I want to give a shoutout to this podcast, to all the listeners. We got a shoutout in The New York Times. They called us a podcast to watch. There were some other amazing podcast on there. Jamie Loftus, the Lolita Podcast she's doing is so good. Just an honor to be on that list with her, with so many amazing shows. Do want to say, you know, I’m the only one on there that’s independent, just me, no producers, none of that stuff. Just me and a bunch of people on Patreon, and also black woman, Black History Month. There you go. That too.
I felt really good to get that recognition. I appreciate it so much. You know this is a labor of love, this is my passion. Television, I watch it all for you, so you don’t have to watch bad TV. Or as I say on the pod, this is my passion, my love. I watch so much TV. There is no bad TV in my opinion. I don’t think there really is bad TV. I don’t know that, as someone who writes TV criticism, that might be hard to understand but I truly just believe there is good TV and amazing TV. There’s TV that makes you ask questions. There’s TV that just starts conversations. But can TV really be bad? If it entertains you in some way, even when something makes me so angry that I have to get on Twitter and write like 30 threads about how it’s just like the most nonsensical television I’ve ever seen, that still comes from a place of love. It’s just all love. Watch everything. Even when I’m like, “Oh, this wasn’t that great.” I’m still saying watch it. There’s no bad TV. I love TV.
The Watch List
WandaVision. I think everybody already knows, we were all talking about the fourth episode and I had said last week, I think this is the episode where things are going to really jump off. And oh my God, did they jump off? It jumped off. That was, oh my gosh, Episode — no spoilers. Also, I don’t even think I can spoil it, because like I now understand what is happening on the show, but I also still have no sort of understanding of like the wider MCU universe, I guess.
I don’t think I can spoil it, but what I can say is that as an outsider who kind of came into this not knowing much about Wanda or Vision, this episode brought it all together, gave me some amazing engaging characters. It was — you got to watch WandaVision. It’s really, truly so good. Just some amazing storytelling too. I think it’s cool, Disney let them take a risk to really use those first three episodes to build the mystery. I think that could have been a miss. It’s a home run for me.Shameless is finally back. They did like one little episode and they did more clip episodes and now they’re back again. I have to be real. They really are digging into this whole like cop Carl thing in a way that I just don’t think is well done. It’s like he’s teamed up with this black female cop, who’s just like a horrible villain, who just like goes around torturing people. Then Carl is lake, “I will find a way to like torture them less and that makes me good.” It’s weird messaging.
Then they also are trying like deal with the politics, and the racism stuff with the neighbors next door. It’s just, hey, it’s a final season, I just want Lip to come out of it okay, so I’m going to watch it until the end. I’m holding. I just learned what the stock market is, so my time invested in Shameless at this point since season one, too much of a loss. I’m dime enhancing, a term I also used. I just learned, I’m dime enhancing Shameless until the end, until the moon, which is the last episode. Where I assume, they shoot the entire family. I don’t know why I’m mixing these metaphors. Anyway, Shameless, I’m going to keep watching it.Raising Hope. As you know, Cloris Leachman passed away last week. Absolutely sad. Brilliant performer, so funny, amazing comedic timing. I tweeted something like, Cloris Leachman is Betty White for those of us who have depression, which you know I think was just the case for me. I always thought she was so funny, she always was darker, more sarcastic than Betty White, who obviously I also love, but who is iconic. And I just think Cloris was an icon in her own right at the same level as a Betty White. I hope history remembers her that way, because clearly, her amazing just resume of movies, TV shows is so impressive and will just stay with us. So anyway, all of that is a long way to say that.
