Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson in WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS – Season 3 – “The Prisoner” | ©2021 FX/Russ Martin

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is back for its third season on FX on Thursday nights, with episodes available the next day on FX on Hulu and FX on Demand, and already renewed for a fourth season before Season 3 even premiered.

In Part 2 of our exclusive interview with actor Mark Proksch, who plays energy vampire Colin Robinson in the supernatural comedy, he answers questions that would have been too spoilery to print before the Season 3 premiere on September 2.

Before Proksch got on Zoom with Assignment X, he also participated in a group Q&A virtual session, hosted by FX, for the summer Television Critics Association press tour. Here he was asked about Colin discovering that he’s a hundred years old. Does that change or inform Proksch’s approach to the character?

Proksch responds, “It doesn’t really change my approach to playing him.  He’s trying to figure out where he came from and where he’s going.  And there just isn’t a heck of a lot of information out there on energy vampires. And so, it’s kind of a fruitless journey.  But I will say there’s a pretty huge twist for Colin Robinson in the final episode that plays off his hundredth‑year birthday.”

In his Zoom conversation with Assignment X, Proksch elaborates on this.

ASSIGNMENT X: Does a lot of Colin’s storyline in Season 3 involve him trying to seek out the history of energy vampires?

MARK PROKSCH: Yeah, that’s his whole journey this year, is trying to find out where he came from, and what the history of energy vampirism is, and where he’s headed. Can he live forever? Is there something that can kill him? Unfortunately for Colin, I don’t think there is an answer to any of those questions. [It is] his existential crisis.

Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson in WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS – Season 2 | ©2020 FX/Pari Dukovic

AX: In the first episode of WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Season 3, Colin and his three more conventionally vampiric housemates are all promoted to being leaders of the Tri-State Vampiric Council. In the first episode of the season, it looks like Colin is very invested in being the supreme leader of the Council, and literally fighting for the throne.

But after that, it looks like he leaves it to Nadja [Natasia Dementriou] and Nandor [Kayvan Novak] to fight over that – third housemate Laszlo [Matt Berry] has said he doesn’t want it. Can you tease at all if Colin ever gets reinvested in the battle for the throne?

PROKSCH: You know, I think his interest in the throne was specifically to try to feed off Nadja and Nandor[‘s frustration]. I don’t think he actually wanted to be the head of the Vampiric Council, because, as you soon find out, he becomes the secretary for the Vampiric Council [laughs], which I think suits him much more. He can bore people to death with notes and the minutes of the previous meetings. So, I think his play to try to be the head of the Council was strategic on his part, to feed a little energy off of those two.

AX: Like his blood-drinking associates, Colin is able to fly. You’ve spoken before about the challenges of working on the flying wires. Has that gotten any easier in Season 3?

PROKSCH: No. It’s still very painful [laughs]. I don’t know how superhero actors do it. Yeah. They need to invent something that is not as intrusive as those harnesses are.

AX: In the second episode of Season 3, which aired right after the premiere, Colin uses the Cloak of Duplication to appear to be Nandor, so Kayvan Novak is effectively playing Colin Robinson. All of the regulars wind up using the Cloak, which means that Kayvan Novak eventually plays all of you But, at least in the pre-air screener we got, you’re still supplying Colin’s voice for those scenes. Were you actually on set for that, or did you record the voice separately, or how did you do that?

PROKSCH: We all sent him sound files of us saying those lines, and Kayvan is a great mimicker, and has been doing impersonations of each of us since Day One. So, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for him to do it. I haven’t seen the final result – I wasn’t on set, it was a long night that evening that he did my character. But he’s a brilliant, brilliant impersonator. And so, I had no doubt he’d be able to kill each and every one of the impersonations that he did.

Matt Berry as Laszlo, Mark Proksch as Colin Robinson, Natasia Demetriou as Nadja in WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS – Season 2 – “Ghosts” | ©2020 FX/Russ Martin

AX: Is Colin’s relationship with any of his housemates changing this season, or do they all continue to regard each other pretty much as they have for the first two seasons?

PROKSCH: No, I think he’s integrated himself into the household quite a bit more than he did the previous two seasons. Him and Laszlo befriend each other this season, and it’s kind of a twist as to why they have befriended each other. I didn’t have a ton of scenes this season with Nadja, which is a shame, because I like her and Colin’s relationship a lot. They seem to have some sort of affinity for each other. I think she’s felt bad for Colin in the past, and he’s felt bad for her in the past. We of course have quite a few scenes together, but our storylines didn’t cross, and so the bulk of Colin Robinson’s story this year is separate from Nadja’s. But yeah, I think we’ve moved beyond Colin just trying to annoy the roommates to a place where he’s an accepted nuisance.

AX: How was it shooting the Season 2 finale, where Colin and all of his housemates were kidnapped by the Vampiric Council until their familiar Guillermo [Harvey Guillėn] rescues them by killing most of the other vamps? You had panic and being tied up and threatened and untied and …

PROKSCH: Yeah. That was just a really fun, exciting episode to get to film. Any time you get to do a lot of action on a comedy, it’s a gift, and so something like that, where we are running around a lot, and the stakes are really high, is exciting, and fun to do.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS – Season 2 Key Art | ©2020 FX

AX: And what would you most like people to know about WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Season 3?

PROKSCH: Oh, that it really pushes all the silliness, and takes it to a new level. We’re still not a show that teaches people to be good people, or teaches them lessons. It’s not a drama with some jokes in it. It’s just a funny, funny show.

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS actor Mark Proksch on Season 3 – Part 1

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS actor Matt Berry on Season 2

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS actress Natasia Demetriou on Season 2

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS actor Mark Proksch on Season 2

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS actor Harvey Guillen on Season 2

Related: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN SHADOWS executive producer Paul Simms

Related: Exclusive Interview with Natasia Demetriou on Season 1 of the FX comedy based on the film

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Article: Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS actor Mark Proksch on Season 3 – Part 2

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