“A brain tickler to execute”: Inside the making of What We Do In The Shadows’ final season

David Schwimmer has never appeared on What We Do In The Shadows. But a huge photo of him is taped up in the show’s dimly lit, decrepit Staten Island mansion. In reality, the house is a surprisingly spacious, brilliantly designed structure on a Toronto soundstage. As for Schwimmer’s pictorial presence, the series’ actors and makers stay cheekily quiet about it during The A.V. Club’s set visit on a rainy day in April. The answer will arrive, we’re told, in the award-winning FX comedy’s sixth and final season, which kicks off October 21.   

The Friends star’s face isn’t the only bit of intrigue in this Gothic manor: The winding twin stairways in the foyer, the big green chandelier, Nandor’s (Kayvan Novak) lavish rustic coffin, and an eerie bear statue are instantly recognizable, as are the dozens of old-timey photos of Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), and Nandor adorning the walls. Even the set’s rarely-seen kitchen feels like it’s used often, with fake blood splatter and chipped wallpaper giving the sense that these vamps dine here every night. Walking through these rooms is like visiting your goofiest, strangest, kinda lovable pals, which is how WWDITS has cultivated these characters, including Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), and The Guide (Kristen Schaal), the last two of which aren’t on set today.

These intricate details make WWDITS’s creepy residence feel immediately lived in. And this tracks: The FX series has shot these fictional fanged beings right here since the show began production in 2018. A couple of weeks before these sets are to be torn down for good, we tour them, making our way past the costume department and prop room (which features multiple prosthetic heads and a remote-controlled globy frog, among other oddities). The cast is filming season six’s premiere, unleashing some side-splitting improv after they’ve filmed scenes as written and gotten director Kyle Newacheck’s approval to let loose. Proksch drops a stellar Laszlo impression, Demetriou spits out various profanities, and Novak cooks up some very Nandor-esque responses on the spot. 

During a shooting break, the show’s actors (decked out in full goth attire), directors, and producers get into the comedy’s last chapter. According to executive producer Paul Simms, the knowledge that this was the end didn’t change their approach to the show all that much. But he adds that it was fun to keep reminding themselves that this is it. “It’s not like we had stuff saved for [this moment], but we went for the sillier, dumber ideas. There’s a specific one I’m thinking of, but it’s a surprise,” he teases. The bar is high because WWDITS has aced such ideas in the past. (Think of that Superb Owl party or Colin Robinson resurrecting as a baby with an adult face.) 

So what will season six bring us? The show still finds ways around its broad hilarity to evolve storylines as Staten Island’s finest attempt to clean up their act (but certainly not their home). The ramshackle mansion is even messier in the upcoming installments because human helper Guillermo doesn’t live under the same roof anymore. His new digs are close, so he’s always around (despite not wanting to be). He also joins Wall Street’s workforce after accepting that turning into the undead isn’t for him. (He’s a Van Helsing descendant, after all.) At least Guillermo can honestly claim he’s on a break from his Master now that he isn’t his familiar anymore. 

Photo: Russ Martin/FX

Pssh, as if Nandor would ever let go of his little buddy. Or will they become more than buds? Add it to the pile of questions WWDITS should answer before the curtains close. Novak can’t confirm or deny that anything romantic is on the horizon or why his character has trouble letting go of Guillermo. “He’s very attached to him, and their relationship endures in one fucked-up way after another,” the actor says. The next stage of their dynamic is Nandor getting a janitor gig at Guillermo’s office to keep an eye on him. When asked what he gets out of this, Novak explains: “It gives him purpose. Nandor also enjoys making minimum wage. I had a lot of fun playing ‘Jan-dor’ and doing funny things with mops.” 

