Main

• Kayvan Novak as Nandor the Relentless – Once the bloodthirsty leader of the fictional kingdom of Al-Quolanudar in southern Iran and a warrior serving the Ottoman Empire. At age 760, he is the oldest vampire and the self-proclaimed leader of the group, leading him to frequently calling house meetings for frivolous discussions. Although he genuinely cares for his human familiar Guillermo, he has difficulty expressing it. Nandor is also quite naïve to the ways of modern society and humans, which often results in Guillermo becoming frustrated with him.
• Matt Berry as Leslie "Laszlo" Cravensworth – A 310-year-old vampire from British nobility who was turned by Nadja and is now married to her. A pansexual and former porn actor who is often preoccupied with sexual thoughts, he enjoys sexual encounters with both Nadja and Nandor. He also enjoys making topiary sculptures of vulvas in the yard, including those of his wife and mother.
• Natasia Demetriou as Nadja of Antipaxos – A 500-year-old Greek 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. She later becomes manager of her own vampire nightclub.
  • Demetriou also plays Nadja's human ghost, split from its corporeal form when Nadja was turned into a vampire, who inhabits a doll which has appeared since the second season.
• 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 more than a decade in the hope of being made a vampire. Guillermo discovers that he is a descendant of the famous vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing and proves to be very skilled at killing vampires, giving him conflicting feelings about his desire to become a vampire. Guillermo's skill as a vampire slayer leads to him becoming a bodyguard for Nandor, Nadja, and Laszlo. He comes out as gay to his family but reveals his desire to become a vampire at the same time, prompting Nadja to erase their memories of his confession.
• Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson (and Baby Colin / "The Boy") – An energy vampire who lives in the basement. He sustains himself by draining humans and fellow vampires of their life force by being extremely boring or frustrating. As a "day walker", he is not harmed by sunlight or entry into churches, and thus holds a regular job in an office where he feeds on his coworkers' frustrations. Unlike the others, he shows no outward signs of vampirism and appears as a regular human, with the only hints being his eyes glowing when he feeds on energy and his reflection showing a pale and decrepit version of himself. Following his 100th birthday, he dies and his infant offspring bursts out of his chest.^[5] Having rapidly grown to adulthood, Colin Robinson's son discovers a hidden room filled with Colin Robinson's diaries and regains Colin Robinson's memories as a result, forgetting his time as a child and essentially becoming a clone of Colin Robinson.
• 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. She frequently expresses her desire to be socially accepted by the other vampires, yet is almost always rejected. She later works for Nadja as the latter turns the Vampiric Council's headquarters into a nightclub. (season 5–present; guest season 1; recurring seasons 3–4)

Recurring

• Anthony Atamanuik as Sean Rinaldi – 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, and Laszlo considers Sean his best friend. In season 5, it's implied that Sean is slowly, yet consistently, becoming dumber due to experiencing a constant stream of hypnosis.
• Beanie Feldstein as Jenna – a LARPer and virgin whom Guillermo lured for the vampires to feast on. She was later transformed into a vampire by Nadja who witnessed her 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, yet she struggles with turning into a bat. (season 1)
• 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 it is disclosed that he is not actually a Baron, but simply "barren" because he was unable to have children. In the first season, Guillermo inadvertently kills the Baron by opening a door and exposing him to sunlight. In the third season, however, it is revealed that he barely survived, albeit reduced to his head, torso and left arm. In later seasons, The Baron chooses to live a quaint, suburban lifestyle with The Sire, another legendary vampire. (seasons 1, 3–5)
• Nick Kroll as Simon the Devious – A vampire who rules over the Manhattan vampires and owns the Sassy Cat nightclub. He was initially a close friend to the Staten Island vampires when they first arrived in America, but he quickly became their shared enemy thanks to his willingness to trick and betray the trio. He is obsessed with Laszlo's cursed hat made out of witch skin, and is often surrounded by a posse of vampires called "The Leatherskins". (guest seasons 1–2, 4)
• 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)
• Vanessa Bayer as Evie Russell – Colin Robinson's co-worker. He 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 Robinson date for a short time, feeding together on bored and pitying humans, until he begins to feel the relationship is unhealthy. In season 5, she becomes Staten Island's City Comptroller, taking over for Colin Robinson's campaign after he intentionally exposed his junk in a video meeting. Her first name is a homophone of "E.V.", for Emotional Vampire. (guest seasons 1, 5)
• Marceline Hugot as Barbara Lazarro – The 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. She later appears running against Colin Robinson in the comptroller election. (guest seasons 1, 5)
• Marissa Jaret Winokur as Charmaine Rinaldi – Sean's wife. (guest seasons 2–5)
• Anoop Desai as Djinn – Nandor's magical genie (season 4; guest season 5)
• Parisa Fakhri as Marwa – Nandor's resurrected ex-wife, now fiancée (season 4)
• Chris Sandiford as Derek – A vampire hunter turned vampire and convenience store clerk. (seasons 2–5)
• Myrna Cabello as Silvia de la Cruz – Guillermo's mother (seasons 2, 4–5)
• Haley Joel Osment as Topher – Nadja and Laszlo'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 he is well-liked by all other members of the household, except Guillermo. (guest seasons 2, 5)
• Benedict Wong as Wallace – A necromancer and tchotchke salesman who often feuds with Laszlo. (guest seasons 2, 5)
• Frankie Quiñones as Miguel – Guillermo's cousin (guest seasons 4–5)
• Veronika Slowikowska as Shanice – Jenna's college roommate who witnesses her transformation into a vampire. Shanice later joins the Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area, a secret team of amateur vampire hunters. (seasons 1–2)

Guests

Season 1 (2019)

Season 2 (2020)

Season 3 (2021)

Season 4 (2022)

Season 5 (2023)

Development

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.^[53] 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.^[4][5]

According to 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."^[54] Clement has also stated that the part of Laszlo was written specifically for Berry.^[55] 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.^[54] The character Nadja was named after the 1994 film of the same name.^[55]

The song used in the opening credits is "You're Dead" by Norma Tanega (1966), which was used during the opening credits sequence in the original film.

The second season premiered on April 15, 2020.^[56][57] On May 22, 2020, FX renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on September 2, 2021.^[58] On August 13, 2021, FX renewed the series for a fourth season, ahead of the third-season premiere.^[59] Upon the fourth season's renewal, it was reported that Rudin would no longer be an executive producer, beginning with the third season, due to allegations of abusive behavior.^[60] On June 6, 2022, FX renewed the series for a fifth and sixth season, ahead of the fourth season premiere.^[3] On December 19, 2023, it was announced that the sixth season will be its last.^[2]

Filming

Principal photography for the first season took place from October 22 to December 18, 2018, in Toronto, Ontario.^[61] Filming for the third season began on February 8, 2021, and finished on May 3, 2021.^[62]

The 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".^[63]

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."^[64]

Marketing

On October 31, 2018, a series of teaser trailers for the series were released.^[65] On January 10, 2019, another teaser trailer was released.^[66] On February 4, 2019, the official trailer for the series was released.^[5]

Premiere

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.^[67] 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.^[68]

Critical response

All five seasons of What We Do in the Shadows received critical acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the overall series holds a 98% approval rating.^[69] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the overall series has received a score of 83 out of 100.^[70]

Ratings

Accolades