I've always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest - who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it. He actually went on an expedition after the Everest climb to look for the Yeti, and they didn't find it, but they found a footprint and some hair samples that turned out to be a goat or something.
Rhys DarbyGreatest American Hero, I really dug that as a kid, because it had an alienation to it, where he was given a gift and didn't know why, and yet he was forced to do something with it and he was very much an out-of-place character who was trying to cope with his own surroundings, and I can kind of relate to that guy.
Rhys DarbyIt's a funny thing because it's what the people say when they come across a ghost situation is that it does freak you out, but then you do get over it - for some reason you're not scared to come across it again.
Rhys DarbyI know as far as things like the Thunderbirds, there's a New Zealand connection. X-Files, my connection there... I mean, it could be zeitgeist. I mean, I'm into the paranormal. I have a podcast about cryptozoology. So it's out there that I'm into weird stuff.
Rhys Darby['Dad's Army' show]was a military thing but also very funny, so it's kind of the two things that I experienced by being a soldier, and I found it very humorous then and there, because of the juxtapositions [and] me and my emotional state.
Rhys DarbyI'm not really a conspiracy nut, but I think if I went down a slightly different route in my life instead of meeting and marrying the person I met, I may have gone down this other direction and got myself stuck in my head with my ideas and my thoughts and I'm into UFOs and paranormal subject matter.
Rhys Darby