'What We Do in the Shadows' cast takes a walk down vampire memory lane

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When Harvey Guillén first learned that his “What We Do in the Shadows” character, Guillermo, would finally be turning into a vampire, he thought the show was ending.

“They didn’t tell us that Guillermo was going to become a vampire until we had our meeting for the beginning of the year,” the actor recalls on a video call from Spain. “I thought we were going to wrap it, because where else do you go with his character?”

But it turns out the writers of the acclaimed vampire mockumentary did have more stories to tell. Among the storylines audiences will see in the sixth and final season of “What We Do in the Shadows,“ which launched last week and airs weekly on Mondays through Dec. 16, is Guillermo’s efforts to figure out what to do with his life now that he needs to move on from his lifelong dream of becoming a vampire. In the finale of Season 5, Nandor gives Guillermo a choice — become a vampire or return to being a human. He chooses to remain human, but it meant sacrificing Derek (Chris Sandiford), his friend and the vampire who turned him. (Derek is saved, though — he’s reanimated by the Necromancer (Benedict Wong) in exchange for the cash Guillermo paid Derek to turn him — minus $270 he spent on “vampire clothing” from Hot Topic.)

A man in glasses and a dark suit and tie.

“A lot of what this season is about is his efforts to break away and start his own separate normal life and the vampires then following him to quote-unquote help him on his way in the real world,” says “Shadows” showrunner and executive producer Paul Simms. “We had a lot of heavy conversations in the writers room about things like that that had one on in our own personal lives. The underpinnings of it were real things that everyone feels at some point.”

The otherworldly comedy premiered in 2019 and has followed a group of vampires — Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) — and one time familiar Guillermo, who share a Staten Island home. (Guillermo has since moved out of the main house but remains on the property, in Laszlo’s garden shed, “where there is a smell — mildewy.”)

And aside from Guillermo’s efforts to find a real job, the final season will see Laszlo recommitting himself to a forgotten scientific pursuit — reanimating a human — Nadja sating more of her curiosity about humans, Colin seeking out companionship and Nandor possibly finding love where he least expected. According to Simms, the season is meant to be accessible to first-time viewers but features plenty of little details meant to satisfy those who’ve been along for the full ride.

While the showrunner remains tight-lipped about the finale, which, as usual, was written while they were filming the season, he describes it as “bittersweet” and calls it a “happy ending.”

“No one dies,” says Simms. “There’s a sense that life goes on.”

Five mean leaning on a long black table that reflects their faces.

Over the past five seasons, the series — which was based on Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi‘s 2014 film of the same name — has created memorable storylines and characters, developing a vampiric universe that’s transcended the original material. Simms and the “Shadows” cast have been on a farewell tour this year — I spent a day with them at San Diego Comic-Con in July and interviewed them again earlier this month before their trip to New York Comic Con. The actors noted they’d been in touch with each other about how strange it felt to not be heading to Toronto to film this time of year. (Demetriou sat out the NYCC appearance after giving birth to her child.) As “Shadows” comes to a close, the actors and showrunner recount in their own words, edited for clarity and length, memorable moments and character arcs from the show.

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Guillermo learns the vampiric lifestyle is not for him

A man in a black shirt sprawled over a table.

Living among a house full of vampires is Guillermo de la Cruz. Initially introduced as the faithful servant of his master Nandor, Guillermo was later revealed to be descended from a famous family of vampire hunters, the Van Helsings. Guillermo’s lineage was a surprise even to Guillén, who had proposed the last name De la Cruz for his character. He thought it would be emblematic of Guillermo’s vampire housemates’ disregard for him, that they didn’t bother to figure out that the human who takes care of them is named “of the cross.”

“As the only human character on the show, he’s evolving, and he evolved every year, bit by bit,” Guillén said. “He’s not the person in the pilot that you saw in Season 1 and definitely not the last person you see in Season 6.”

After waiting years for Nandor to turn him into a vampire, in Season 4, Guillermo took his life (and death) into his own hands by finding someone else to do it. And in the fifth season, Guillermo had to grapple with how being a vampire was perhaps not everything he had hoped it would be.

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A man in glasses and a patterned sweater looks to his right from a laptop computer.

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1. Guillermo de la Cruz in Season 1 of “What We Do in the Shadows.” (Russ Martin/FX) 2. A bright-eyed Guillermo in Season 6. (Russ Martin/FX)

Guillén: The backstory I gave him is that he was bullied a lot and his escape was these fantasies of being a vampire. There’s all these rules that he was placed in growing up in his household, with his Mexican family, [and] sometimes home is not the easiest place to be honest. I think he was never completely honest with himself.

