Think your roommates are a pain? Try living in a house full of vampires.
They're up all night, every night. The leftovers they never bother to throw out are partly blood-sucked bodies. House meetings turn into flying bat-fights. And it all goes on for centuries.
Such are the woes of the housemates in "What We Do in the Shadows," a macabre sitcom that premieres Wednesday on FX.
This image released by FX shows Kayvan Novak and Harvey Guillen, right, in a scene from "What We Do In the Shadows." The series premiering Wednesday is based on the 2014 cult-hit movie from New Zealand. (John P JohnsonFX via AP)
It's based on the 2014 New Zealand mockumentary movie of the same name that has become a cult, and occult, favorite. And it comes from the film's makers and stars, Jemaine Clement, best known for "Flight of the Conchords," and his longtime comedy partner Taika Waititi, who became the unlikely director of Marvel's "Thor: Ragnarok" after directing the low-budget vampire film.
The two stay behind the camera for the TV show, transferring the action, and the production, to the United States.
"In New Zealand this wouldn't really be possible, it's just harder to make TV there," said Clement, who still lives in Wellington. "And it seems like since it's an American show, it should be set in America. So we thought it would be a new house, a different house, with a very similar situation."
This image released by FX shows Kayvan Novak and Harvey Guillen, left, in a scene from "What We Do In the Shadows." The series premiering Wednesday is based on the 2014 cult-hit movie from New Zealand. (Matthias ClamerFX via AP)
The show's vampires, Laszlo (Matt Berry), Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), have origins that span Europe and span centuries. English actors ended up in all three roles.
"We were lucky because Jemaine and Taika, as New Zealanders, their comic sensibilities are almost more similar to a British sense of humor," Novak said. "So it was quite serendipitous for us. And now we're all going to go to America, riding their coattails, and become vampires."
The characters came to the U.S. 200 years ago, when anti-vampire prejudice ran high in Europe.
This combination photo shows Jemaine Clement at the premiere of FX's "What We Do in the Shadows" at Metrograph in New York. on March 19, 2019, left, and Taika Waititi at the world premiere of "Captain Marvel" in Los Angeles on March 4, 2019. Clement and Waititi are the creators of the new FX comedy “What We Do In The Shadows”, premiering on Wednesday. (AP Photo)
"They didn't like the color of our skin," Laszlo says in the first episode.
"Or the fact that we killed and ate people," Natasha adds.
They intended to conquer America, but when they learned how huge it was just settled in Staten Island, New York City.
There, they deal with the same household banalities and conflicts as humans, a theme of both film and show.
"Finish a whole victim before moving on to the next one!" Nandor tells the others at a house meeting in the pilot. All agree to write their name and the date on their prey in permanent marker so they know whose responsibility it is to clean it up.
They also get embroiled in local politics — they want a ban on turtlenecks — and go to a Manhattan nightclub where they learn they're extremely uncool, despite their frequent efforts to be as chic as Hollywood's vampires. Nandor at one point sprinkles drugstore glitter on himself so he can look "like 'Twilight.'"
Clement spearheaded the idea of turning the film into a TV show, saying he wanted a project he wouldn't have to describe in a pitch. He and Paul Simms are the showrunners.
Waititi, who directed and starred in the film, will take a more secondary role as an executive producer. It's a backseat he's happy to take, saying the constant night shoots can be "excruciating."
"Vampires don't know how to schedule TV shows," Waititi said.
Even with half-hour episodes, the series allows its creators to go beyond the housemate relationship at its center.
"There's a marriage that's been going on for 200 years," Clement said. "I thought, you know that that might be a metaphor for long-term relationships. Well, not even a metaphor, it's just it."
Also, he adds, "I wanted a master and servant relationship. I usually find those funny."
The servant is Guillermo (Harvey Guillen), an aspiring vampire who is Nandor's human "familiar," tasked with luring in victims, cleaning up bloody messes and blocking out windows that let in deadly sun.
The character, whom Guillen says he's playing as a young Guillermo del Toro, also serves as a quasi-narrator and vampire explainer for the audience.
The show's final housemate may be the scariest of all.
Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) is an "energy vampire." That's just a regular guy whose conversations are so deadly dull that his victims lose all will to live.
Clement and Proksch both say it's more than a one-note joke, and that Colin will carry whole story lines.
"He's definitely going to suck even more energy out of this country than we can spare," Proksch said.
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of a potential operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas militants, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks.
The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity to speak about the sensitive exchange, said that the plan detailed by the Israelis did not change the U.S. administration’s view that moving forward with an operation in Rafah would put too many innocent Palestinian civilians at risk.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah despite warnings from President Joe Biden and other western officials that doing so would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.
The Biden administration has said there could be consequences for Israel should it move forward with the operation without a credible plan to safeguard civilians.
“Absent such a plan, we can’t support a major military operation going into Rafah because the damage it would do is beyond what’s acceptable,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday at the Sedona Forum, an event in Arizona hosted by the McCain Institute.
Some 1.5 million Palestinians have sheltered in the southern Gaza city as the territory has been ravaged by the war that began on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
The United Nations humanitarian aid agency on Friday said that hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel moves forward with the Rafah assault. The border city is a critical entry point for humanitarian aid and is filled with displaced Palestinians, many in densely packed tent camps.
The officials added that the evacuation plan that the Israelis briefed was not finalized and both sides agreed to keep discussing the matter.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Friday that no “comprehensive” plan for a potential Rafah operation has been revealed by the Israelis to the White House. The operation, however, has been discussed during recent calls between Biden and Netanyahu as well as during recent virtual talks with top Israeli and U.S. national security officials.
“We want to make sure that those conversations continue because it is important to protect those Palestinian lives — those innocent lives,” Jean-Pierre said.
The revelation of Israel's continued push to carry out a Rafah operation came as CIA director William Burns arrived Friday in Egypt, where negotiators are trying to seal a cease-fire accord between Israel and Hamas.
Hamas is considering the latest proposal for a cease-fire and hostage release put forward by U.S., Egyptian and Qatari mediators, who are looking to avert the Rafah operation.
They have publicly pressed Hamas to accept the terms of the deal that would lead to an extended cease-fire and an exchange of Israeli hostages taken captive on Oct. 7 and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hamas has said it will send a delegation to Cairo in the coming days for further discussions on the offer, though it has not specified when.
Israel, and its allies, have sought to increase pressure on Hamas on the hostage negotiation. Signaling that Israel continues to move forward with its planning for a Rafah operation could be a tactic to nudge the militants to finalize the deal.
Netanyahu said earlier this week that Israeli forces would enter Rafah, which Israel says is Hamas’ last stronghold, regardless of whether a truce-for-hostages deal is struck. His comments appeared to be meant to appease his nationalist governing partners, and it was not clear whether they would have any bearing on any emerging deal with Hamas.
Blinken visited the region, including Israel, this week and called the latest proposal “extraordinarily generous” and said “the time to act is now.”
In Arizona on Friday, Blinken repeated remarks he made earlier this week that "the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas.”
The Chahine family prepares to bury two adults and five boys and girls under the age of 16 after an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed several people, including children, hospital officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
FILE - Palestinians line up for free food during the ongoing Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Jan. 9, 2024. A top U.N. official said Friday, May 3, 2024, that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine" after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali, File)
Palestinians rescue a woman survived after the Israeli bombardment on a residential building of Abu Alenan family in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ismael Abu Dayyah)
President Joe Biden walks across the South Lawn of the White House as he talks with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Washington, after returning from a trip to North Carolina. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
