Rhys Darby on his steadfast Kiwi accent: 'It really is my thing'

2:01 pm on 14 December 2024

Kiwi actor and comedian Rhys Darby. Photo: Supplied / Robyn Von Swank

Since his break-out role as clueless band manager Murray Hewitt in 2007's Flight of the Conchords, Rhys Darby has become an in-demand Hollywood actor - who just happens to have a strong New Zealand accent.

Whether it's the cult pirate comedy show Our Flag Means Death, the new animated Netflix film That Christmas or the upcoming Star Trek series, Darby says he will always sound somewhat like the chatty guy from Pakuranga that he is.

"Every job I get here, this is the voice I do," he tells Saturday Morning's Mihi Forbes.

For over 10 years, Darby has lived with his wife Rosie Carnahan-Darby, a talent agent, and their two sons in Los Angeles.

While his own New Zealand accent has remained intact, he says living in California has turned his teenage boys into master code-switchers.

"At school, they're sounding pretty American. But as soon as they get home, they go straight back to Kiwi."

With one son now 15 and the other at college, Darby has more time for live stand-up comedy, which he has done for over 25 years.

While New Zealanders can be Darby's toughest audience for comedy - "I'm like their uncle or their dad or cuzzy bro" - next March, the 50-year-old will bring his new one-man show The Legend Returns to Aotearoa.

Rhys Darby filming the TV show Our Flag Means Death at Bethells Beach (Te Henga) Photo: Samba Schutte

This year, to get the material just right, he has been fine-tuning his jokes in front of enthusiastic American comedy audiences - often fans of Our Flag Means Death - who don't hide the fact they are super excited to see him.

"I've got to sort of calm them down sometimes."

Although in the past Darby's stand-up comedy has been "very scripted", the positive energy of American crowds has freed him up to improvise and go off on tangents.

"I'm really enjoying that free-flowing ability to make up stuff on the spot this time round."

The Legend Returns centres on the story of an artist - much like Darby himself - who is battling to save the world from "Elon Musk's evil robot empire".

While it already feels like humanity is rapidly being pushed out of the way by artificial intelligence, he says, human comedians still have an edge onstage.

"[AIs] don't have the ability to read the audience, to feel the energy in the right way, to react with pausing and nuances and weird tangents that a human brain can do."

New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby hosting the 2023 International Emmy Awards Photo: @chaoticmulaney

When Darby performs for Kiwi audiences next year, he says he will be thinking of his mum Barbara, who died in 2016.

Barbara, who raised Darby in an east Auckland council house, had an amazing sense of humour, he says.

"We didn't have much but she got me stuff somehow - the cheap versions of things - and we were just a really positive fun-loving little duo in this little flat ... I just think that she'll be watching me and she'll be happy."

He has no plans to leave Los Angeles for good, but still misses both the "village feel" and the people of Aotearoa.

"We have a certain sense of humour and it's dry and we also like to rip each other but it's all in good taste. Americans don't quite do that. They don't have a sarcasm thing here as much."

Thankfully the silly self-deprecating comedy that comes so naturally to him has an appeal that is universal.

"I don't punch down. I don't even punch sideways. I kind of punch myself, if anything."

Rhys Darby's The Legend Returns tour dates: