Rhys Darby: Out of character

“Don’t call him Murray, don’t call him Murray, don’t call him Murray….”

Rhys Darby has become so synonymous with his role in HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, where he gave a pitch-perfect performance as Murray Hewitt, the band’s incompetent and naïve manager, that it’s easy to forget that this is only one string to the Antipodean’s increasingly taut bow. Very much in demand after the sitcom’s success, he’s now running from one career commitment to another, from film to television, to his recent return to stand-up. I catch up with him in London, in a taxi between appointments, having performed sold-out gigs at such illustrious venues as the Bloomsbury, which he calls a “wonderful, wonderful room,” and Shepherd Bush Empire – “very rock and roll.”

This will in fact be Darby’s sixth Fringe, though his stock has risen so rapidly post-Conchords that it will be the first time many audience members have seen him live. Previously, Darby lived in the UK for five years and made his way, he says, as “a novelty act, really, on the circuit.” At Edinburgh, he was pulling audiences of “12 people, eventually reaching the dizzy heights of, you know, 80!” He laughs a wheezy and self-conscious laugh, seemingly a habitual tic when he’s said something unexpectedly funny. Then, his stand-up was a very different proposition from his understated performance on the TV series, incorporating energetic “physical storytelling” (some would call it mime), and some truly impressive sound effects. The latter were produced using only his own, biological vocal apparatus, but sounded uncannily like the helicopters, machine guns, cars and sunroofs that he would imitate. This unusual skill came from “a lot of alone time, as a child,” he says.

“I’ve always been very good at entertaining myself. I think it’s because I was the youngest child, and all the other kids were a lot older than me, so I spent a lot of time in my room, kind of making up noises and things, for my cars, and helicopters, and I just ended up getting really good at it, without really thinking about it. And when I got a microphone, you know, I just amplified it all, and I was kind of surprised that most people can’t do it – or, you know, don’t even want to do it!"

He laughs self-consciously again. He’s aware that the sound effects are “a bit geeky,” and that mime currently gets a bit of a bad rap on the comedy scene. “Mime and physical theatre were there from the beginning of time, of entertainment, and I think they’ll be there through the end,” he says. “It will be popular, then it will be unpopular for a while, but it’s kind of a base level of humour – and something not everyone can do well.” Even so, he’s “definitely toned it down a bit” for the new Fringe show. “There’s a lot more dialogue-driven kind of stuff. That’s probably just due to getting older and not having to run around like a madman on stage any more, like I did when I was in my mid-20s, to get attention."

He may also be bearing in mind the popularity he’s enjoyed as Murray, which fits more into what he describes as “the awkward style of humour that’s been the kind of popular norm at the moment, with The Office, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and all that kind of awkward pauses and stuff.” He’s since branched out into more character comedy, creating some web-only short films of himself playing “very different little unique New Zealand characters,” which share the sort of naïvety and lack of self-awareness that made Murray so endearing. The characters play a part in the new show. Park Ranger, “man’s man” and overall bumbling fool Bill Napier acts as Darby’s “security guard” for the tour and opens the set, whilst amateur whale-watcher Ron Taylor and obsessive UFOlogist Steve Whittle, who has “a dark secret that’s a bit inappropriate,” also put in an appearance.

It was Darby’s long periods of time spent away from home—in the UK and now the US—that made him want to start exploring these different Kiwi archetypes. “You can really look back at your country and get a completely different scope on how the people are,” he says. “When you’re living with them and amongst them, you’re just part of them, but when you look back from a distance you can pinpoint characters and abnormalities and funniness that they wouldn’t really see.” Is the fundamental awkwardness of his characters something that Darby suffers from himself? “I don’t know, I’ve always thought I was quite confident,” he says with some conviction. “But I find myself getting into situations a bit like Frank Spencer would, you know in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. I remember watching that character when I was growing up, and finding myself being more and more like him without even trying… the sort of, constant mishaps, the being alone and talking to himself a lot, and trying but always failing.

Given this clumsy image, it comes as something of a surprise that Darby was once in the army. He joined immediately after leaving school and “loved it, because I was only 17 and it was running around in the bush with guns, hanging out with mates and digging tunnels and stuff.” He says it “hardened [him] up” and made him “a strong individual,” but even so, after three years, he decided he wasn’t cut out for it. “I was sort of immature,” he says, and “it was sort of like I was joining the Scouts but I was a bit older, and I joined the real thing by mistake. I think if I got dropped in behind enemy lines, I probably would have just fainted."

What Darby actually wanted to do, he says, “was probably be the actor, playing the soldier, rather than actually be the soldier.” He formed a comedy duo, Rhysently Granted, with fellow Kiwi Grant Lobban in 1996 and has never looked back. His stand-up has always been quite actorly, he says, and it “was always sort of a means to get to the acting, to get on to television and film, because I grew up loving Monty Python, and Peter Sellars, and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, and things like that, so that’s where I wanted to be.” Now 35, he’s now beginning to get there. He’s had roles in the US film Yes Man with Jim Carrey, which was “my foot in the door in Hollywood,” and in the less successful British effort The Boat That Rocked, a Richard Curtis vehicle that met with general critical scorn and a disappointingly low box office. The latter hasn’t damaged him, he said “because it wasn’t so much of a disaster, and my role in it wasn’t so significant,” and he’s just finished filming his first lead role in Coming and Going, due for release in 2010. “I’ve been lucky,” he says, “I’ve been in such an awesome sitcom, which, you know, you can’t really top that. And then everything else sort of flows from that. So the next chapter will be Rhys Darby in a TV show, or a film, sort of on his own, leading it. And whether we’ll keep running with him, or whether we’ll go: ‘oh yeah, he’s not bad, but he’s better when he’s with the other two..."

He laughs his wheezy laugh. He’s arrived at the BBC building where he’s giving his next interview, and it’s time to wrap this up. “Thanks Murray,” I say, “and good luck with the show.” Shit. “Thanks man,” he says graciously, having either not noticed or decided to let it slide. “I’m really looking forward to getting up there and, um – rocking it out!”