What We Do in the Shadows (TV series)

• Kayvan Novak as Nandor the Relentless, once the bloodthirsty leader of the fictional kingdom of Al-Quolanudar in Southern Iran. As the oldest vampire, he is the self-proclaimed leader of the group, and as such frequently calls house meetings for frivolous discussions. Although he genuinely cares for his human familiar Guillermo, he has difficulty expressing it.
• Matt Berry as Laszlo Cravensworth, an English nobleman vampire who was turned by Nadja and is now married to her. He is often preoccupied with thoughts of sex and is a former porn actor. He also enjoys making topiary sculptures of vulvas in the yard, including those of his wife and mother.
• Natasia Demetriou as Nadja, a Romani vampire who turned Laszlo into a vampire and later married him. She is frequently frustrated with her male housemates and nostalgic about her human life. She has entertained an affair with a reincarnated knight named Gregor for hundreds of years, only for him to be decapitated in every reincarnation.
• Harvey Guillén as Guillermo De la Cruz, Nandor's long-suffering Latino familiar. Despite his frustration with his unreasonable workload and Nandor's disregard for his mortality, he has served his master for 11 years in the hope of being made a vampire, a dream inspired by Armand in the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire. Late in season one, Guillermo discovers that he is a descendant of the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, and he proves to be very skilled at killing vampires, giving him conflicting feelings about his desire to become a vampire.
• Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson, an energy vampire who lives in the basement. He lives by draining humans and vampires of their energy by being boring or frustrating. As a "day walker" who is not harmed by sunlight, he is able to work in a cubicle office and feed on his coworkers' frustrations. Unlike the others, he shows no outward sign of vampirism except that his irises glow when he feeds on energy, and his reflection shows a pale version of himself. The others are continually annoyed by him and often try to avoid associating with him.[6]

• Doug Jones as Baron Afanas, an ancient vampire from the Old Country who believes vampires should rule the world. Both Nadja and Laszlo had secret affairs with the Baron despite his lack of genitals. Later is disclosed that he is not actually a Baron, but simply "barren" because he was unable to have children. In season one, Guillermo inadvertently kills the Baron by opening the door, exposing him to sunlight and thus incinerating him.
• Beanie Feldstein as Jenna, a LARPer and virgin who Guillermo lured for the vampires to feast on. She was later transformed by Nadja into a vampire when she witnessed Jenna being treated poorly by her peers. During her vampire training with Nadja, she discovers she has the rare ability to turn invisible, which fits the tendency of people to ignore her. (season 1)
• Jake McDorman as Jeff Suckler, a reincarnation of Nadja's former human lover, Gregor, a knight who has been killed by decapitation in each of his lives. Nadja eventually restores Jeff's memories of his previous lives so that he can be more like his former self, leading to him falling into insanity and being committed to a mental institution. It is later revealed to Nadja and Gregor that Laszlo had been causing each of his deaths through history, which he does again. (season 1; guest season 2)
• Anthony Atamanuik as Sean, the human next-door neighbor. He sometimes witnesses Laszlo doing something vampiric, but is easily hypnotized into forgetting everything. The vampires spare him because he brings their trash cans in when they forget. (season 1; guest season 2)
• Veronika Slowikowska as Shanice, Jenna's college roommate who witnesses her transformation into a vampire, and later joins the Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area, a secret team of amateur vampire hunters.
• Haley Joel Osment as Topher, Nadja and Lazlo's familiar who is accidentally killed and revived as a zombie. Unlike Guillermo, Topher has no interest in becoming a vampire. He is energetic, fun-loving, and charismatic, and is well-liked by all other members of the household. (season 2)

