What We Do in the Shadows somehow made vampires even more frightening with the invention of the belovedly boring Colin Robinson, the Staten Island crew’s resident energy vamp. Robinson, played to perfection by Mark Proksch, has been menacing office dwellers, feasting off bored local theater-goers and city council members, and broadly irritating everyone in his vicinity since Season 1.
Yet, with his expertise in the mundane and uncomfortable, he seems to be stumped by his couple friends Joel (Zach Woods) and Becky (Kim Quindlen) when they invite him to a dinner party from hell in Season 6, Episode 8, “P.I. Undercover: New York,” which ends promptly after Joel asks Colin to have sex with Becky … in his presence.
Of course, any fan of The Office will be thrilled to see Woods and Proksch together again in a mini Gabe and Nate reunion, and what better occasion than a dinner party to unite them years after the end of the NBC sitcom? After all, one of The Office‘s most infamous episodes takes place when Michael (Steve Carell) coerces some coworkers into coming over for dinner with Jan (Melora Hardin). But, this being What We Do in the Shadows, Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) forces her way into an invite to the party as Colin’s “girlfriend,” resulting in some hilarious one-liners about Sex and the City, staplers and pumpkin spice lattes as she does her very best normal human impression.
Meanwhile, Quindlen more than holds her own amongst the chaos as Becky, cozying up to Colin in hopes of locking down a threesome later in the night while being lobbed with increasingly deranged one-liners from Nadja. “Smoked salmon! More excuse for cream cheese, and I right?” is sure to be an all-timer — in our book, anyway.
Paul Simms, showrunner, executive producer and writer on What We Do in the Shadows, said in a statement shared with DECIDER, “Kim Quindlen’s online videos are incredibly funny, and I couldn’t believe she hasn’t done more TV or movie work. One of our goals this season was just to use the funniest people we know, and even though Kim might not be as well-known as the others, she is now one of my favorites.”
Quindlen and Proksch sat down for a Zoom interview with DECIDER about What We Do in the Shadows and The Office connections, what’s next for Becky and Colin’s relationship, and the joys of playing an awkward character. Read on for our full conversation.
DECIDER: I really liked this episode. It was super fun and I definitely picked up on that Office connection. Mark, I know your character has a line about “pushing paper around” in the “same office” with Joel. What what it was like to be working with Zach Woods again on a different sitcom?
MARK PROKSCH: Zach and I became fast friends when I got on The Office. We hadn’t known each other and he was one of my favorite characters on The Office before I even got on there. He’s just a brilliant, brilliant improviser. He is just so at ease and natural with it, which is what I love. And Natasia [Demetriou] is also just a great improviser. One of my favorites. And then you throw Kim into the mix and she was great and absolutely is top notch as far as that’s concerned, too. And so it was really, really fun. And oddly enough, it felt like like we just fell back into old patterns from The Office, which was really fun. That episode isn’t so reliant on big effects or vampire lore. And so it was just kind of a fun, weird dinner party. And I think that that comes through.
And obviously your character Colin is the one who’s really making other people feel uncomfortable on the show. I’m curious what it was like to have Kim make your character feel uncomfortable for a change.
MP: Yeah, that was great. I mean, Colin’s certainly awkward around the fairer sex, and he certainly shows it in this episode. I mean, just between Kim and Joel, they both make him just feel so awkward. You wonder why he ever would entertain the invitation in the first place.
And then, Kim, what was it like for you to be on that other side and trying to make things as uncomfortable as you could?
KIM QUINDLEN: It weirdly made me more comfortable as a performer to be trying to play awkward. I find that to be like a sweet spot of comedy. And there’s just something so delightful in all the subtleties that you can play with awkwardness. And then when you have people like Mark and Zach and Natasia who are as welcoming as you could wish for, and then an entire cast and crew that makes you feel super comfortable right away on set, it’s like a comedian’s dream. So I loved the awkwardness. I would play an awkward character for every single role I’ll ever be given in my life if that was possible.
MP: I’m trying to do that.
KQ: Yeah, that’s the dream. That’s really the dream.
I know you mentioned up top that there’s a lot of improv in this episode. Was there any part that you improvised that didn’t make it in?
MP: You know, I don’t know. I haven’t seen the episode, so I don’t know. It’s always heartbreaking watching Shadows for the actors because they have to cram so much into such a short time frame that it’s— I find it very hard to watch because I know what got cut out. Not just my stuff. Other people, you know, very, very funny stuff that gets cut out. And so it’s kind of heartbreaking to watch. So I don’t know. I’m sure there was plenty that ended up on the cutting room floor. Kim, have you seen it?
KQ: Yeah, I was able to see it. And not to torture the fans, but there could have been an entire 30 minute episode just of the scenes between Zach and Mark, where Zach is propositioning him and all the improvisation they did, and they were just like magic together. I was technically in the scene, but off to the side, so you couldn’t really see me, and it was taking everything in my self-control to not be fully peeking around the corner to listen. Because it was so funny, the back and forth. And they did like seven or eight takes of just Zach being like, ‘I want you to sleep with my wife,’ and Mark having a hilarious response. I was so excited to see that part. And like Mark said, it’s so quick and you almost want an entire second episode of just all the insane improv lines that came out. They could do a whole season of that.
MP: It is definitely something that differs from The Office. I recently was on a bit of a road trip and The Office was on, so I watched some of it and the amount of air that they have on that show is again, for a performer like myself or Kim or Zach, is just heaven, because you can add in all the very subtle, you know, subtleties and the nuances in that air. But yeah, Shadows has to be quick.
