The cast and crew of What We Do In The Shadows are clearly exhausted. Not simply because they’re at the tail end of months of filming–a production schedule that was already delayed several months because of last year’s various strikes–but because it’s the final season, and the emotional weight of that thought is thick in the air as I sit down for back-to-back interviews with the creatives behind the show.
Yana Gorskaya, an executive producer and director on the show, as well as the editor for the original film that led to the popular spin-off, feels as if she is on the verge of tears when asked how she feels about it all coming to an end. “I just have so much genuine affection for [the cast]. I dearly hope that I will work with them again, but in this grouping? All of them at the same time? That seems unlikely, and it is breaking my heart,” says Goskaya while holding back her emotions.
However, despite all this, everyone working on the show assures the media attendees in the room that Shadows is still Shadows, and while this last run will feature some of the series’ biggest and zaniest moments, there was a deliberate intent to make it feel like any other season that, for the most part, you could jump into and casually watch without feeling that weight. “We really wanted to be careful not to make a final season that was only enjoyable to the 10% of fans who really watch everything,” says Paul Simms, a writer and executive producer. “We didn’t want it to be like, ‘This old character comes back, and that’s all tied up.’”
The sixth and final season of the series will build on the finale of the prior season, in which Nandor’s familiar Guillermo realizes that he isn’t cut out to be a vampire: the whole reason he quite literally shacked up with the show’s bloodsuckers in the first place. “He has to go out into the real world and try to live like a normal person and get a real job,” says Simms.
Naturally, Guillermo’s vampiric roommates tag along for the ride, also stumbling into roles at the same Wall Street institution the former familiar finds himself working for. “Nadja’s costuming is going to be very fun this year,” says Sarah Naftalis, writer and executive producer. “There were a lot of photos of Working Girl printed out, and what would the vampiric version look like? And her hair gets more insane than it’s ever been. She wants the lingo, she wants the small talk, she wants the stocks going up, up, up!”
When asked about her character Nadja’s storyline for the final season, actor Natasha Demetriou waxes poetic. “I just love Working Girl. I get to wear massive shoulder pads and the hair that my Greek family has that I didn’t get. If the hair and shoulders could get any bigger, it did this season,” she says.
While Demetriou’s character is taking over Wall Street, her centuries-old husband Laszlo, played by Matt Berry, finds himself busy trying to make a monster in yet another previously unseen section of the mansion they all live in. It’s a laboratory that, after touring in person, is clearly one of the most elaborate sets the show has ever built, which is saying something for a program that has a near-full manor interior sitting in the studio next door. “This is something he [attempts] every 100 years,” says Berry. “[His lab is] past the basement. It’s past the basement’s basement.”
With Laszlo preoccupied in the basement’s basement’s laboratory, and Nadja busy on Wall Street, you might not be surprised to hear that, unfortunately, the two have fewer scenes together in this final season. “They’re having a row, and they’re not sort of speaking to each other,” says Berry, before turning to Demetriou and asking, “That wasn’t fun, was it?” Demetriou agrees.
This sentiment plays into the emotions of the show coming to an end, Demetriou noting that more and more things are being packed away day by day. “I mentioned casually yesterday to Yana that I was getting my hair dyed for the last time, just to make conversation, and she was in tears,” says Berry.
“There’s a lot of, ‘Don’t… don’t say it!” says Demetriou, feigning a quivering voice.
Despite a layer of sadness hanging over the show, there are a bunch of exciting things that the cast and crew are eager to talk about, such as the episode of the season that features over 300 extras in one scene–the most the series has ever had. “The scale of this show just never ceases to amaze me,” says Demetriou.
During our set visit, we are given a tour of its Emmy-award-winning costuming department, in which we see outfits for the numerous vampires from across the decades and centuries that the extras will be wearing. While the department is filled with rooms upon rooms of elaborately and intricately designed costumes, we are also shown the more simple clothing for the extras farthest from camera; clothing the show simply bought off of the internet and touched up a little, and the first costumes that the team didn’t design themselves, according to head of the department Laura Montgomery.
Another episode this season that proved to be a challenge for the cast and crew to shoot was a meta storyline of a film being shot within the show’s own mockumentary. Executive producer and director Kyle Newachek, who is most recognizable for his performance in the show Workaholics, even plays the fake movie’s director. “I was directing both sets at the same time. It was a real brain tickler to execute. But I really enjoyed that. Really, really enjoyed that,” says Newachek.
Gorskaya, who shares directing responsibilities with Newachek, speaks to some of the challenging episodes that she has helmed this season. One is an homage to Apocalypse Now, with Kayvan Novak’s character Nandor filling in for the role of Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando in the film: a former Army colonel who has gone rogue and is hiding in the jungles of Cambodia. She described another episode as being a blend of Rear Window and Ghostbusters, two films that you would find hard to say had connective tissues. “We have a pretty regular TV budget,” says Gorskaya. “But these crews are so resourceful and inventive that we always manage to pull off these massive things. It’s just planned meticulously, which is the only way we can get away with it on our schedule.”
When Nandor isn’t doing his best Marlon Brando impression, his character will be working as a janitor at Guillermo’s office. “It gives him purpose, and he enjoys making minimum wage,” says Novak. “He’s cleaning the office, but also keeping an eye on Guillermo as well. He’s kind of like a guardian angel, whilst at the same time basically just embarrassing Guillermo. Guillermo’s trying to move on, but he won’t let him.”
Between interviews, the media attendees are able to watch the cast do takes of a scene for the season’s premiere, which focuses on an old vampiric friend of theirs, Jerry, played by Patrick Michael O’Brien, questioning why the group hasn’t taken over the “new world” yet. The numerous takes of the gang trying to answer that question displays just how much improvisation goes into the show, with each vampire doing something different, but equally funny, each time.
Speaking to the improv, Novak reveals the biggest change between filming Shadows now and when he started. “I definitely wouldn’t have done [improv] during the pilot,” says Novak. “Now I feel more comfortable, confident, and relaxed. You find a lot more things to worry about earlier on, whereas now it just feels like playtime.”
Of course, fans of the show know that there aren’t three, but four, vampires living under the same roof. Colin Robinson, an “energy vampire” that feeds off of literally boring people to death, is also being interrogated by Jerry for failing to do very much of anything over the last several decades. Robinson’s actor Mark Proksch speaks to the improv of the show as well, equating it to his time on The Office, where he played Dwight Schrute’s cousin Nate. “You want to hit your lines for the first two or three takes, and then go from there,” says Proksch. “It’s definitely the writing that makes the show, [the improv] is just the cherry on top.”
Proksch also speaks to his character’s arc in the final season, which involves Colin Robinson looking for genuine companionship, something that is hard for a character that has to bore people to survive. “Colin wants a friend! And I think that’s a natural conclusion [to his story],” says Proksch.
Needless to say, it sounds that Shadows is trying to toe the line between making just another season and a final season with storylines that will satisfy characters arcs, while literally going out with a bang, depending on how much that one episode borrows from Apocalypse Now. Regardless of how it all plays out, with the emotions that are running through the cast and crew as they approach that final curtain, it is clear that the show has already left the shadow of the film that bore it, taking on a life of its own as it steps into the light.
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