• Nick Kroll as Simon the Devious, a vampire who rules over the Manhattan vampires and owns the Sassy Cat nightclub. He was a close friend to the Staten Island trio when all the vampires first arrived in America. He is obsessed with Laszlo's cursed hat made out of witch skin. (season 1–present)
• Mary Gillis as June, Nadja and Laszlo's familiar. She appears to be an ill old woman that communicates through grunts. She is killed when the Baron sucks all her blood when he arrives on Staten Island. (season 1)
• Hayden Szeto as Jonathan, a LARPer college student that Guillermo lured for the vampires to feast on. However, Colin beat them to it by draining his energy instead. (season 1)
• Gloria Laino as The Baron's Familiar. She is keeping a silent, watchful eye on the vampires of Staten Island as her master awakes. Guillermo says that she pops out of nowhere and hears "everything". (season 1)
• Marceline Hugot as Barbara Lazarro, the madam president of the Staten Island Council. She was going to be the vampires' way of taking over Staten Island until Laszlo left a pile of dead raccoons on her doorstep in an attempt to win her trust, resulting in her believing it was a form of terrorist threat. (season 1)
• Vanessa Bayer as Evie Russell, Colin's new co-worker. He soon discovers that she is an advanced form of energy vampire — an emotional vampire — who feeds off of the pity and sadness generated by her outlandish stories of suffering and misfortune. She and Colin date for a short time, feeding together on bored and pitying humans, until he begins to feel the relationship is unhealthy. Her first name is a homophone of "E.V.", for Emotional Vampire.(season 1)
• Arj Barker as Arjan, the pack leader of the Staten Island Werewolf Support Group. He entered into the truce between his kind and the vampires (which was created in 1993). (season 1)
• Jeremy O. Harris as Colby, a human familiar to Dantos the Cruel and Radinka the Brutal, two 400 year old vampires who appear to be children while Colby portrays as their father. (season 1)
• Kristen Schaal as The Guide (also known as the "Floating Woman"), an envoy of the Vampiric Council who likes to float and sometimes speak in a demonic voice. (season 1)
• Dave Bautista and Alexandra Henrikson as Garrett and Vasillika the Defiler, vampires imprisoned by the Council after Garrett was framed by Laszlo for turning a baby into a vampire (which is very illegal), and Vasillika for too much defiling. (season 1)
• Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, and Jemaine Clement reprise their roles as Viago von Dorna Schmarten Scheden Heimburg, Deacon Brucke, and Vladislav the Poker from the original film. Three vampires arrived from New Zealand to participate in the Vampiric Council.[lower-alpha 1]
• Tilda Swinton as Tilda, the leader of the Vampiric Council.[lower-alpha 2] (season 1)
• Evan Rachel Wood as Evan the Immortal Princess of the Undead, a member of the Council who just goes by her first name.[lower-alpha 3] (season 1)
• Danny Trejo as Danny, a Hispanic tattooed member of the Council. He has an open dislike towards Wesley.[lower-alpha 4] (season 1)
• Paul Reubens as Paul, a member of the Council.[lower-alpha 5] (season 1)
• Wesley Snipes as Wesley the Daywalker, a half-vampire member of the Council who could not participate in person but only video chat through Skype. Danny despises him, claiming he's a vampire hunter, which he denies.[lower-alpha 6] (season 1)
• Craig Robinson as Claude, the leader of the Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area, a secret team of amateur vampire hunters. (season 2)[8]
• Mark Hamill as Jim the Vampire, who claims that Laszlo owes him rent money from the 1800s and demands retribution. (season 2)[9]
• Benedict Wong as Wallace, a necromancer and tchotchke salesman (season 2)
• Greta Lee as Celeste, a familiar who pretends to be a vampire (season 2)
• Lucy Punch as Lilith, a witch and rival of Nadja (season 2)
• James Frain as the voice of Black Peter, a goat and witch's familiar (season 2)

Promotional poster for the first season.

On January 22, 2018, it was announced that FX had given the production a pilot order. The pilot was written by Jemaine Clement and directed by Taika Waititi both of whom are also executive producers alongside Scott Rudin, Paul Simms, Garrett Basch, and Eli Bush.[29] On May 3, 2018, it was announced that FX had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of ten episodes, which premiered on March 27, 2019.[6][5]

According to Jemaine Clement: "We stay pretty basic '70s/'80s vampire rules, with a little bit of '30s. They can turn into bats. They can't go in the sunlight; they don't sparkle in the sun, they die. They have to be invited in; in a lot of literature vampires have to be invited into private buildings, but this is a documentary so it's the real rules which means they have to be invited into any building."[30] The main influences on the series are Fright Night, Martin, The Lost Boys, Nosferatu, Interview with the Vampire, Vampire's Kiss, and Bram Stoker's Dracula.[30]

The song used in the opening credits is "You're Dead" by Norma Tanega (1966).

The second season premiered on April 15, 2020.[2][3] On May 22, 2020, FX renewed the series for a third season.[4]

Principal photography for the first season took place from October 22 to December 18, 2018 in Toronto, Ontario.[31] Filming for the third season is currently scheduled to begin on February 8, 2021 and wrap up on May 3, 2021.[32]

Writer/producer Paul Simms said that series does not use CGI effects: "There's no fully digital characters or anything like that. One of the movies we really talked about a lot when we were conceiving the show was Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula where he went back to really doing as many effects as possible in camera and figuring out ways to do that. One of my favorite supernatural moments is completely in camera. It's where Beanie Feldstein's character is walking along in the park and Nadja appears walking next to her. That was all just done completely the old fashioned way where Natasia was hiding behind a tree and the camera was tracking along and at the right moment, she walked out from behind a tree. I think there's something about that old fashioned way that makes things more interesting than when you can tell it's digital and rubbery and fake looking".[33]

Among the cinematographers D.J. Stipsen and Christian Sprenger's influences for the series was the work of Michael Ballhaus and production designer Thomas E. Sanders on the Coppola-directed Bram Stoker's Dracula: "We referenced that film for the general sumptuousness of the vampires' mansion, which was our main set. Our take, however, was that the Staten Island vampires have let their place go. The former glory is evident but now exists in a worn, faded and distressed state. Production designer Kate Bunch and I had a lot of conversations about striking the right balance between sumptuousness and neglect. There are strong reds, but also yellow that has faded to the point of being a warm brown."[34]

On October 31, 2018, a series of teaser trailers for the series were released.[35] On January 10, 2019, another teaser trailer was released.[36] On February 4, 2019, the official trailer for the series was released.[6]

On October 7, 2018, the series held a panel at the annual New York Comic Con moderated by Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall and featuring co-creators Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, along with fellow executive producer Paul Simms. Before the panel began, the first episode of the series was screened for the audience.[37] The world premiere for the series was screened during the 2019 South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas as a part of the festival's "Episodic Premieres" series.[38]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 94%, based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 7.84/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Delightfully absurd and ridiculously fun, What We Do in the Shadows expands on the film's vampiric lore and finds fresh perspective in its charming, off-kilter cast to create a mockumentary series worth sinking your teeth into."[39] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[40]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has an approval rating of 100%, based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 8.45/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bat! What We Do In the Shadows loses no steam in a smashing second season that savvily expands its supernatural horizons while doubling down on the fast flying fun."[41] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[42]