W e formulate hydrodynamic equations and spectrally accurate numerical methods for investigating the role of geometry in flows within two-dimensional fluid interfaces. To achieve numerical approximations having high precision and level of symmetry for radial manifold shapes, we develop spectral Galerkin methods based on hyperinterpolation with Lebedev quadratures for L 2 -projection to spherical harmonics. We demonstrate our methods by investigating hydrodynamic responses as the surface geometry is varied. Relative to the case of a sphere, we find significant changes can occur in the observed hydrodynamic flow responses as exhibited by quantitative and topological transitions in the structure of the flow. We present numerical results based on the Rayleigh-Dissipation principle to gain further insights into these flow responses. We investigate the roles played by the geometry especially concerning the positive and negative Gaussian curvature of the interface. We provide general approaches for taking geometric effects into account for investigations of hydrodynamic phenomena within curved fluid interfaces.presents some significant challenges in the manifold setting [61]. For instance in a two-dimensional curved fluid sheet the equations must account for the distinct components of linear momentum correctly. The concept of momentum is not an intrinsic field of the manifold and must be interpreted with respect to the ambient physical space [61]. For instance, when considering non-relativistic mechanics in an inertial reference frame with coordinates x, y, z, the x-component of momentum is a conserved quantity distinct from the y and z-components of momentum. An early derivation using coordinate-based tensor calculus in the ambient space was given for hydrodynamics within a curved two-dimensional fluid interface in Scriven [88]. This was based on the more general shell theories developed in [28,110]. Many subsequent derivations have been performed using tensor calculus for related fluid-elastic interfaces motivated by applications. This includes derivation of equations for surface rheology [25,63,64], investigation of red-blood cells [89], surface transport in capsules and surfactants on bubbles [30,75], and investigations of the mechanics, diffusion, and fluctuations associated with curved lipid bilayer membranes [18,23,39,79,80,84,92,95,101]. Recent works by Marsden et al. [45,61,109] develop the continuum mechanics in the more general setting when both the reference body and ambient space are treated as general manifolds as the basis for rigorous foundations for elasticity [45,61]. In this work, some of the challenges associated with momentum and stress with reference to ambient space can be further abstracted in calculations by the use of covector-valued differential forms and a generalized mixed type of divergence operator [45,109]. A particularly appealing way to derive the conservation laws for manifolds is through the use of variational principles based on the balance of energy and symmetries [61]. This has rec...