Interview with Rhys Darby

I remember...

... being the baby of the house. My three sisters and brother were a lot older. I was nine years behind the next youngest, so I felt as if I had six parents. I got a lot of attention. Humour was big in our house; we always saw the lighter side of life. I was the class clown; replying with weird answers to the teachers’ questions. I’d go off on a tangent that made no sense and the other kids would laugh.

... setting up the DICs Club with my mates. It stood for Dangerous Intelligence Commandos. I was the officer, and we had a tent and a flagpole. We would go down to the army surplus store, buy water bottles and maps, then head to a park and set up camp.

We’d go on little tramps and have adventures. I’d say, “Right, there’s been an alien attack” and we’d go into the bush and try to find them. There was a lot of make-believe, storytelling, trying to save the world. I lived in a dream world.

... the excitement of going to the grand old Civic Theatre in Auckland as a kid. To me, it’s the most fantastic theatre in the world. Going to see a movie there was an absolute spectacle. I’d look at the stars studding the ceiling, the giant lions in the alcoves, and this big curtain would come up. I saw great films there, like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series.

To be able to perform my stand-up show, It’s Rhys Darby Night!, at the Civic, and record it for my second DVD, felt really special.

... why I joined the army, and why I left. When I was a teenager, my mates and I watched every war film ever made: all the World War II ones, John Wayne ones, Clint Eastwood ones, as well as Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill.

So at 17, I joined the army – all from watching war films! I wanted to be a jet fighter pilot but I couldn’t pass the physics exams, my eyesight wasn’t brilliant and I was a little too tall to fit in the cockpit. So I thought, Oh well, I’ll be a soldier. I’ll put my helmet on and drive a tank, and parachute in and rescue prisoners from POW camps and get medals.

I became a signaller trained in morse code, but after three years I got lost in the middle of the bush one night and I panicked. Then it clicked: what I really wanted to be was the actor playing the soldier. So I got out. Now I can be anything as long as I follow a script.

... my first stand-up gig. Two comics, Mike King and Andrew Clay, came down to Christchurch to perform. I saw an ad in the paper saying they were doing an open spot and locals could have a go. I’d already been dabbling in comedy writing and sketch comedy at university, so I turned up. I had three minutes and I just came out and did some Frank Spencer impersonations and it brought the house down. Well, a few people laughed. I didn’t see it as a vocation until I realised you could earn money doing it – and that’s only recent.

.. giving up my day job. I was doing stand-up in Edinburgh at night and working at a clothing store by day. Then I went to London and did a couple of gigs at The Comedy Store, a really big venue, and an agent came up to me and said, “I want to take you on”. I came back to Edinburgh on the bus and said to my wife Rosie: “I’ve given up my day job and we’ve got to move to London.” She was pretty angry that I hadn’t discussed it with her, but I was right: within a month I was earning enough every week to survive. I thought, Wow, I’m a proper comic!