I loved Raising Hope when it originally aired. It’s one of my favorite shows. I did watch it until it ended. I watched every episode, every season. But it’s one of those things were, okay. I watch a lot of TV and it’s like there’s the TV I watch because I have to like write about it and pay attention. And then there’s the TV I watch because I just like turn my brain off and so I got — there are whole shows where I know I have watched every moment of it, but I could not tell you like a clear plot detail. I just like remember in parts like, “Oh, yeah. I remember that Joe like in this scene.” That’s Raising Hope for me. So I decided to do a re-watch. I’ve enjoyed it so much, it so much funnier than I remember. It is just so good. Justice for Lucas Neff, who played the lead. That guy, really great comedic timing and a little cutie pie. Real cutie pie he is, yeah. I have a little crush on him looking at him. Anyway, Raising Hope, check it out.
Cloris does some amazing work. I’m already almost down with season 2. She passed away like last week and I’m recording this, like not even five days later and I have already watched almost two seasons in my binge watch. That’s how funny it is. There’s like an episode where Cloris Leachman just, like, drinks an entire gallon of milk. There is this one scene where she kills, and slaughters an entire pig and cooks it. And she’s just like, “I’m going to need a better mop next time.” It’s so funny. You got to watch it.Bonding on Netflix or I tried. I watched the pilot of Bonding. It was interesting. I just couldn’t really get into it. It’s about like this like very milquetoast white guy helping his sex worker friends. And I don’t know, it was hard for me to kind of click with. I think for me right now, it’s just hard to see those stories kind of like told by boring looking white dude. It didn’t grab me quite yet, but I only gave the pilot a shot, but that’s a new one on Netflix that I had noticed.
Lupin. I actually don’t know if I’m saying that right. I took French one time like in fourth grade and I hated it, but I love this show. I just started it, just the first episode, but very much like it. I know everybody has already finished it, I’m behind here. But typically, I don’t know, I tend l to like not really be into dramas like this, but I like the cast so for. I really like the performances, the mystery has already kind of pulled me in I guess, so I’m excited to see where it goes. So you can keep listening to the pod, I’ll be updating you as I finish the show.
Blown Away, Netflix’s glassblowing competition show. I have obviously talked about things like the Great British Bake Off, Great Pottery Throw Down on the podcast, so I had to start Blown Away. It is weird, I don’t know. It’s like the Great Pottery Throw Down, like pottery is I guess like kind of a big enough community, where some of the people know each other and have like taken classes with each other or taught each other. But mostly, these people are like, “Oh, we’re all strangers here to be in this competition.”
There’s something about Blown Away where I guess the glass community is not that big because all these people are like, “Ah, yes, that’s my professor who taught me everything I know and who will probably just sweep this entire competition.” He’s just like, “Yeah, I’m not here to brag. I basically taught everybody here everything they know.” And the guy who like won the previous season is there and is like a guest judge and he’s like, “Yeah, that guy is my teacher.” So I don’t know. To me, it’s just a weird kind of — I also don’t know what good or bad glass looks like. To me, I’m just like, “Holy shit! You made some glass. Well, look at you go. What a feat?” I don’t know what to look for here with that one, but yeah, I’ll probably keep watching it.Search Party. Obviously, I got to talk about Search Party. No spoilers, I say it all the time just because with Search Party, I want to be very clear, no spoilers. The fourth season, Emmy’s nominations. It is so good. It’s so good. It’s so funny. It’s just like — I recapped the third season for Vulture. I’ll do a brief little, I loved it. I thought it was a little, tonally. It had some moments where it was a little off, but that was mostly because there had been such a long break between the second and third season. That like some of it, you could tell it was like, okay. This is very based in the season that like finish some years before this season was written. And they had to like blend these tones and these two kinds of comedic voices. They did a really good job of like bringing the show kind of past its initial skewering of like millennial and stuff like that to something that you know was very 2020 and very funny.
