‘Buffy Who?’ Vampire Antics Increase by the Power of One Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows...

‘Buffy Who?’ Vampire Antics Increase by the Power of One Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows Season 5Show more

All Guillermo has ever wanted was to be a vampire. Season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows fulfills the long-suffering familiar’s wish — maybe.
“The backstory I’ve given Guillermo is that he was bullied when he was little and that he wanted to be a vampire because they were so beautiful and glamorous and free sexually, their minds. They had everything at their fingertips, and they were immortal,” actor Harvey Guillén, who plays Guillermo, explained to journalists visiting the show’s set back in November. “They were captured in one time when they were the best version of themselves,...

All Guillermo has ever wanted was to be a vampire. Season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows fulfills the long-suffering familiar’s wish — maybe.
“The backstory I’ve given Guillermo is that he was bullied when he was little and that he wanted to be a vampire because they were so beautiful and glamorous and free sexually, their minds. They had everything at their fingertips, and they were immortal,” actor Harvey Guillén, who plays Guillermo, explained to journalists visiting the show’s set back in November. “They were captured in one time when they were the best version of themselves, and they lived like that forever. And I think he wanted to be that because of that, because of the personal trauma that might have happened to him as a child.”
But “personal trauma”? In a vampire mockumentary?
Heart is the FX comedy series’ secret weapon. The title added four more nods to its long list of Emmy nominations the week of its season 5 premiere. Its Emmy nominations over the years have included five for writing, two for “Outstanding Comedy Series” in 2020 and 2022, as well as those for sound, production design, and others. Costume designer Laura Montgomery, supervisor Judy Laukkanen and assistant costume designer Barbara Cardoso took home a win for the series last year for “Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes.” Kristen Schaal as The Guide, Harvey Guillén as Guillermo, Natasia Demetriou as Nadja, Kayvan Novak as Nandor, Matt Berry as Laszlo, Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson (Photo by Pari Dukovic/FX) Season 5 picks up after Guillermo bribes accidental vampire Derek (Chris Sandiford) to put the bite on him — a process that plays out in season 5’s premiere that will be achingly familiar to any viewer who has had an awkward first kiss or other intimate encounter.
“They’re both kind of grossed out about it. And then it ends up being very sloppy and messy and frightening for them,” showrunner and executive producer Paul Simms revealed during the set visit. “And the biggest thing of the season is that after he’s done this, after he’s taken this drastic move, he finds out from the other vampires that a familiar getting turned by a vampire who’s not their master is the most humiliating thing that a master can suffer.”
The feelings are very human. The circumstances are decidedly not. Season 5 trailers so far show Matt Berry’s Laszlo exercising his “gentleman scientist” muscles on Guillermo, secretly trying to help the fledgling vampire understand his powers (or lack thereof). Laszlo has behaved dismissively toward the familiar in the past, but, as with his vulva topiary hobby and season 4 parenting of baby Colin (Mark Proksch), the elder vampire has something of a caretaker streak to his personality.
“You see, again, a softer side of Laszlo,” Simms said of Laszlo’s season 5 story.
About the baby Colin storyline, Berry recalled, “For me it was really a sort of breath of fresh air, because I could…show another side of [Laszlo] and be less sort of hedonistic and less narcissistic; though we have to still do that, otherwise it’s not fun — you know what I mean? He’s got to be an idiot and all those things. You can’t then just turn him into this sort of dad of the year, because that’s not what people want, I don’t think, from him.” Matt Berry as Laszlo (Photo by Pari Dukovic/FX) Laszlo may be a hedonist, but his passion for his mate Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) is one of the strongest bonds on the series. Berry said that the relationship is like nothing you’ve ever seen in a comedy, and that sort of rarified dynamic was one of his prerequisites for doing the series in speaking to series creator and executive producer Jemaine Clement and executive producer Taika Waititi, whose 2014 film is the basis of the television show.
“I think it’s refreshing to see people who...