Simms: In the first season, when we were talking about Guillermo’s character, we all agreed the show would be over if Guillermo ever gets his dream and becomes a vampire. There’s no place to go beyond that. And then, out of the chaos and desperation of [planning out a season in] the writers’ room, we became very interested in what if he finally does get it. We have such an affection for the character, it just seemed natural that he would become a vampire, then realize, ‘I’m not really a killer.’

Guillén: I think it’s a good lesson for everyone in life that sometimes we want something so bad — like 2.5 kids, white picket fence, marriage at a certain age — but some things just are not for everyone. It’s not because you’re not worthy or you don’t deserve it. It’s that the universe has something completely different planned for you that you weren’t even open to because you had your blinders on this narrow road.

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Nandor can’t admit he cares (or let go)

a man in a black blazer with his chin in his hand

The self-proclaimed head of the vampire household is Nandor the Relentless, a fierce warrior who once ruled over a (fictional) kingdom in the Ottoman Empire. In these modern times, Nandor is more of a softie who is often looking for love in all the wrong places.

“I’ve really enjoyed playing Nandor because he does have such a goofy, sensitive side,” Novak said. “It contrasts so well with his exterior of being this great warrior and pillaging and killing and doing all that. But on the inside, he’s quite soft and cuddly and quite childlike.”

Though he does not often show it, Nandor has come to care for Guillermo, his former familiar whose longtime dream was to become a vampire. Even after Guillermo went to another vampire to turn him — which is considered a great betrayal in the vampire social order — Nandor helped Guillermo become human again when he saw he was unhappy.

A man in a red cape looks downward as he adjusts the fastener of another man's cape.

Novak: Guillermo got his wish and it leaves Nandor without leverage over Guillermo. Guillermo doesn’t really want anything from Nandor anymore. He just wants to get on with his life, but Nandor’s not going to accept that because it’s kind of like admitting that he’s been dumped. He needs to invent reasons to still hang about without wanting to admit that he cares, even though he does.

Guillén: They show that two men could be completely friends and devoted to each other and have love for each other and not necessarily have to be sexual. It’s weird because with men, it’s seen that to have a close friendship like that would be questionable. But for women, to have a close friendship like that wouldn’t be. I think that the characters have helped to normalize close friendships between men, where it’s OK to be friends. And it’s OK if there are moments where its like, “Are they?” Because those lines can get blurred.

Novak: I’ve always really enjoyed my scenes with with Harvey. We’ve had to do quite emotional scenes. You’re playing the goofy vampire, but you also get to do these really emotional, almost melodramatic scenes. The trust that we have together with each other makes it easier to really explore these scenes and really nail them. To feel really vulnerable when you’re doing them and not rely on just being goofy or pulling a face. It’s a dysfunctional relationship and I think it’s relatable to a lot of people.

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Laszlo goes on the run

a man in a black blazer with his hands clasped in front of him

Staten Island’s resident British vampire gent, Laszlo Cravensworth is a well-educated autodidact with varied intellectual interests. He’s also one of the most openly libidinous of the vampire housemates, so there’s no telling which way the conversation will turn when Laszlo’s involved.

“The thing that I love the most about the job is being surprised and being surprising,” Berry said. “Even if we were going in a horrendous sort of journey with some of [the improv], we were never discouraged and felt free to run with the material.”

In Season 2, Laszlo goes into hiding in a small town in Pennsylvania after going on the run to escape a debt collecting vampire landlord named Jim (Mark Hamill). There, he takes on the persona of Jackie Daytona and a “What We Do in the Shadows” classic was born.

A man in a purple and black jacket and vest raises a hand as he walks in a gym filled with people seen in the background.

Simms: Everyone always asks “When’s Jackie Daytona coming back?” You think you want him back, but we did it so well the first time, it’ll only be a disappointment if he comes back. I remember when we initially came up with the idea in the writers’ room, how much we were just laughing about the idea of suddenly turning our documentary into a different documentary that was more like “Harlan County, USA.” The idea that Laszlo escapes, the documentary crew follows him, and it suddenly becomes a documentary about this sort of steel town that’s down on its heels and how he brings a new sense of hope to the town.

Berry: I was shown the prop box from that episode, the “On the Run” [box], and there was all my stuff and it looked as if I had just taken it off and put it in there. It was a distant enough memory, but to see that stuff there was quite weird because it did feel like it was only yesterday. I’m just really happy that people responded well to it. [The episode] was really well written, Stefani Robinson wrote that. All the toothpick stuff, that was her idea.

