Patrick Brammall Is Poised to Join the Ranks of Australia’s Great Exports

Colin From Accounts follows strangers Ashley (Dyer) and Gordon (Brammall) as they fall in love after share responsibility for a dog (the titular Colin) Gordon runs over with his car and leaves permanently handicapped. In a funny way. The Australian series was a success in the duo’s home country, a juggernaut in the U.K. and a sleeper hit in the United States. And the fact that its end coincides with an onslaught of other work is not lost on Brammall, whose career, with a few exceptions, has been largely defined by his work in the Southern Hemisphere. “I think we’ve all had a year, the same year, 2026,” he says, when I tally his credits, before surrendering and turning it into a bit. “Yeah, it was mine. You’ve all been having my year. It’s pretty mental, isn’t it?”

Brammall breaks into a few bits over our early October conversation, one where he covers the significance of Colin From Accounts, his daughter’s disinterest in the fact that he voices a character on Bluey and how he still has no idea what was really going on with his character on the bonkers Paramount+ supernatural drama Evil.

You’ve worked a lot in Australia and now a lot in the U.S. as well. I suspect that there are many aspects of television that are done differently. How, in you speaking to like studios and platforms, can you compare the response to pitching a show that starts with a dog getting hit by a car?

Australia and the U.K. didn’t have a problem with it. That’s funny. These two strangers meet at an intersection, she flashes her nipple, he gets distracted, he hits a dog. It’s hilarious. In America… not so hilarious. There’s even a website, doesthedogdie.com. So in when we were pitching it over here, we had to start with, “The dog’s fine and he’s very well cared for.” And you do meet his previous owner at the end of the first season. That guy was an asshole. Colin’s got a much happier life.

The show title obviously worked in the end, but it’s not the easiest sell. Many people assumed it was a workplace comedy. Was there ever any pushback on the name?

There was a bit of pushback. Because Colin from Accounts does not sound like what the show is. Our only alt title was Dog with Wheels, which wasn’t very good either. We liked the name because these two people, in that first episode of season one, what they connect about is naming the dog Colin from Accounts. They have a shared sense of humor. They’re plugged into the same frequency. That serves as their foundation. I think lot of people who found the show either were always going to watch it or just stumbled on it. They watch that first episode and they feel like they’re in on the joke. It does set the tone in many ways. On the other hand, terrible title.

You and Harriet wrote every episode. Have you ever worked in a traditional writer’s room?

Only once — and even then it wasn’t that traditional. I did a show called No Activity for CBS All Access. We did the show in Australia first, and it was just Trent O’Donnell and myself. We created it, and it was largely improvised. We just had outlines. But for the U.S. version, the studio was like, “Hey, we love it! Write full scripts, please.” That’s not really the show, but they’re paying, so we did it. Trent and I ran a writer’s roombut were not very good at it. (Laughs.) People came in and I found it really inefficient. It was a fun time and you’d order lunch and you’d have your Le Croix, but I found it a very inefficient way to write something. Having said that, there were a lot of great ideas that came out of it. It was just so lumbering.

So Colin From Accounts wraps up. You have this well-received dramatic turn in Last Seen. And you were in The Devil Wears Prada 2. It’s a real strong year for you. Have you noticed any previously closed doors opening up?

A couple of doors have opened, and it’s probably a result of the combination of the lot. I know Colin opened doors, because I wouldn’t have the offer for Prada because the writer (Aline Brosh McKenna) and director (David Frankel) were huge Colin fans. I don’t have people smashing the door down, but also that’s a little bit intentional. The last eighteen months have been so crazy. Our youngest is 20 months old. We’re just back in L.A., steadying the ship and just being a family for a minute.

I mean, you’re working in all of these different countries with children who are not at, shall we say, a fun age to travel with.

Dude, tell me about it. Just going back for Christmas to Australia is a siege. Recently, our eldest did something like six schools in eighteen months. She didn’t know where the fuck she was. So when we got back to L.A., it was like, let’s just stop for a minute.

Is is it easier for her to transition into a new school with the clout that her father voices a character on Bluey?

It would be if she accepted that I voiced a character on Bluey. She will not. I tried to tell her once, because I’m a sad man. I’m like, “Hey, do you recognize that voice? Is that dad?” And she just looked at me like, “Don’t ruin this for me.” Like, fuck off, mate. (Laughs.) She has a point. What am I doing trying to ruin Bluey for her? I’ll leave her to love Bluey for as long as she can before I ruin it for her.

I heard that when you sent in your audition tape for Last Seen, you had to have your hands tied to your to your body to keep you from gesticulating. Please explain.

My dear friend Kirsty McGregor, who cast last scene and was the casting director on Colin from Accounts, said “Hey, I’m working on this. I’ve put your name in the mix. They want to see a tape. This is the only tape that’s happening. So everyone’s gonna see it, so don’t fuck it up.” I put it down one morning, sent it off and, a couple of days later, she said, “Look, it’s great. I’ve got some notes. This isn’t Colin from Accounts. Stop gesticulating. Like, just be still. This needs to be a leading man. This is a thriller.” This is is some practical screen acting advice, which I haven’t had for 30 years. So, one Sunday morning, we’re out in the back office and Harriet filming. She’s wearing a dressing gown. I’m doing the thing and I’m trying to be good be still. She says, “Stop flapping your hands around!” Then she takes off the cord from her dressing gown and and ties my hands to my side. And that’s the tape that we sent. Everyone is like, “Fantastic! You’ve got the job.” And I thought, fuck, how can I do this job without a dressing gown cord?

Semi spoilers for anybody who didn’t watch you in Evil, Michelle and Robert King’s Paramount+ drama, but at a certain point… I had no idea what the hell they were doing with your character.

You’re not alone, buddy.

I love this show, but your character is this absentee husband who pops in and out after climbing expeditions. You were never a series regular. And at some point, you’re just locked in some attic getting a sludge transfusion from your apparently satanist mother in law? Did they explain this to you?

That show is so good. And those last couple of seasons, I would just show show up with the script and go, “Well, what the fuck’s happening to me now?” It was such a fun job, because I was recurring, this husband character who comes in and out. So, periodically I would fly to New York and do two, maybe three episodes a season. And I was the absent partner and father of these five three girls? Four girls? There were a lot of girls. Initially, I was very invested in the character. Like, “What am I doing? What does this mean?” Eventually, I was like, “This show is fucking crazy.” It goes mental. I was kidnapped by Michael Emerson’s character. He and and Christine Lahti, they were putting something into me or taking blood out. I can’t remember! And then in the final season, I’m in a mental institution having an affair with Anna Chlumsky.

And then you’re just gone.

I lost track. I had this final scene with with Katja Herbers. She was smashing stuff and telling me what’s what, and I looked out the window like, “I guess that’s the end of Andy’s story.” (Laughs) It was crazy and and the most fun set and story. I really loved it. That show was underrated.

Just curious, now that Colin from Accounts is over, you employed your canine co-star, Zak, for years. Dogs can be a lot like child actors. Are you going to stay part of his life and make sure he doesn’t spiral?

I’ve done everything I can for that dog. Now I just have to let it go. You can only keep a dog out of rehab so many times before you say, “Go with God. It’s up to you now.” He’s off the rails, and he knows it. He’s on a collision course with something and it’s not good. No, Zak is one of the best boys. He was more professional than many of the humans there — so much so that Harriet sometimes we’d have to get like a bit of turkey on us so that looked like he was doing something. He was very comfortable in the wheelchair, but he’d just sit there.