Harriet Dyer
Dyer is an Australian actress who spent years being the best thing in other people's shows before she went and wrote her own. Love Child, from 2014 to 2017, was the period drama that established her at home. No Activity, running from 2015 to 2018, was the two-hander comedy where the timing got sharp, the sort of show that teaches an actor to build a joke out of nothing but a parked car and a conversation.
Then came the American attempt, which is a genre of career in itself. The InBetween in 2019, American Auto from 2021 to 2023, DMV from 2025: three network series, none of which became the thing that makes a career, all of which put her in front of a much larger audience.
Her way out was to make the show herself. Colin from Accounts, from 2022, is co-created and co-written with her husband Patrick Brammall, who also co-stars, and it manages something almost no romantic comedy does: both people are genuinely difficult, in specific, funny, recognisable ways, and the dog is the plot.
On film she is best known for The Invisible Man, where she plays the sister, the one who has to decide whether to believe an impossible story. She is also very good in Killing Ground, an Australian thriller far nastier than her comedy work would lead you to expect.
Movies (3)
TV (8)
Where to start with Harriet Dyer
Colin from Accounts is the answer for almost everybody. Short episodes, two seasons, a premise involving a car, a moment of nudity and an injured dog, and a script much sharper about how adults actually flirt than that setup suggests. Dyer wrote it, and you can tell: her character has edges a staff writer would have sanded off.
Then split by mood. For comedy, No Activity is the original Australian version, a stakeout show made almost entirely of dead air and digression, and American Auto is the American workplace sitcom she landed in.
For the opposite, The Invisible Man is the mainstream thriller and a good one, with Dyer doing the hardest job in it, while Killing Ground is the bleak Australian survival film, for viewers with a strong stomach.
Love Child is where the Australian audience first noticed her; The InBetween and DMV are for completists.