With How To Talk Australians, comedian and actor Danielle Walker joins a proudly eccentric comedy that turns the Australian national character into both the joke and the punchline. Expanding on the viral web series that amassed more than 12 million views, the film follows a group of Indian call centre workers who find themselves stranded in regional Australia, discovering a side of the country far removed from the postcards and tourist brochures.
Known for her sharp observational humour and uniquely deadpan delivery, Walker plays one of the many colourful Australians the group encounters along the way. Ahead of the film’s nationwide release, Peter Gray spoke with Walker about growing up in the country, why Australians are so confident when giving directions they barely understand themselves, and why a little bit of feral energy might be the most Australian trait of all.
Growing up with comedy, was there a particular film, actor or comedian who felt like a gateway into the genre for you? This movie reminded me of those Australian comedies where humour wasn’t afraid to be unapologetically itself.
Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t get to watch much stuff when I was a kid because I grew up in the country. I think maybe just watching my family be insane. Then as I got older and started watching films like The Castle, those kinds of things made me see my family as more comedic. And I guess stuff like Crocodile Dundee was pretty big too. When I was a kid though, I wasn’t really allowed to watch many movies.
Humour often comes from cultural misunderstandings. When you first came to this project, were there moments that felt surprisingly accurate rather than exaggerated?
Well, I actually never read the script. Tony (Rogers, writer/director) just got me to come in and gave me the pages I was in because I’d just finished another job. If Tony asks me to do something, I just say yes. So I genuinely have no idea what the film is about (laughs).
Your character feels like someone who genuinely knows what she’s doing, but she’s also navigating chaos with that uniquely Australian confidence people have when giving directions. Was that something you leaned into? That tendency to sound certain even when you have absolutely no idea?
Yeah, I think that’s just every person here. I’ve been in hospitals a lot recently with family members, and even there it feels like nurses are making stuff up about where to go. You ask anyone in Australia for directions and they’ll confidently give them to you. They’ll say, “Left, right, left, right, around the tree…” because they know you’ll get confused anyway, so they can never really be proven wrong.
I was saying to Rick Davies that Australians seem to become even more Australian when we go overseas. If someone based their entire understanding of Australia on this film, do you think it gets anything right?
I guess what you said about my character, because that’s all I really know. But yeah, I think it gets that blasé attitude right. People here don’t take themselves too seriously.
Your comedy has such a sharp observational quality to it. As a performer, what interests you more: exposing the absurdity of people or finding the humanity inside that absurdity?
I think they go hand in hand. Everybody’s just trying their best to get by. As long as people are kind to each other, it’s funny to point out the absurdity. When I do it with my family, you’re noticing them because you care about them. Giving someone the time and energy to notice them is kind of an act of love. So pointing out the ridiculous things people do comes first, but you can’t really appreciate it unless you’ve noticed it.
You mentioned Tony just handed you your pages and let you loose. How much freedom did you actually have? Was it a case of filming the script and then filming Danielle’s version?
Whenever you work with Tony, he lets you do whatever. He’s like, “Don’t even read the script, just turn up and we’ll figure it out.” He’ll direct you, but he always wants people to have a go at saying whatever they want and being silly. I think he really feeds off that as a director. He’s also good at collecting people. If you watch his projects, he uses a lot of the same actors. I think he knows what kind of humour he likes, finds people with that sense of humour, and then puts them all together.
I also spoke to Ria, and she’s very much the straight woman amid all the chaos. For you personally, do you enjoy letting loose, or do you think comedy is funnier when it’s played completely straight and truthful?
I like realism more. When I’m talking to people in the country, I love their natural cadence. They don’t oversell things. They’ll say the most insane stuff in the most matter-of-fact way, and that’s what’s funny to me. I really like that understated quality.
I have to say, when your character puts the biscuits over her chest and clearly expects everyone to find it hilarious, I loved how earnestly you committed to it. The joke lands because she genuinely thinks it’s going to work.
Yeah.
That ties into something else I wanted to ask. Is there an Australian phrase or habit you didn’t realise was uniquely Australian until someone overseas pointed it out?
I don’t know if it’s a phrase, but a lot of people overseas seem really disconnected from the outdoors. People in England haven’t touched grass in years. They’ve just been inside. There’s not much wilderness there. Australia is still connected to wild places, and I think that makes people a bit feral. There’s a bit of feral in all of us.
The kangaroo stereotype still follows us around the world, and I feel like we just lean into it. If you were appointed Australia’s spokesperson for a day, what’s one expression you’d ban forever and one you’d want the world to start using?
I’d ban the whole “throw another shrimp on the barbie” thing. Nobody says that. As for one I’d keep, there was an old Northern Territory tourism slogan – I thought it was just something my grandad used to say – “If you never never go, you’ll never never know.” I really like that. I wish people explored more.
Because your character works in travel, let’s finish on this: if a tourist landed in Australia having only seen How to Talk Australians, what’s the first question they’re likely to ask her?
Probably whether it’s safe to get on another flight. Isn’t the pilot drunk in the film?
He’s definitely drunk.
Then that’s my answer. They’d probably ask if it’s safe to fly (laughs). And I’d say, “Yeah, baby.”
How To Talk Australians is screening in Australian theatres from June 11th, 2026.
