Nina Oyama’s balancing act between naughty and nice

When Nina Oyama was first approached about voicing a character in a kids’ animation, she admits she was confused.

“When the team at Photon (the film’s production company) contacted me, I was like, um, have you seen my comedy? I don’t know if I’m the right person for this.”

Oyama, perhaps best known for her roles as ditsy executive assistant Courtney in Utopia and nervous young police officer Abby in Deadloch, or as a panel member on Taskmaster, has admittedly found more of a mainstream audience beyond her edgy stand-up material.

The film is The Pout-Pout Fish, an adaptation of the bestselling 2008 book by Deborah Diesen and illustrator Dan Hanna, about a perpetually miserable fish, Mr Fish (voiced by Nick Offerman), who learns how to have a brighter outlook. Oyama voices the character of Pip, a perky sea dragon who befriends Mr Fish after an accident destroys both their homes.

Pip the sea dragon (voiced by Nina Oyama) and Mr Fish, voiced by Nick Offerman, in The Pout Pout Fish.

“I did say, I don’t know if I’m the right person, and they were like, you are – you have a really good voice for a talking sea dragon,” she says over Zoom from Sydney. “I was shocked! I invited them to my show at Brisbane Comedy Festival – let’s make 100 per cent sure, just so you know, this is the person I am!”

They were still enthused, despite Oyama’s penchant for “pussy” jokes. “And I’m grateful for it – it turns out I’m a four quadrant performer now,” she says, referring to the ability to appeal to every major demographic group.

Once Oyama has mentioned it, her voice does indeed sound cartoony. “A few people have commented that I have a good voice (for cartoons) – people think I sound like … not Bart Simpson, but like a little boy, I guess. Is that a weird thing to say? Like a little stinker, basically.”

As Pip, Oyama is relentlessly upbeat and energetic. “She’s so cute! She’s adorable and yellow and frilly … it was an honour to be voicing someone as cute as her,” she says. “And it’s such a cute story as well.”

The film adaptation of The Pout-Pout Fish also stars Nick Offerman, Amy Sedaris and a slew of Australian comedians.

Despite being a younger kids’ book, there’s a definite philosophy for the under 8s bent to the story. “It’s kind of beautiful. And it’s about like, I guess, having a good attitude and finding your community.” It’s something that resonated with Oyama. “I think I’m a very communal person. When I was a child, I was quite lonely, and I think, when you’re a lonely kid, you turn into an adult that desperately needs attention and people to be around. So it definitely twigged with me.”

Oyama with Dave Lawson in Utopia.

Even though recording her part was a solo affair, Oyama is thrilled to be starring alongside such big names. “It’s incredible to know that I’m in the same movie as Nick Offerman. I’m such a fan of Parks and Rec. I mean, I’m probably never going to meet him, but it’s still amazing. Obviously, the Americans are in LA, but Amy Sedaris and Jordin Sparks as well – growing up I used to listen to her music all the time. It was like a dream come true to be involved in a project that has such big names and then on top of that, like Nazeem (Hussain) and Mel Buttle – it’s also such a great Australian cast.”

But providing the voice for a character is markedly different from standard acting; cast members are rarely in the same room together. Oyama was responding to Offerman’s lines, but it was someone else reading them.

“It was weird, and the thing that surprised me the most about animation is how much I use my face. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m just using my voice, I don’t need to use my face’, but then you’re in the booth and actually, the bigger the expressions you make and the more you use your facial muscles, it comes out differently when you record,” she says.

There was a certain freedom in this, since Oyama says she has trouble “keeping her face still”. “I’m always darting around and reacting. So it’s quite nice to be in a booth and have the freedom to just sort of open my mouth really big or, like, make a shocked sound. It was lots of fun in that regard because there were lots of crazy noises.”

And singing! “Yeah lost of weird fish singing. And I wonder if it made it in but I had loads of screams.” she says. The screaming did make it in. “I won’t do one for you now, but I got pretty good at screaming – if I was attacked in an alleyway, people would hear me for blocks.”

After Taskmaster, people have routinely told Oyama she has a “cute energy”. “People would make these super cuts of me on Taskmaster with that creature from Madagascar, the one with the big eyes,” she says. “I had never seen myself as cute or lovable! People were like, ‘she’s so adorable’ and I was like ‘I’m not adorable – I’m tough and scary!’ But apparently, no one thinks that except for me.”

Is this a new era, a re-branding? “Yeah, I guess I built a brand of being like … disgusting, on the internet,” Oyama says with a laugh. “But hey man, I contain multitudes, you know?”

Oyama had wanted to be a dancer when she was growing up but after a serious injury to her ACL, she spent months bedridden – and watching stand-up comedy. It was a lightbulb moment, and at 17, she performed her first gig.

She was spotted doing stand-up by comedian and writer Dan Ilic, who invited her to appear on his podcast A Rational Fear, which in turn led to a writing gig on the kids’ sketch show You’re Skitting Me at just 19.

After studying theatre and media at university, she worked as an intern on The Chaser’s Election Desk and as a writer on Tonightly with Tom Ballard and since then, she’s balanced her stand-up with TV roles, on-screen and as a writer. She’s just finished work on the second season of the acclaimed black comedy Deadloch, recently performed stand-up at the Opera House, and has plans for another comedy tour in 2027.

Oyama (second from right) with the cast and creators of Deadloch’s second season.Credit: Kane Skennar/Prime

“I have had a bit of a hiatus, as I don’t think I’m built for touring,” she says. “I think I’m getting old. Or just tired. I think my capacity to go around the country doing stand-up is less, so I’m … concentrating on doing more writing and writers’ room because you get to either sit in a room with a lot of snacks and give people your ideas, or you get to sit at home with a bag of M&M’s and type out a script,” she says.

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But she’s in front of the camera a little more in coming months: as well as Deadloch, she has a “very small” role in new Australian series Sunny Nights and appears in the new Gnomes film, back on-brand as a “sexy” gnome.

“With Deadloch, it’s been nice to have access to that audience and bring them into more of my subversive work – I think my taste lies in edgy and more subversive material,” she says. “I love Deadloch for that reason – it really pushes boundaries while also speaking to a broad audience. That’s definitely my flavour when I watch TV and so that’s in the ballpark of things that I want to make – stuff that really does push the boundaries and maybe makes people a little bit uncomfortable.”

But she’s not ruling out more G-rated animation. “I would love to do more voice acting, it was so much fun,” she says. “If anyone in charge of casting Bluey reads this…”

The Pout-Pout Fish is in cinemas from January 1.

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