[Note: This interview contains spoilers for the season finale of What We Do In The Shadows.]
Mark Proksch has had a wild year on FX’s What We Do In The Shadows, building off a bizarre set of reveals from the end of the show’s last season: Deeply dull energy vampire Colin Robinson’s sudden and gory death, followed by the discovery of a baby version of the character (with Proksch’s head now green-screened on top of an actual infant’s body). The unsettling visuals continued throughout the vampire comedy’s fourth season, with a series of child actors playing Colin’s body, and Proksch continuing to provide the character’s face and voice.
Proksch sat down with us ahead of the show’s season four finale to talk about Baby Colin’s very strange arc—as well as his belief in the importance of ugliness in comedy, the fate of his Better Call Saul character Daniel “Squat Cobbler” Wormald, and the ways in which the Wayans Brothers comedy Little Man potentially saved this season of What We Do In The Shadows.
The A.V. Club: How was this whole Baby Colin plotline pitched to you, originally?
Mark Proksch: It was after we read the script in which I died. Paul [Simms, What We Do In The Shadows showrunner] called me afterwards, not really thinking I would be thinking I was off the show. Which I didn’t, because it’s such a cartoon that we could get away with anything. I figured they had a plan in mind. After that table read, Paul called me and laid out what would be happening in season four. That said, I did have a moment of panic of being like, “Oh, god, I’m going to ruin this show that everyone likes” by jumping the shark with, you know, a cute version of Colin Robinson. And to that, my only request was, please don’t make him cute. Don’t have him saying “Wadical, dude!” or anything like that. I think the writers were able to pull it off.
AVC: The theme of the show is often that nothing changes. Do you feel like Colin Robinson has now changed?
MP: I don’t think he has. And I don’t think it would be good if he did. I think there’s some things that may inform my performance, but I don’t think anyone would really even notice that. It’s hard in these interviews, you can get very philosophical. And I’m not a philosophical person about this shit. To me, it’s pretending. But I do think that in real life, we have a tendency to look back and say, oh, nothing ever changes. I’m so bored with my life and what have you. But if you look a year back, a lot changed and you just don’t clock it. And we’re just so adaptive at that. For Colin to really recognize it and change, I think would be a bit of a disservice to the audience and to the viewers who already like the character how he is.
AVC: In terms of just physical process, what was filming this season like for you?
MP: It was a challenge. When we’re on set, we all improvise quite a bit, and that wasn’t an option for me this year. Everything was filmed, and then I did all my performance afterwards, a couple of months after, in front of a green screen. And so you have the constraint of, “Okay, you need to hold your head right here, so your eye lines are right. Don’t move, because the lighting can’t change. If you’re going to improvise, it has to work within this line and the line that comes right after yours, and be funny.” But it was exciting. I’ve played this character for three seasons, which is, in these days, an eternity for TV. So it was fun to kind of blow dust off of the character and find some new well of enthusiasm for me.
AVC: Where did Baby Colin’s “Hey Laszlo, guess what” come from?
MP: That was Paul Simms, our showrunner. A lot of Colin’s talking points come from his two children. And he would send me audio, in fact, of his children, in order for me to kind of get the rhythm down, and the level of excitement that they have for these subjects. Which, I don’t have kids and I know nothing about any of it. So that was really helpful.
AVC: Did you ever meet any of the kids playing Colin on the set?
MP: A couple of times, actually, because they would bring me up to Toronto to test some sort of technique that they were trying to implement in the creation of Baby and Tween Colin. They were great. And each one had their own specialty, like Violet [Tinnirello], she’s a great singer and dancer. So they used her dancing and then put my head on that. And of course, I’m singing, but she could perform. You know, one of the kids was great at physical comedy, and the other was great at reactions and moping. So each one had their strength.
AVC: What was it like the first time you saw the Baby Colin effect?
MP: Well, there were two. We did two processes. The first process they tried was all digital. And that looked like … a video game that was trying to be uncanny valley. It wasn’t even uncanny valley, but it was so awful, and just, it looked terrible.
AVC: A full CGI Baby Colin?
MP: Yeah. With, like, a CGI of my head, and it looked terrible. It was on a day before we started filming when they got those tests back. So they were like, “Oh, God, we’re going to have 12-minute episodes, because this isn’t going to work.” And then Kyle Newacheck, one of our directors, was like, “Why don’t we do what they did on the Wayans Brothers movie, Little Man?” So they started talking to the technical people behind that, and really perfected that look for Baby Colin. It’s still weird for me to watch that.
AVC: It’s not often you hear Little Man cited as a technical inspiration for something.
MP: Exactly, and who would have thought it would pay off in such a big way?
AVC: This is a big season for Laszlo and Colin together. Why do you think that pairing has become so prominent over the last two seasons?
MP: These two characters are so different from each other. And I think that if it were just Guillermo, I think it would get too mushy. If it was Nadja, you would be falling into, you know, gender stereotypes. Nandor, he’s too stupid to be able to raise anything. I think having Laszlo and Colin worked really well. Also, you know, some of the fans early on were like “They would never hang out together. Why are they doing this to these characters?” And that was planned by Paul and the writers. They knew people would be like, “What? What’s going on here? This doesn’t make sense.” Knowing all along that they would reveal their hand at the end and show why Laszlo was doing it, and he was doing it out of honor to some extent.
AVC: When you’re in a scene with Matt Berry, is there ever an impulse to try to go over, to do the Matt Berry thing? There’s been a lot of talk about his line readings lately.