Don’t get too attached because Jan-dor tires of menial labor soon enough. In a later episode that’s also directed by Newacheck, Nandor dips his toes into filmmaking when he gets mistaken for a PA. Newacheck, who helmed “Pine Barrens” and “Brain Scramblies,” says it that it’s “a brain tickler to execute” something so meta that “puts a film set inside of our film set,” which is further complicated as WWDITS is also a mockumentary. And the film nods don’t stop there: A different upcoming outing features homages to Ghostbusters and Apocalypse Now, per director Yana Gorskaya (“On The Run,” “Go Flip Yourself”).  

Meanwhile, brace yourself for a Saxondale reunion when Steve Coogan guest stars as the father of Berry’s Laszlo. Yes, it’s finally time for the house’s most eloquent vampire to revisit his past, which includes resuming a long-abandoned experiment in a laboratory inside the mansion. The vamps take an elevator to get down there, but during the set visit, we stroll through a narrow hallway with production designer Shayne Fox and enter a marvelous Dr. Frankenstein lair. Some of the eye-popping pieces she points out are a broken cadaver chilling in an aquarium, tons of dusty medical books, hanging nutsacks, a complex handjob device, long electric coils, and trays full of bloody limbs. So what’s Dr. Cravensworth cooking up? A brand new person, of course.

Berry tells The A.V. Club that he found this storyline particularly exciting. “This is something Laszlo does every 100 years or so, trying to create monsters [and forgetting about it],” he says. “It also made me laugh thinking about how we’ve never seen this lab, which is film-level stuff, but it’s right past the basement’s basement.” Laszlo’s reckless trial-and-error phase provokes two polar opposite reactions in the premiere. Colin Robinson, for one, is elated at the possibility of a new friend if Laszlo succeeds. (The poor guy is desperate for companionship. Someone should hug him STAT.) Proksch is hoping audiences will respond to this funny, inventive journey. “Colin’s weird,” he admits. “When the show started, I don’t think we knew quite how to handle him, but he’s hit a stride in the past couple of seasons, so this felt like a conclusion for him to me.” 

Don’t expect Nadja to share the joy. She’s frustrated with her husband after their old roommate Jerry (Mike O’Brien), who awakens after a 50-year slumber, reminds her that Laszlo once forbade her from pursuing a career. Yet here he is, envisioning himself as a mad scientist with Colin Robinson as his assistant. It pushes Nadja to do get a corporate (nocturnal) nine-to-five. She swaps velvety capes for blazers in a move that pleased Demetriou. “It’s shallow but I love Working Girl,” she says. “I got to wear massive shoulder pads and giant hair this year. That was what I had been hoping for. My only question was, ‘Can it get any bigger?’” 

The only downside is that Laszlo and Nadja spend time apart. Demetriou says she misses working with her frequent scene partner. We ask for her favorite Matt Berry line deliveries on the show, and her answers come quickly (and sweetly): It’s Laszlo enunciating “My darling!” because “that’s what he calls me off-camera as well.” In a different example, she recalls when the actors were hooked on wires for a flying scene: “You feel a bit like a baby because we’re not a cast of action heroes. All the attention was on Kayvan, and we thought he was [going to be pulled up] next. Suddenly, on my other side, I hear a whisper of, ‘Oh dear, it’s me.’ Matt’s British so he would never make a fuss, but I was tripping over laughing [at how he said it].” Berry refuses to pick his favorite line reading, sharing a trade secret in the process. “I don’t do anything too purposely because I have to concentrate and say it as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. That’s the only way I’ll get by.” 

We must also get by without WWDITS because all great things must come to an end, with FX setting December 16 as the series finale. Hopefully, Jackie Daytona blesses us or Berry gives another rendition of his sing-songy “New York City” pronunciation before then. WWDITS has plenty of tricks up its sleeve either way. Executive producer Sam Johnson sums up season six well when he says, “We’re tackling late-stage capitalism, class, mental health, and other big issues” but with the show’s trademark, ahem, batshit absurdity. What We Do In The Shadows is indeed bidding goodbye, but, to misquote the theme song of Schwimmer’s show, these Staten Island weirdos will still be there for you.