San Diego Comic-Con may not be happening in person this year, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get to enjoy some fun panel conversations with the creative minds behind some of our favorite entertainment thanks to Comic-Con@Home.
This afternoon’s panel for FX’s What We Do In the Shadows brought together moderator Haley Joel Osment (who also guest-starred on the series in season 2) with cast members Harvey Guillén (Guillermo de la Cruz) Kayvan Novak (Nandor), Natasia Demetriou (Nadja), Matt Berry (Laszlo), and Mark Proksch (Colin Robinson), plus executive producers Stefani Robinson and Paul Simms to discuss the cult hit vampire mockumentary series. In the bullet-point list below, I’ve collected some of the most interesting tidbits that came out of this conversation.
Watch What We Do In The Shadows | Comic-Con@Home 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-bBCUlPHyw
- Harvey Guillén was surprised by the direction of Guillermo’s storyline, as he wasn’t at all expecting it. Guillermo is torn between his destiny and what he’s longing to be and he’s loyal to his housemates despite his calling as a vampire hunter. Guillén started working out when he found out about his action scenes and fight choreography. He’s found that the audience likes seeing him kick butt.
- Kayvan Novak says Nandor needs Guillermo because no one else listens to him, but he doesn’t know why Guillermo would stick around.
- Paul Simms and Stefani Robinson have some ideas about where the show is going in the future, but they’re not allowed to say. They’re very excited for the third season.
- Natasia Demetriou talks about working with the puppet version of herself. She recorded the puppet voice while in lockdown. Everyone else did their ADR from home for the second season as well.
- Matt Berry wrote a lot of music for the nightclub episode, but he doesn’t know what made it in and what didn’t as he hasn’t watched it yet. Demetriou says there were some songs they wrote together and some the writers wrote.
- Mark Proksch says it sucks when you get sick while filming on location. It’s very cold in Toronto, but you just take a lot of drugs. He says doing flying stunts was fun, but a little painful, and the other vampire characters have to do it a lot more than he does.
- As to which vampire is the most powerful, Proksch says it’s relative but Colin Robinson can cause a lot of problems. Guillermo is also very powerful now and everyone else has their own powers.
- They knew Mark Hamill would be a guest star with enough time to cater the part directly towards him. The pool cue lightsaber joke was invented on set by the stunt coordinators. Mark Hamill picked up a pool cue and everyone went “Oh my god.”
- Matt Berry was thrilled to be standing in front of Luke Skywalker holding a melee weapon like that. He says it made him feel seven years old again.
- Paul Simms pays credit to editor Yana Gorskaya who directed two episodes for the first time this past season. “She really came at it with the approach of knowing what we need and what we didn’t need.” Matt Berry says you would have no clue that she was a first-time director.
- The show’s production is nocturnal like its characters, and the snow on the ground is real. Paul Simms says it’s a grueling schedule even though he’s a nocturnal person. Sometimes you don’t see sunlight for weeks until you’re going home in the morning. “It makes you mad, but that’s good for the show,” says Demetriou.
- Haley Joel Osment says he had never seen so many lit candles as on the set of the vampire house. Demetriou says the set is incredible and one of her favorite parts of the whole show. She wants to take it on the road and get people to visit it. Proksch pays tribute to the production designers. Berry says not only is it the best set he’s ever worked on, it’s the best set he’s ever seen. One time Natasia caught on fire because she stopped to take photos in front of a lit candle.
- Matt Berry kept a prop from the necromancer’s hut. Stefani Robinson took a portrait of Nandor with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
- Sometimes the actors will forget to put their vampire teeth back in after lunch before filming resumes and it will make an entire scene unusable.
- Harvey Guillén talked about how his “What We Do Before the Shadows” streaming series came about, and why he started it to share behind-the-scenes details. He did it to add to the show since the episodes are only half an hour long and fans are always left wanting more. Putting his show together became time-consuming for him so his sister jumped in to help him produce and write it.
- Quarantine started right as the post-production team were starting to edit the second season of What We Do In the Shadows, so they had to figure out how to do everything remotely.
- Kayvan Novak can’t seem to stay in the chat during the stream, but Paul Simms says Nandor is lonely and may be looking for love in the future.
- Colin Robinson still doesn’t know how he became an energy vampire, so he might go on a search in season three.
- More paranormal creatures will be introduced in season three, gargoyles being one of them. Also the vampires will get a hellhound to protect them.
- On-set animals have included a goat, raccoons, dogs, a squirrel, and a gecko. They use a rubber bat on a stick when they need an eyeline to match the CGI bat effect.
What We Do In the Shadows has been renewed for its third season on FX.