t expecting anything from season one \u2013 we simply worked our butts off and people had such a strong response to it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen it came to write season two, we did feel a little scared if we didn\u2019t do it well \u2013 what would happen? We\u2019ve approached the new season with a blind confidence, agreeing not to change the formula.\u201d<\/p>\n The upcoming season will dive straight into the messy aftermath of Gordon\u2019s disastrous drunken proposal. As in previous seasons, it will test whether Ashley and Gordon truly belong together, or if their beloved dog Colin is the only thread keeping them going. (Last week, the pair confirmed that season three will be the final instalment of the show.)<\/p>\n Colin isn\u2019t the first time Dyer has worked with Brammall. In 2012, they appeared in the comedy A Moody Christmas, but didn\u2019t begin dating until 2017. They became engaged and married in 2021, the year they adopted Joni. Then, in February 2025, they welcomed baby Mabel. Their path to adoption follows Brammall\u2019s experience with infertility due to a childhood illness, a topic he has spoken openly about and one the couple chose to weave into Colin.<\/p>\n Born and raised in Townsville, Dyer is one of three children born to a lawyer father, Mark, and legal secretary mother, Diane, who loves to write poetry and plays the piano. Her elder sister, Madeleine, returns to direct four episodes of Colin while her younger brother John, a high-school teacher, has a cameo role.<\/p>\n This family affair goes back to childhood, when Dyer and her sister begged their father to be allowed to audition for a local production of Annie. \u201cI remember Dad sitting us down and saying, \u2018Girls, there are a lot of talented kids in Townsville. Don\u2019t expect too much, or to even get the roles.\u2019 My sister ended up getting the part of Annie, and I got Molly, which are like the two biggest kid roles.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up in tropical Queensland, Dyer preferred the theatre to the beach. \u201cI burn in about five minutes in the sun up there; I am Celtic \u2013 blue as a human \u2013 and Mum is very tanned. My friends wanted to go and sunbake after school and I\u2019d stay home to play on the computer. I am not for the ocean, it\u2019s too sandy.\u201d<\/p>\n Dyer\u2019s close connection with family means she can count on them to help with the kids, even coming to LA when necessary. \u201cJoni is 4\u00bd and needs us more now than she did as a newborn,\u201d says Dyer. \u201cLeaving her when we are shooting puts a tear on my heart. [When we were making Colin] I\u2019d leave in the dark and return in the dark \u2013 I had to do it because it\u2019s our show. I kept telling myself it would soon be over.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we get back to LA, we\u2019ll put her in a structured school. She\u2019s had four schools, four bedrooms, four sets of friends in the last 16 months. It\u2019s not something we want to keep doing to her because Melbourne, Montreal, Sydney, LA \u2026 That\u2019s just been weighing on me as a mum.\u201d<\/p>\n While in the middle of \u201chaving it all\u201d, Dyer realised she needed to see a therapist to help her navigate the juggle, and all the feelings it brings with it. \u201cTherapy has been hugely helpful because self-care has gone out the window \u2013 I put it all into the kids,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd when I catch my reflection, especially when I\u2019m not shooting, I notice that my hair is oily. I try to shower at night because sometimes I forget to make time for me.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cAll I know is that when I work so much, I go into survival mode,\u201d she adds. \u201cAnd my therapist has taught me that self-care is family care \u2013 then I can be the best mum, the best wife and the best \u2018Harri\u2019. There\u2019s not some major trauma I\u2019m trying to work through; I am trying to unstick a few sticky parts. No one grows up with no suffering \u2013 that\u2019s what makes us human.\u201d<\/p>\n While Colin from Accounts helped make Dyer a household name in Australia, she\u2019s itching for the next adventure \u2013 writing a feature film with Brammall. \u201cColin is the only thing I\u2019ve ever written, and it\u2019s the only thing that\u2019s made me a writer,\u201d she says. \u201cThese wonderful producers have been very patient with us, so once we\u2019re back in LA we\u2019ve got to write that movie. We\u2019d like to try something dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n Styling: Nadene Duncan. Hair: Brad Mullins. Make-up: Heidi Scarlett King. Fashion assistant: Tanishka Pothiwala. Stockists: Bianca Spender<\/a>; Cushla Whiting<\/a>; Esse Studios<\/a>; Petite Grand<\/a>; Zara<\/a>.<\/p>\n Season three of Colin from Accounts premieres on Binge on July 27.<\/p>\n![\"Bianca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a9b22383266d74afc47675c1eafd3f1ced19b83f.jpeg\")
Bianca Spender coat and trousers. Asics trainers.Corrie Bond<\/p>\n![\"Bianca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/7d8aa648bcaf13db2e4a21990e899ae4cb80c7eb.jpeg\")
Bianca Spender dress. Zara boots.Corrie Bond![\"Esse](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/cee5da9545f86a7a4628b0574abd487ff48ff0c4.jpeg\")
Esse Studios dress. Petite Grand x Nadene Duncan earrings.Corrie Bond<\/p>\n![\"Scanlan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/d4d36798c0f79982538ad9fc52df5d5202adc1e8.jpeg\")
Scanlan Theodore shirt. Zara jeans.Corrie Bond<\/p>\n![\"Zara](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/d28a3daea18c644b90d962b97536aa6243d40eb6.jpeg\")
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