“The last great art form could be live comedy”: Rhys Darby on AI, returning to standup, and branching out as an actor
Rhys Darby has been thinking about change a lot lately. The Kiwi comedian who first stole audiences’ hearts in HBO’s Flight of the Conchords is about to turn 51 and is contemplating the future. Some of the changes are part of broader industry trends. As artificial intelligence sinks its teeth into Hollywood, he’s seen opportunities dry up, and behind-the-scenes workers leave Los Angeles in droves. Instead of sitting back and watching it unfold, he’s opted for a different route. Rhys Darby: The Legend Returns is his first standup show in about a decade, and he’s taking the opportunity to address artificial intelligence head-on.
“I’ve always been a guy that, back in the day, used to do impressions of robots, make light of them, have fun with them,” he tells me in an interview over Zoom. “They’re part of my comedy, and now they’re actually coming into our lives, and it’s kind of scary. As an artist, as an actor in LA, artificial intelligence is also taking a lot of our work away from us. I know there’s a lot of good stuff about AI, but I’m concentrating on the worries that creative people have about AI and how it’s not good.”
Artificial intelligence has been a constant topic of debate in Hollywood for a couple of years now. During the industry-halting strikes in 2023, actors demanded protections against AI-generated replicas of their likenesses and voices, and while some of their requests were met, the technology is already transforming the industry. Darby’s observations on the topic aren’t just the standard list of concerns you hear about in the news. When he discusses it, he is insightful, realistic, and philosophical, especially when it comes to how it all fits in with comedy.
“I started thinking about all this,” he says, “And as a comic, thinking, ‘Can an AI do stand up?’ And, of course, it could, and it probably will in the future. There’ll be robot standups, but I don’t think that will work…the last great art form could be live comedy because it’s the human condition. We want to watch other humans complain about being a human or complain about robots taking away our ability to complain about being a human, and that’s kind of what my show is about.”
At this stage, robots still can’t match the nuances of a human comedian, he explains, because so much of the rapport that a standup develops with the audience stems from intonation and spontaneity. His show is meant to celebrate the things humans can do that artificial intelligence can’t. “Let’s not give our entire lives over to, you know, these tech billionaires who are designing things and just making money off it,” he says. At one point, he stops himself and says, “We’re getting too serious”. But it’s clear that he has a lot to say on the matter.
Another change that Darby has been considering lately is more specific to his own goals as a performer. In 2022, he landed the role of Stede Bonnett, a wealthy Barbadian landowner in the 1700s who leaves his life behind to become a pirate in Our Flag Means Death. He and his crew of misfits are taken under the wing of the infamous pirate Blackbeard (Taika Waititi), and as the series progresses, the two men fall in love. The role was Darby’s first opportunity to play the lead character in a series and explore more dramatic territory. He relished the challenge and decided that he wanted to seek out similar opportunities.
“That was the best part of that show for me, was being able to be the captain and be the lead and prove to myself that I could do it,” he says. “And so that’s kind of what I’m really looking at now. [The] next big job for me is to be the number one on the call sheet. If not, then I’d rather be the number 13… But I’m a big boy now. I’m 50, and I think I can front a show.”
Critics raved about his performance, and the series earned a passionate cult following, but after just two seasons, it was abruptly cancelled. There were crowdfunding campaigns to bring it back on a different network, but nothing materialised. Two years later, fans continue to bemoan its demise and demand its return. When I ask Darby whether it might get a second chance on a new streaming platform, he is reflective but practical.
“You’ve got to move on,” he says. “It’s not coming back, and you can’t just sort of wallow in self-pity. We had two seasons. I only did two seasons of Flight of the Conchords, and that was a show that really made a mark on the comedy world and still resonates to this day. And so I think, you know, Our Flag Means Death will have a similar life. It will always be there”.
He compares television series to paintings, pointing out that you can always revisit them and find new meaning and comfort in them. “I’m very thankful that at least we had a happy ending on that show,” he continues, adding, “That could have been its demise. I have no idea why they suddenly went, ‘Oh, we’re going to cancel this now.’ Maybe if we had had a cliffhanger at the end of that season, then Max might have gone, ‘Oh, God. We’ve gotta do another one. We better do another one.’…But they took it away from us, and it was sad, but like I said, it will live on in our hearts.”
If anyone knows about the potential afterlife of a short-lived series, it’s Darby. His first role as an actor was as Murray in Flight of the Conchords. Fellow Kiwis Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement were the leads of the series, playing a struggling music duo, but as their band manager, Darby and his flair for improv not only drew the most laughs from audiences but sent his co-stars into such fits of mirth that they sometimes had to leave the room.
“Jemaine was the worst at just corpsing and just laughing,” he says. “Sometimes I’d have to do the band meeting to two empty chairs… and I [could] still hear them laughing down the corridor because they were looking at the monitor.”
No one knew whether Flight of the Conchords had any potential in America. It was a low-budget, deadpan musical-comedy centred on two unknown New Zealand comics, after all. However, perhaps because of its complete uniqueness, it quickly gained a small but passionate audience, including in Hollywood, which led to one of the most unexpected twists in Darby’s career.
“I’d literally done one season of Conchords with my mates, and that was my first acting role,” he says. “And then I went back to London after season one, because we didn’t know whether we were going to get a season two. I was living in Tooting, and I got a phone call from Hollywood, and it was [director] Peyton Reed, and he was a fan of the Conchords, and he said, ‘I’m directing a Jim Carrey movie, and I want you in it.’”
The film was Yes Man, and Reed wanted Darby to play Carrey’s boss, Norman. The comedian was dumbfounded. “Really? Me?!” he remembers thinking. “I’ve only just started my acting thing. It’s gonna continue, is it?” Not only would he be working on a major Hollywood production, but he would be acting with a comedian who he describes as one of his idols. “I had to really just hold myself together and put on my big boy pants and get there, do it, work opposite him.”
Ultimately, it was Carrey who made the experience a joyful one. “He was just really lovely with me,” Darby remembers. The Dumb and Dumber star spent most of the production in his trailer learning guitar to prepare for his role, but when he was able to be on set, he and Darby would hang out by the monitors together. “We’d talk about British comedy and his love for Peter Sellers’ work,” Darby remembers, adding, “I think part of the reason that I got through it was that he was such a gentleman with me. And yeah, there I was, acting alongside him and getting away with it.”
Like Carrey, who seemed to move seamlessly into dramatic work with films like Man on the Moon, The Truman Show, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Darby is imagining a future outside comedy in the near future. He names Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan as the two directors he’d like to work with the most.
“I would love to get the opportunity to be part of something dramatic,” he says, “Because I think I can pull it off, and I just want the chance to prove that. I could do a comedic thing, but I could also do something big that’s heartbreaking and quite serious.” For now, though, he’s acutely aware of the broader context. “The world needs more comedy right now,” he says. “So I think I should just stick to my guns and keep people laughing.”
Rhys Darby’s show The Legend Returns is touring all over the UK & Ireland from 31st May 2025. Tickets available here.
