As part of the final day of New York Comic Con’s Metaverse virtual convention, the cast and creative team of FX’s vampire sitcom What We Do In the Shadows appeared live (unlike most of the other Metaverse panels, which were pre-recorded) to discuss the first two seasons of the series, the Taika Waititi / Jemaine Clement movie that inspired it, and what fans can expect from the show going forward.
Participating in the discussion were series stars Matt Berry (Laszlo), Kayvan Novak (Nandor), Natasia Demetriou (Nadja), Harvey Guillén (Guillermo), and Mark Proksch (Colin Robinson), plus executive producers Paul Simms and Stefani Robinson. In the bullet-point list below, I’ve collected some of the more interesting tidbits of information to come out of this panel, but you can also watch the full presentation in the following embedded YouTube video.
What We Do In The Shadows Cast & Producers Interview | Live!:
- “What would your characters be doing in quarantine?” Kayvan says Nandor’s relationship with Guillermo would become a little strained, while Harvey says it would be awkward now that it’s been revealed that his character is a vampire hunter. Natasia says the vampires would wear their masks under their noses, and Mark says Colin Robinson would be a no-masker. Harvey thinks one of the vampires was likely responsible for one of the previous pandemics. Colin Robinson would not thrive from working at home, so he would go out and get into arguments about not wearing a mask and get energy from that.
- Harvey says at the beginning Guillermo was infatuated with his boss Nandor and wanted to be just like him, and even though the vampires don’t treat him well, he still defends them. Both Harvey and Kayvan think Nandor secretly loves Guillermo as well, and definitely needs him.
- Matt says it’s not difficult to play music as his character Laszlo, as it was like pitching short demos of songs. He and Natasia had a lot of fun coming up with the songs and performing them together. They put them together all in one day. There was a deleted scene with Colin Robinson getting up on stage and singing / rapping with them. Paul Simms says Colin Robinson will be singing more in season three. He says all the cast members are happy and willing to look silly while shooting the show.
- “What sort of scenes do you look forward to for your character, and what scenes do you like to see your fellow cast members perform?” Harvey liked being able to play two different personalities for Guillermo– one submissive while he is at home working for the vampires and one who is a tough-as-nails vampire hunter. He loved watching the musical episode, and he says Kayvan is hilarious on set and makes him break character. Kayvan enjoys his scenes with Harvey because there’s tenderness there, and he likes the house meeting scenes because there’s always potential for them spinning out into something else. Natasia loves doing talking heads with Matt and acting one-on-one with Matt. She also liked going to the next-door neighbor’s house and interacting with the human women. Matt likes anything loose and improvisational and doing the talking heads with Natasia. He also likes watching the stuntmen doing anything his character is meant to be doing. Mark likes shooting the group scenes because the writers give the actors so much leeway. He loves watching Laszlo deal with Nandor because of how they bounce off each other, and any scene where the vampires are belittling Guillermo.
- At this point the Nadja doll joins the chat but doesn’t know how to take herself off mute on Zoom, so they ask her yes or no questions.
- Stefani talks about debates in the writers’ room like which other mythical creatures can exist in the universe of What We Do In the Shadows. They don’t want the show to feel too ridiculous, but she also admits that that sounds like a ridiculous thing to say. Jemaine Clement is against the idea of leprechauns existing in this world, but Paul Simms says those decisions are kind of arbitrary. “How do they contribute story-wise and how are they funny?” Simms says we meet three to four different kinds of new creatures in the next season. Natasia wants to see Mr. Snuffleupagus on the show. Matt wants Guillermo to find R2-D2 buried in the garden.
- Simms says there’s a bit involving Kermit the Frog in season 3. There’s also a whole episode where the vampires go on a road trip, there’s an episode involving Colin Robinson’s birthday, there’s a theme of Nandor looking for love, and there’s some returning characters from previous seasons including Sean the neighbor.
The first two seasons of What We Do In the Shadows are available to stream via Hulu, and the third season is set to begin production sometime soon.