Yana Gorskaya has been in the What We Do in the Shadows universe from the very beginning. She first served as an editor in the original 2014 film, transitioning to an editor, producer, and director of the FX TV series. Gorskaya’s involvement lead to her direction of the series finale, appropriately titled “The Finale.” Here, in an interview with The Contending, she details the emotional moments of the finale as well as the creative challenges of the “different” endings. What We Do in the Shadows obviously exists as a show she put her heart into and is very proud of. Beyond that, she makes a great appeal for all the brilliant crafts that have gone into creating this critically acclaimed series.
The Contending: You’ve been with What We Do In the Shadows at the very beginning, and now you’re here at the end. How does that feel?
Yana Gorskaya: I was also on the movie as well, so I’m sort of the last OG to land the plane. For me it’s been over a decade, and being there at the end was incredibly emotional for everyone involved. I felt that very acutely since I devoted so much of my life to something I initially did as a lark. It originally just seemed like something funny to do with my free time. The entire final season was actually very emotional, particularly the finale where every time we called a wrap on an actor, or one of the last times we shot in one of those beautiful sets, hit very hard. It wasn’t all sadness, it was just emotional. It was hard to say goodbye.
The Contending: The final shot is emotional with Guillermo and Nandor, and then it goes completely ridiculous.
Yana Gorskaya: The thing we love to do on Shadows is do something really sweet and sentimental and then immediately undercut it with something sarcastic and deadpan. That’s Waititi and my kind of humor. It is the only way we can swallow our sugar.
The Contending: Going into the finale, I think I and a lot of fans were incredibly curious about how the show was going to end. There were a lot of storylines still going on and it didn’t feel like it was leading to an ending. Then we discovered it’s just the “documentary” ending. So we get Guillermo trying to find meaning in it ending, even if perhaps there isn’t. It’s very clever and fits entirely with the show. What was it like crafting that idea?
Yana Gorskaya: I loved it! The writers did this phenomenal meditation on endings; Paul Simms, Sarah Naftalis, Sam Johnson are so clever. We talked a lot about what shows and movies that we wanted to pull from with the most iconic endings and put our own Shadows spin on them. There was a lot of pressure about how do you end a show that has so much love from fans and has such a deep story well. But Paul and the other writers felt strongly that the final season should feel like any other season of Shadows. Because the whole thing about the vampires is that they do not change and do not really learn all that much. There is an evolution among them across the six seasons but we end where we began with them bickering over the same shit as they will for another thousand years.
The Contending: Looking over your credits I saw that you directed my favorite episode this season, “Nandor’s Army.” You mentioned the great sets and I loved that empty town and all the mannequins plus the fireworks so you feel like there’s sort of a battle but it’s probably just in Nandor’s head. I was just curious if there’s anything about that episode you could tell us about?
Yana Gorskaya: That was tremendous fun! My DP Bevan Crothers and I studied Apocalypse Now and we picked so many frames that we mimicked within our shooting. Then Matt Berry did a re-record of the opening credits in The Doors‘ style. Even our props people pulled up props from the original movie. So the work was very very detailed, and our conversation with our production designer Shayne Fox was about how we can make the warehouse invoke Apocalypse Now but also a preppy abandoned warehouse, which is just so distinctly Shadows. Our Sarah Naftalis is brilliant and she put a lot of those ideas in, and as Shadows does, all the department stepped up and brainstormed how to make it richer and do Easter eggs upon Easter eggs. Then Kayvan Novak really studied Brando to find a way to weave that rhythm into Nandor, which I think he nailed by playing it very, very seriously. Which I think committing so much to the bit is what makes some of our most funny Shadows moments.
The Contending: You are an editor on the show as well, and does it help you having both of those roles on this show?
Yana Gorskaya: I have a lot more sympathy for directors now than I did when I was just an editor [Laughs]. When I was just an editor, I would think, ‘Why didn’t you get that? Or why weren’t you tracking this thing?’ Now that I’ve sat in that chair and see how much that you are tracking I have a lot more empathy. I think every director should have to edit because it really helps your craft. On a show like Shadows, which is essentially unshootable, we are so ambitious and we go for so much but we have a pretty standard television schedule and budget. So if I didn’t have an editor’s brain to know where exactly we needed to land a stunt or deal with a big set piece it just wouldn’t be achievable. So it absolutely helps me on set. And also we do a lot of pages in a day, and to just know that we have it and to be able to move on. The cast and the crew will just kiss you for not riding them into the ground, so we were able to get very funny material without torturing anyone. I think that’s the editor’s brain.
The Contending: Going back to the finale, one of the big moments was the multiple endings that Nadja puts out. What was that like directing, and did you have a personal favorite of the multiple versions we got?
Yana Gorskaya: I love them all but I have to say I am a huge fan of The Usual Suspects as a film so I love that scene in the show. First because the cast killed it, second of all Dane McMaster, who was my editing partner on the finale, cut the original first draft and it was so glorious he pulled six seasons of material to create this Usual Suspects scene, and then pulled sound effects from the original movie that our sound people mimicked to get the tone exactly right. Chef’s kiss on his part, I cannot praise Dane enough.
In terms of planning them I got one additional day to do the finale, and we had these send-ups we were doing, like shooting on real film and doing completely different styles, costumes, sets and even language. Which was so demanding and it meant that the material that was in the house and in the normal zone for the show we jammed.
So we did a record day for What We Do in the Shadows. We shot sixteen pages in a single day inside the house, and that was only possible in the final episode because everyone knew exactly what they were doing. We kept the blocking very simple and everyone was so on and wonderful. So then when it came time to do the actual film pieces of the show, like the Maysles Brothers documentary and The Bob Newhart Show, we rehearsed that more than we normally do on this show. Just because everybody kind of knew that film is expensive and we have to get it developed and hope that it works. I think it might be the only time I shot a scene where everyone was in the room and nobody broke into laughter in the middle of a take, because everyone felt the pressure that shit this is film and we cannot fuck up.
It was also fun because it got to play with language that’s outside of the show. The Maysles Brothers documentary is not like a What We Do in the Shadows mockumentary. They shoot inserts, give a lot more headroom, and do a lot less cutting. So finding the language of that, then studying The Usual Suspects, Rosemary’s Baby, and Newhart to mimic them with love. I do not think we made fun of any of those. I think it was an affectionate comedic ode to things we loved.
The Contending: With all the time you have had with the show was there anything you didn’t get to do that you would have liked to have done? Or something that you could have had more time with?
Yana Gorskaya: I had lobbied to do an archival episode of What We Do in the Shadows, that would be like all found footage from the attic. I was really happy and gratified that that trickled down into the Maysles Brothers idea. So that I got to do it in the finale for a sizable chunk of that episode was really satisfying. Overall though, I thought that we got to take so many swings and I got to do such outrageous things like the Go Flip Yourself episode and Jackie Daytona. I got to make completely different kinds of shows within this show. So I feel pretty good.
The Contending: Final thoughts?
Yana Gorskaya: One thought that I have had is that the directing branch of the Emmys tends to ignore genre shows. We as a show have gotten six nominations for writing, five of which I have directed, but I’ve never gotten a nod in the directing category and I don’t expect to, but I wish they would start watching genre shows. I do think the level of difficulty when you’re dealing with VFX, stunts, and creatures in prosthetics should be recognized as a show. This was a really special Faberge egg of a show, so carefully prepped and constructed, and I wish it saw more love. Especially for Shayne Fox for production design! Somebody please give her a giant box of Emmys.