And Kim, what was it like to play straight to Natasia pretending to be human? Some of her lines in this were just crazy.
KQ: She made it so easy. And I was a fan of the show before I went into it. So I was already excited to see how she was going to do this, like how Natasia would have her character play this. And it just kind of felt like I was like passing a ball to LeBron James. I don’t know why I’m using a sports metaphor. I don’t know sports, but I felt like passing to LeBron and she was just slam-dunking one after another. And I feel like all I had to do on set was just make surprised faces at her and she would just say stereotypical Sex and the City lines and stuff and just nail it every time. So it was just really easy and fun.
MP: And your basketball metaphor is apt because Natasha is a very good basketball player. She Is phenomenal.
KQ: Well, then let it be known that I do my research before.
Yes, exactly. And Mark, why do you think Colin would he put himself in this situation, why do you think he is so drawn to Joel? He mentions he’s like the only human he hasn’t wanted to drain.
MP: I think Colin’s just a very, very, very lonely person. And I think for whatever reason, you know, Joel is a very sympathetic character in his own way. And one of the reasons I love what Zach brings to a performance is he brings a lot of pathos behind the character. There’s a lot of emotion, and you read it in his eyes and in his performance. And that’s one of the things that I feel you need when you’re playing a comedic character. You have to show that emotion. Otherwise it just becomes a sketch. And that doesn’t interest me at all. And I think that’s how Zach — not to put words in his mouth — but I think that’s how Zach approaches these characters. And so I think for Colin, he saw something in his character that he felt empathy for. And, you know, there aren’t a lot of people that are willing to hang out with Colin in the first place. So I think Joel’s willingness to do that goes a long way in Colin’s book.
And not to mention The Office again, but this episode reminded me a ton of that dinner party episode from The Office, right down to the bathroom confessionals and you guys playing charades. Were those parallels intentional at all?
MP: You would have to ask the writers. You know, we we do get to improvise quite a bit on the show, but it’s usually the script that we’re going off of, especially for structure. And so something like that, you’d have to ask them. I mean, I do know we reference The Office literally at times. And so it may be a joke within a joke, but I’m not positive.
And, Kim, I know you talked a bit about what it was like to come on to the show after not having worked with everybody before. This is the final season and they’ve all been working together for a while. What was it like for you?
KQ: Well, this was intimidating for two reasons. I loved this show and I knew it was their final season, and I knew they only had like three episodes left. So coming into it in that sense was intimidating. And then this was also my first role on set. I’ve been doing comedy in Chicago for several years, but I just started auditioning for shows and stuff the last two years. So this is my first ever TV or film performance. And so I felt like I was coming in like with this scarlet letter, not wanting to be very obvious that I was so green. But then I was in the trailer with Zach and I kind of told him immediately and he was the warmest, most encouraging person ever. And then same with Natasia and Mark. They were just super kind and encouraging, and after every take, reassuring me and making eye contact and being like, ‘Good job, this is super fun.’ And so the actors combined with the crew, it was like I was spoiled for my first ever experience on set because I just felt like I was in a good fever dream the entire time.
MP: Kim isn’t willing to toot her own horn, but she is a pro. I mean, you can tell sometimes when people come in, they’re just natural and they they hold their own and they go above and beyond with their the expectations. And Kim did that. So she’s not giving herself enough credit.
When you when Nadja and Colin leave the dinner party, there’s a bit of discussion about maybe going bowling with Becky and Joel. Do you guys think that maybe Becky and Colin could hook up after that bowling adventure? Is anything open, or is it totally just closed?
KQ: I think in Becky’s world, yeah, 100%. And Joel would insist on being there. And then Colin. Even when they would move to the bedroom, Colin would still have no idea that it was happening. And then that could be an entire episode itself with nothing ever happening and just watching Colin’s reaction to a very strange situation.
MP: Yeah. Colin runs hot and cold. Sometimes he’s very with it and sometimes clueless. So that’s a good question. I don’t know.
This is kind of a random one, but I know we saw a whole closet of Funko Pops that Colin owns in the previous episode, and I was curious, what’s the deal with his Funko Pop obsession?
MP: I don’t know! We don’t expand upon it at all. It’s one of those great little, you know, moments on a show that is just there for a comedic moment. I don’t know what his obsession is. And, you know, he does collect a lot of stuff. And I’m of the opinion that, well, I shouldn’t say this because I’ll get in trouble, but I’m going to say it anyway. You know, adults collecting these things is kind of this arrested development within them. And I think Colin finds that very annoying. And so he usually takes on what he himself finds annoying. And so I think that’s what his thinking is there. Or he just loves Funko Pops. I mean, you know, it could be. I’m putting my twist on it, which I guess isn’t fair.
Before we go, I would just like to know how you’re feeling about the show ending and if there’s anything you’re going to miss about Colin.
MP: I’ll speak for the cast. We all feel pretty good about it ending. It would be a different story if it ended on a low note, if the show just wasn’t as funny anymore or it was just getting long in the tooth. That’s the worst case scenario to go out on. And I think, you know, leaving a little early, we probably could have done a Season 7 and it still would have been funny. But I think you would have started to see fans react a little differently to some of the jokes. And that’s the last thing you want. You really do want to go out at your best, anyway. There was a lot of freedom on the show. We have a lot of freedom to improvise, a lot of freedom as far as jokes are concerned, the tenor of the jokes. We could get away with a lot on that show. I don’t think I’ll, not in the next few years, see another show that is able to say some of the stuff we were able to say on TV and get away with it, so I’ll miss that.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
New episodes of What We Do in the Shadows air Monday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX. Next-day streaming is available on Hulu.
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