“Being incredibly stupid in a smart way is our magic,” reveals Yana Gorskaya from “What We Do in the Shadows.” For our recent webchat she continues, “We get to do straight comedy. Because our characters are hundreds of years old, we’re not constrained by current norms. We can be shocking and transgressive, because they are 700-year-old idiots.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“What We Do in the Shadows,” which has now aired its third season, is a vampire mockumentary based on the movie of the same name (which Gorskaya edited). It tells the story of three traditional vampires, an energy sucking vampire and a familiar living together. She is an executive producer, director and editor on the show.
She explains, “The scripts are so strong I’m mostly trying to not **** it up. But I always am thinking about how we elevate something or make it even crazier. We’ll have these wonderful scripts. Then we’ll get into the space and try different versions of things so that we have a palette coming in to editorial. We have five really great ways of making a scene work. It will then be a matter of then shaping the episode.”
For its second season the show broke through at the Emmy Awards with 10 nominations. This included a nom for Gorskaya for editing. She admits, “We all felt like we were making this kind of idiosyncratic show that we didn’t necessarily know anybody else appreciated. Seeing that the Emmy folks thought that we were funny and smart in the same way that we thought we were funny and smart was really very validating.”
The third season had Gorskaya direct six of the season’s 10 episodes. Throughout them the vampires take on new responsibility at the Vampiric Council, encounter an ancient Siren, visit Atlantic City and encounter a cult of exercisers. She recounts, “Being in a Canadian tire all night long, taking over a full actual casino that was closed, and then, this day of running around and doing the montage in the wellness Center. It was all madness in the best way!”
PREDICT the 2022 Emmy nominees through July 12
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