MP: Anything you put into that voice is funny. Matt and I are very similar in our philosophies of comedy, which is to play it as dry, usually, as you can. Especially in a mockumentary. Personally, I don’t like seeing mockumentaries where the actors are informed by the fact that it’s a documentary. Laughing at our own jokes, in the way we perform it, I think would really bug the shit out of me. So we both try to play things relatively as dry as possible. Matt does these line readings, but they make sense for the character, and they’re not really winking at the camera or anything like that. They’re very dry. To some extent, what I try to do with Colin is play him very … boring, in search of a better word. But no, I never have an impulse to match that at all. In fact, if anything, I pull back from it.
AVC: What was your favorite Baby Colin moment from the season?
MP: Any of the singing and dancing was fun to do, because I can’t do that in real life. Especially when we’re at the club and I’m in my 40-something body that I have, and I’m trying to sing and dance like I remember as a child. That was really fun for me, and what you see in the final version is just a snippet of how long I had to sing and dance in front of these strangers who thought I was, you know, absolutely disgusting and insane, which is good for comedy.
AVC: How long were you up there?
MP: Oh, a good hour. Yeah, we filmed a bunch of takes on that. You know, you want to look ugly. You don’t want to look attractive. Nothing drives me up the wall more than a comedic actor trying to look good. Comedic actors who won’t take off their shirts or they give a shit about their hair. Any of that drives me nuts. How is that funny? Pretty’s never funny.
AVC: Was there a point where you’re like, “Oh, I’m going to have to sing a lot this season?” Was that intimidating?
MP: It’s kind of exciting. As long as I’m in character, I don’t mind. I mean, that goes back to the K-Strass stuff. You know, as long as I’m in character, I feel like I have kind of a forcefield in front of me, and that’s how it was with the singing. It was just something new I got to try.
AVC: Would you want to see another plotline like this for Colin?
MP: One thing I love about this show is that we don’t really pander to what people want, like the Jackie Daytona stuff. People want it, until they see it. And then they’re like, “Oh, I didn’t actually want to see that again.” I feel like we’ve done it and it’s time to move on. You know, the writers are so good that they’ll come up with something that’ll top it. Frankly, I’m excited to get back to a season of just being boring Colin Robinson, too.
AVC: This might be a dumb question, but, If you were an energy vampire, what topic would you use to drain people?
MP: Oh, this is going to annoy a lot of people. This is going to make me sound like the biggest asshole. Probably wine, jazz, and classic television. But I don’t consider any of them pretentious! Because wine is just, you know, it’s grape farming. You’re getting drunk on grapes. Jazz is way too often intellectualized when it shouldn’t be. I think it was the low self-esteem of early jazz listeners to think, “Well, I need to sound pompous and smarter than anyone. Otherwise, they’re going to think that jazz is bad or something like that.” And classic TV. I don’t need to justify. That’s just the best TV you can have. Three dumb answers to your so-called dumb question.
AVC: Do you feel like your career has changed since What We Do In The Shadows? Do you feel like people view you differently?
MP: I think the exposure is good, to a degree. You never want to be overexposed when you’re a character actor—and I’m a character actor—I’m not a lead actor, in my view. I think that has changed. It’s a weird business, and sometimes it takes you being on a hit show in order for people to feel confident in casting you in other stuff, or giving you a chance to do your own thing. It certainly has not changed me at all. [Laughs] I’m still just concerned about doing what I think is the funniest thing, and if I can make a living doing that, and if I can get people to say hi to me on the street because of that, and be nice, then that’s great. I have gotten very lucky, then.
AVC: Did you watch the Better Call Saul finale?
MP: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it was crazy.
AVC: Was there ever a conversation like, “We need to get the squat cobbler back? We need to check in?”
MP: I’m close with Tom Schnauz, who is one of the writers and executive producers on the show and, he said it came up quite a bit, but it just didn’t make sense in the storyline that they had mapped out. The sense, the last time I was on the show and asked, “Are you going to come back? Do you want to come back?” I’ve always said, if they want to bring me back, great. But if they don’t, I get to be a fan of the show, so that’s just as rewarding to me. I’m not saying that as, like, Hollywood bullshit. That’s the truth.
AVC: I did watch the actual squat cobbler video you filmed last night.
MP: Oh. Did you?
AVC: It’s a thing of beauty.
MP: Yeah, I wonder how many people have seen that. Again, that goes to my … comedy is not supposed to be attractive. I mean, you can’t get much grosser than that.
AVC: You make a lot of little sounds once you’ve sat in the pie that are…
MP: Yeah. Yep…
AVC: And I feel like that’s also of a piece with the stuff you do with On Cinema.
MP: That’s probably my favorite show I get to be on, and it’s because we’re all close friends, to start with, Tim, Gregg, and I, and so it’s just goofing around with some of your best friends. There’s no pressure at all, especially for my character. I mean, the dumber, more inept that I can look and come across, the better. I just get to do what I think is funniest. How often do you get to do that, and have it actually get in front of people’s eyes, especially in this business? It’s another show where you can’t jump the shark. Everything’s stupid, and meant to be. So it gives you just so much freedom to go wherever your creativity takes you.
AVC: It felt genuinely nice to see the original Colin Robinson back for the finale. Why do you think people have responded so much to the character?
MP: It’s that combination of awful and endearing that I love playing. He’s also somebody that we’ve met or that we know in our everyday life. There’s so many of Colin Robinsons, either at your office or that you bump into at the DMV, or what have you. It’s fun to see a person like that on screen—who you don’t personally have to deal with.