‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Cleans Up in Emmy Writing Category — and Clocks Another Win for Diversity

TheWrap magazine: Four years ago, Stefani Robinson became the first Black woman ever nominated for writing and producing. This year, she did it again

What We Do in the Shadows
FX

This story about Stefani Robinson and “What We Do in the Shadows” first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

The vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” isn’t one of the more high-profile nominees in the Outstanding Comedy Series category, but it is a powerhouse in the writing category. Two years ago, when the FX series was nominated for its second season, it grabbed a remarkable three of the seven nominations in the category; this year, it joins “Barry” as the only show with two noms, while “Abbott Elementary,” “Hacks,” “Only Murders in the Building” and “Ted Lasso” have one.

What is it that attracts Emmy voters in the writers peer group to this tale of a band of vampires living on Staten Island? “It’s a really great question, and I wish I knew the answer,” said writer and executive producer Stefani Robinson, one of two “Shadows” writers who are nominated this year. (The other is Sarah Naftalis.)

Stefani Robinson photographed by Samantha Annis for TheWrap
Stefani Robinson photographed by Samantha Annis for TheWrap

“What I think people might be responding to is that the show is just purely funny. Lately, the comedy category has been filled with a lot of the dramedy sensibility, and I say that about myself when I was on ‘Atlanta.’ But ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ isn’t interested in making bigger political points or delving into the real world. We’re writing a show that’s funny, and maybe that’s why writers are attracted to it.”

Robinson’s last nomination came for “Shadows”’ second-season episode “On the Run,” in which vampire Laszlo (Matt Berry) runs a bar in Pennsylvania in an attempt to hide from the vengeful Jim the Vampire (Mark Hamill). She’s nominated this year for another episode in which she puts a vampire in an unusual environment: “The Wellness Center” finds bored and depressed Nandor (Kayvan Novak) hanging out in a brightly colored, perky fitness clinic where vampires seemingly learn to forsake a life of eternal bloodlust and damnation to become normal humans.

“I love to see the vampires outside their normal surroundings,” she said. “And we wanted Nandor to go through an existential crisis, a vampire depression, questioning what it means to be a vampire. Is life meaningless if you’re immortal? We also wanted to play with the idea of vampire cults, so this was a perfect marriage.”

When Robinson was originally working on “Atlanta,” she was both the youngest of the show’s writers and the only woman; when she was nominated for writing and producing Emmys for that show in 2018, she became the first Black woman ever nominated in both categories in the same year.

She’s done it again this year, but she said she’s seen a change in the business in the intervening time. “The writers’ rooms I’ve been in have been getting more diverse,” she said. “And there are conversations happening. In the early years of my career, those conversations about how to build out a writers’ room with that sort of diversity just weren’t being spoken. Now we’re in a time when showrunners, producers and networks are aware that diversity of thought and experience ultimately gives you more to pull from in those rooms.”  

Read more from the Down to the Wire: Comedy issue here.

Photo by Steve Schofield for TheWrap

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