Harvey Guillén and Kayvan Novak Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Details of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ | GalaxyCon

At GalaxyCon Raleigh this year, Harvey Guillén and Kayvan Novak participated in a Q&A about their roles in the beloved vampire comedy, What We Do in the Shadows.

Amidst the fun banter you’d expect between the two actors, they shared some behind-the-scenes details about the show and their characters, Guillermo and Nandor. Novak even wore vampire fangs for the occasion.

The actors each shared a bit about their auditions and their familiarity with the film that the television show is based on. 

“I was a big fan of the movie,” Novak said. “I loved the movie, and when I got the audition, I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is incredible. I’d love to be in this. I’m never gonna get it.'”

“So dreams do come true, guys,” he added, speaking in his Nandor accent.

Guillén, however, had not seen the film.

“I had not watched the movie, but it was, weirdly enough, in the queue on my Amazon, like, ‘You might like this.’ And I’m like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he laughed.

Not long after, he was invited to a party where someone he met there suggested he audition for their fiancé’s new show.

“Their fiancé was the producer for the show. And they had already cast Kayvan. They had already cast Natasia [Demetriou], and Matt [Berry], and Mark [Proksch]. Everyone was cast except for this one role, Guillermo, and he didn’t have a last name,” Guillén recalled.

Guillén said he wasn’t sure if he was right for the part because Guillermo was written to be about twenty years older.

“I was like, I gotta make myself look older. So I found this ugly sweater vest, this long-sleeved orange shirt, [and] these Harry Potter glasses I popped the lenses out of,” Guillén said.

“Then I parted my hair in the middle because I had a picture of Guillermo del Toro’s monster book, his illustration, and I was like, ‘That looks like a Guillermo!’ Thinking no one on television would ever look like this. Make sure the choices you make, you wanna live with,” he laughed, adding that everyone liked what he had done so much that they kept those details. 

Guillén was also able to offer input on his character’s last name.

“I had to ask Jemaine [Clement], ‘Could I give him a last name?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, whatcha thinking?'”

“‘At this point, I didn’t know any Van Helsing storyline,” Guillén continued. I was like, ‘I don’t know, something like de la Cruz?’ and he was like, ‘What’s that mean?’ I was like, ‘of the cross,’ and he goes, ‘That’s perfect.'”

The actors also answered questions about some of the biggest challenges working on the show. 

“I’d say the first season for me, we did a lot of dangling on wires outside in the cold. That was a bit of a shock, especially if you forgot to wear your thermal underclothes,” Novak said, noting how cold it was filming in Canada during that time. 

“For me it was doing my first stunt when I fall out of a third-story window,” Guillén said. Novak joked that it wasn’t really Guillén doing that stunt, which Guillén said is something he gets a lot.

“Usually, that’s what people think when I say I do my own stunts. People don’t believe me. My mom didn’t believe me.”

Both actors have been able to speak a bit in their heritage languages on the show. Novak said that was all in the writing for him.

“That was down to the writers, really, to give me the opportunity to speak Farsi because my heritage is Iranian,” Novak said. “That was a real treat.”

He also said he’s had members of the Iranian community reach out, praising that representation. “More power to the writers for giving me that opportunity,” Novak said.

Guillén noted there have been some special details, including a song that was thrown in that was very specific to Latina culture.

“It’s just nice to see your culture represented on screen sometimes because, for so long, we haven’t been. And that goes across the board.”

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What We Do in the Shadows returns for Season 6 on October 21st on FX.

Learn more about GalaxyCon Raleigh here.

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