Steven Prusakowski
In the latest episode of FX’s What We Do In the Shadows, the series delivers a hilarious parody of an iconic 1970s film with the instant classic “Come Out And Play.” As the title suggests, the episode takes inspiration from The Warriors, a film which follows a NY street gang on the run after an assassination attempt on a gang leader trying to unite them. In this take, the “gang” on the run is the Staten Island crew, after Cravensworth’s Monster gets a little too handsy during The Baron’s (Doug Jones) “Eternal Lifetime Achievement” ceremony, leading to Jerry the Vampire losing his head (literally).
The result is a hilarious take on the film, as the crew faces off against numerous creative and threatening vampire gangs, including the Bronx Bomber Vampires, the Confusing 80s Music Reference Vampires, and the Barista Vampires—each funnier than the last. The episode even features a cameo from a famous TV vamp, Alexander Skarsgård, reprising his True Blood role as Eric Northman. He’s the bloody good cherry on top of an episode that has something for everyone.
When asked to talk about his cameo, Skarsgård provided this puzzling response, “I’m afraid I have no recollection of shooting this episode as Dr. Laszlo Cravensworth apparently hypnotized me at the wrap party. But I did wake up with an intense physical attraction to Dr. Cravensworth and found his extraordinary wit, charm and intelligence absolutely disarming. I have since started a YouTube fan page for him. It’s called ‘Because you’re Cravens-worth it’ Please like, follow and subscribe.”
Skarsgård’s Eric Northman is just the latest TV vampire to have guest starred on the Emmy® nominated comedy series. Over its six seasons, Shadows has featured some incredible guest stars including popular vamps such as Wesley Snipes, Tilda Swinton, (Skarsgård’s True Blood co-star) Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Trejo, and Paul Reubens, as well as Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi and Jonny Brugh who reprised their roles from the film.
Even with all the expanded catalog of vamp gangs and the surprise cameo, this episode belongs to Baron Afanas, (Jones) who for six seasons, and several iterations, has become one of the most beloved characters of the series.. Through a massive amount of prosthetics and his acting, Jones has given The Baron several unique forms ranging from a decrepit ancient vampire in the series’ early seasons to the current transformation which looks much more like the actor. The accomplished actor, has starred in about 90 films and short films but you may not always recognize him under hit prosthetics as seen in films like The Shape of Water, Hellboy, and Pan’s Labyrinth.
Jones spoke with Awards Radar about the latest episode and his work on the series. (You can watch the interview in its entirety below.) During our conversation the actor shared the importance of his Shadows role, “The Baron holds such a special place in my heart. I think probably because of the comedy element. That’s what sets this one a little bit apart from other things I’ve done in my now 38-year career,” shared Jones. “I’ve played many monsters and creatures and dark characters that, you know, licking people’s faces and damning them to hell. I’ve done a lot of that, but with the Baron, it’s to take all the vampire tropes and make ruthless fun of them, and to be the all-powerful leader of this band of vampires who is every bit an idiot as much as they are, you can’t help but go to work and laugh every day that you’re there.”
With a character as transformative and deadly funny as The Baron, Jones also touched up some of what he brought to help add to the role of vampire leader through some much encouraged improv. “I’m working with the funniest people on earth with the rest of the cast,” said Jones. “So I’ve learned to do that (improv) with them. And when you see a long complicated word with many syllables, it’s like, ah, that’s a great opportunity to mispronounce something. So the Baron tends to, and I’ve noticed this when I’ve traveled abroad before, that when someone’s speaking English and it’s not their first language, they do want to sound out every syllable. Occasionally, Vs and Ws get transferred with each other. So that’s why ‘I vong to be a wampire.” That’s where that comes from.
Will we see more of Jones as wampire leader, The Baron, after this? Only time will tell. But that time is short as the series is sadly closing out its run there with its final two episodes on FX. The next is “The Promotion” airing December 9th which has the vampires attending an office party to celebrate Guillermo’s promotion. And the series finale the following week. No details have been provided, but as this series proves time and time again, you never know what to expect.
Watch the full interview with Doug Jones below – fans of Jones and the series will love. Episode 9,”Come Out and Play” is now streaming on Hulu.
For more What We Do In the Shadows insights can also read my interview, here with Matt Berry, Harvey Gullien (who also guested on my TV Topics podcast), Mark Proksch and Kayvan Novak – plus the EP/Writers (Paul Sims, Sam Johnson, and Sarah Naftalis.
Comments
Loading…