‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Stars Talk Office Life, Improv Moments in Laszlo’s Lab and Nandor’s Richard Nixon Impression

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for What We Do in the Shadows Season 6, Episodes 1 – 3.]

What We Do in the Shadows is back, and the final season is serving up plenty of supernatural shenanigans for fans to sink their teeth into as three all-new episodes landed on FX.

While some things have changed for the Staten Island-based vampire roommates, a lot hasn’t either. Following his vampire reversal, former familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) has moved into the shed as Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), Laszlo (Matt Berry), and Colin Robinson (Mark Proskch) wake up their long-forgotten fifth roommate Jerry (Mike O’Brien).

Jerry’s awakening leads the vampires to reflect on unanswered questions he poses, like why there are still documentary cameras following them since Guillermo’s move out of the house. When Nadja and Nandor, who haven’t seen Guillermo in quite some time, confront the former familiar, Guillermo’s limited lodgings spark concern in Nadja during a comedic moment where she wonders how and where he uses the toilet.

Russ Martin/FX

“That pee bucket thing used to be even longer and more back and forth about it,” showrunner Paul Simms tells TV Insider about Nadja’s discovery of Guillermo’s makeshift toilet. “I laugh every time. It’s really fun. Especially the first two episodes where they need to make sure Guillermo doesn’t come back and kill them.”

Ultimately, as Simms explains, Nadja and Nandor decide “they really have their own reasons for wanting to [follow Guillermo to his] office [job], which is she wants to hang around with humans and see what they’re like and feel like she has some usefulness in the world.” But what does that mean for Nandor?

“Nandor is used to having Guillermo around as a kind of punching bag [or] emotional support,” Novak says. “But yeah, it made Nandor think outside of his box a little bit,” Novak says of Nandor’s new dynamic with Guillermo, “and [he ends] up working at the Canon Capital. It was good. It was the right way forward for their relationship after he turned him into a vampire and then [Guillermo] was like, ‘I don’t want to be a vampire.’ So, where did you go from there? Because that’s all he ever wanted was to be turned into a vampire,” Novak continues.

Russ Martin/FX

As for Colin Robinson, he tries winning over Jerry, who prior to his super slumber the vampires forgot to wake him up from, was one of the nicest roommates to the energy vampire. Now, Jerry can’t even remember Colin’s name. In an effort to catch Jerry up, Colin takes it upon himself to educate Jerry pop culturally, using the black and blue versus white and gold dress debate as an example in the series.

When TV Insider was on set with the cast though, Proksch offered up various pop culture moments for the scene, referring to some even saucier references. “I think that they were like, you know, ‘the dress thing is fun. Let’s just do the dress thing…’” Proksch acknowledges, noting that despite the team skipping some of his other improvisations, this was the right pick.

“You throw five things up there and you try to give them options on the show and you know what they write is ninety-nine percent of the time, the funniest thing you could come up with anyway. So, it’s fun to try to get each other to laugh. It’s a lot about just entertaining each other,” Proksch says.

Russ Martin/FX

One place that was perfect for improv in this final season was Laszlo’s science lab, which sees the Renaissance man reteam with Colin for a Frankesteinian experiment.  “The set was probably the best set that I’ve ever stepped on,” Berry muses. “The attention to detail in every angle of that set was exceptional. The thought that had gone into the whole thing, it was as good as any movie set. And it caught fire one day, which was exciting,” he reveals.

“Because it looks so great, it does inform what you do,” he adds. “It really makes a difference in how you move around because you believe everything that you’re looking at because it’s pretty much [a full 360-degree environment]. And so you think that you’re in that mansion.” Colin’s efforts to succeed in bringing Laszlo’s monster to life lead to some silly moments, which Proksch took in stride.

“That’s fun because Colin doesn’t get to do a lot of [that physical comedy] in the past seasons,” Proksch says. “And I love doing physical comedy. It’s just fun. It’s something different than what I usually do. I’m usually seated reading a book.” Colin had some progress in cracking the monster code as he managed to get his and Laszlo’s experiment to hold a mouse without crushing it, but that didn’t prevent the monster from snacking on the small furry creature.

Meanwhile, in Episode 3 an argument over the occupation of the space under the mansion’s stairs leads to a chaotic back-and-forth of sleep hypnosis that leaves Nandor speaking like Richard Nixon. “When I first read it, I was like, ‘This is mad. Am I actually gonna sound like Richard Nixon?’” Novak recalls his first time reading the script.

In order to nail the impression, Novak, who is already skilled at mimicry, watched several clips of the disgraced former president. “I did as I was told,” he says humbly about prepping for the hilarious moment. In the end, the vampires are broken out of their hypnosis and decide to share the space. Whether that harmony will remain is for time to determine. Don’t miss what else the roommates get up to as What We Do in the Shadows‘ final season continues on FX, and let us know what you thought of the first episodes in the comments section, below.

What We Do in the Shadows, Season 6, Mondays, 10pm ET/PT, FX (Next day on Hulu)