Simms: We’d always said [Laszlo] has some mild human disguise, but [Stefani] was the one who thought of a pair of blue jeans and a toothpick. That’s all it takes for him to completely be in disguise. Stefani also thought of the name Jackie Daytona, which cracks me up because it’s such a vampire’s idea of the most normal American human name. Jackie Daytona and he’s from Tucson, Arizona, which he can’t even pronounce correctly.

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Nadja and her mini-me

A woman with long, curly dark hair holds a doll that looks like her on her back.

The lone woman residing at the vampire house, Nadja grew up as a poor peasant girl on the island of Antipaxos. Now 500 years later, she’s tried her hand at various careers such as becoming a member of the vampiric council — the governing body in the vampire world — and owning a nightclub, always with an eye towards climbing the vampire social ladder.

“She’s a very strong, confident, stupid woman, which is a dream,” Demetriou said. “For humans, if you have to burn your club down for the insurance money, that’s probably going to be a life-altering event in your life. But for Nadja it’s just like, ‘Oh, well, on to the next.’ ”

Having been turned into a vampire at a young age, Nadja seems to be the most curious about humans. She’s also in regular contact with the spirit of her former human self, who now resides in a doll that looks like her. The Nadja doll was introduced in Season 2 but has been involved in plenty of her own storylines since.

A woman in a hot pink fuzzy coat shouting into a microphone and pointing a finger outward.

Demetriou: Everyone’s got a really fun bit in the episode [“Ghosts”] because we all meet our ghost counterpart of our previous lives. When the doll came to set, it was so realistic and amazing. I’m pretty sure there were no plans to have the doll continue in the show. It was seeing it on set and how amazing it was and how it really, in a weird way, fit into the world that the decision was made to keep the doll around. She really nailed it. She went from guest to reccurring in a matter of seconds.

Simms: It was absolutely planned to be just a one-time joke in that episode. Paul Jones, our prosthetics builder, made such a great doll. We just slowly kept adding her to other episodes. There’s also little details that the costume designer Laura Montgomery did, like she’s always wearing a version of what Nadja’s wearing, but smaller. It’s not easy shooting the Nadja doll because she requires some puppeteers and things like that, but it’s just a fun character. So many things on the show were originally one-time jokes that we enjoyed so much that we just kept doing them.

Demetriou: The moment I saw [the doll], I was like “She’s my baby.” But it’s sort of symbolic. It was like loving yourself, loving your previous self — in a doll form. That’s a bizarre thing to say. I found it really easy [to act with the doll] because of the puppeteers, she really does move. It’s not CGI. Her eyes move, her hands move. When they have her walking, they use this rig to get her walking.

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Colin Robinson all over again

a man in glasses and a black jacket next to his reflection

Originally conceived of as more of a one-off joke for the pilot episode, Colin Robinson became one of the core members of the series cast thanks to Proksch’s hilarious portrayal of the resident energy vampire.

“My concern going into the show was that it was going to be a one-note character, which wasn’t that interesting to me,” Proksch said. “After Season 1, I went to Paul Simms, [who] was a step ahead of me and realized that we needed to broaden the world of this character and the jokes that I get to say and the stuff I get to do.”

Daywalkers that subsist by draining the energy of others, rather than blood, energy vampires are an original creation that required the “Shadows” team to establish their own rules and lore to follow as the series progressed.

One rule introduced at the end of the show’s third season is that an energy vampire’s life cycle spans exactly 100 years. On his 100th birthday, Colin meets his gassy death before being reborn as a baby that burst from the abdomen of his corpse. It took all of Season 4 for Colin to age back into a new version of his former self. But Colin’s initial demise was a bit of a surprise even for Proksch.

A man in a tan outfit and baseball cap sits next to a man in dark clothing.

Proksch: [Showrunner] Paul [Simms] forgot to tell me. Paul and I are friends so I don’t think he was worried that I’d think I would be cut from the show. He just simply forgot to let me know that the character I had been playing for three seasons dies. As an actor and even more so as a fan of TV, my first concern was, am I going to ruin the show? But once the scripts started coming in, you realize the writers had it at hand. All I had to really do was figure out how Colin would be in these different stages of life: Colin as a baby or a toddler, then a tween and then a teen and trying to nail each of those without showing the acting and without pushing the joke.

Simms: A lot of that season was inspired by my own children. At the time they were probably 9 and 11. I went on a long walk with them once and I recorded the conversation so I could give it to Mark Proksch so he could know what it’s like when you hear a kid talking on and on about Lego and Roblox and how they could be little energy vampires themselves.

Proksch: I don’t have kids, so I had no clue whatsoever of what any of these reference points were other than Legos. I had to look them up. I would try to get that cadence down as much as possible. I didn’t go to theater school. I’m not a trained actor. So preparation was new to me. It was fun getting that moment of being a real actor doing that.