There were a few moments where I was like, “Okay. Yeah, I see where they’re coming.” But I also at the end of it was like, “Where are they going to go next? Where do you go? Where’s the show going to go from here and Season 4?” Where did they go? They went to the moon. Okay. It’s just so good. It’s so good. I don’t want to really spoil any of the performances, but it is probably one of my favorite, just like season finale’s that I’ve ever watched, where I was angry and then I was shocked. I legitimately called some twists, and then was like, “Oh, I was wrong.” Then I was like, “Oh, I was right.”But then, “Oh my God!” It takes you all over the place. Everybody know Search Party is good, but I also always hear people saying they haven’t heard anyone talking about it, so I’m trying to talk about it. I feel like I’ve been in from the start and this latest season, I mean — Season 4, they bring in Cole Escola, Susan Sarandon. It’s just — the perform — Cole has this monologue about this nightmare that their character is having and I paused and re-watch that scene so many times. I’m going to shut up, because I know you’re all going to like immediately stop listening to this podcast and you’re going to go watch Search Party. So there it is.
90 Day Fiancé: Bares All, 90 Day Fiancé, the regular series is on a break until February 14th. But 90 Day Fiancé: Bares All in the Discovery Plus app has new episodes. It comes out Monday right after the episode. This week, they had — I’m mentioning it because this last episode, Big Ed, who I know is like fan favorite, one of the meme favorite people on the show. He’s the guest in he says like some of the meanest stuff about Rose again, and also about Darcey. He says some mean stuff about Darcey and I did not appreciate it, so that’s why I’m calling it out here. Because Darcey is a Queen, don’t come for her, Ed. That’s all I wanted to say about that. I mean, it’s 90 Day Fiancé: Bares All. It’s really good, and that they dig into like the 90 Day Fiancé universe to just like find guess for the show. One of the people they like routinely bring back is Yazan’s translator, if you remember him from 90 Day: The Other Way, he was just the translator who came in for Yazan and Brittany. He just like comes on the show, they bring him in, he tells jokes, he reads tweets. He has a great voice, he’s really funny, good comedic timing that guy. So yeah, 90 Day: Fiancé Bares All if you want that real insider scoop.
Then over on ABC, we had just rush of shows come back. We had black-ish. grown-ish. grown-ish is on freeform but you know what I mean. The Goldbergs, so all my little family sitcoms just kind of came sweeping back. I loved this black-ish return episode. They lose power, Dre freaks out, it’s a classic little set up. I just thought it was a really good episode. It was a good comeback. I miss the show. grown-ish is back. It feels like grown-ish has been gone for so long, but I don’t even really think it’s been that long. I always just kind of think of the grown-ish and The Bold Type together and it’s been so long since I had a new episode of The Bold Type. You guys know, I’m one of the bold ones. You know I’m Bold Type fan. I love The Bold Type. Bold ones, if you’re out there, when The Bold Type comes back, we’re going to go hard on this podcast. But grown-ish is like my, when I don’t have The Bold Type, I like to watch grown-ish. Obviously, Chloe, she is so great in this episode. I just love her story. She has is this like really beautiful part in it. Just go watch it.
After that, like I said, The Goldbergs. I really enjoyed this episode. I just think The Goldbergs is doing so well in how they’ve readjusted the characters with obviously all of them getting older and hitting college age. They tried to send some of them off to college, they’ve like twisted things around in a way to like keep it relevant. I think it’s doing really well. Steve Guttenberg was in this last episode. It was fun.Unexpected on TLC. I watch the show. I’ve been watching it since it started, but I never really talk about it. When it first came, I was always just like, “What is this teen mom knock off? Why would I watch a teen mom knockoff called Unexpected? Come on, I’m a millennial. I grew up with the teen moms, please.” Then I started Unexpected and I like it more than I kind of ever did Teen Mom. It’s just the way that they interview the people and I think it’s also just — it’s very different to make a reality show now than it was when Teen Mom was made. And on Teen Mom, it was like, “Oh, these are regular girls who know they’re about to become famous stars and they want to capitalize off of that.” With Unexpected and TLC is kind of like documentary approach, these people know like, “I’m on a TLC show. I’m not about to like be a celebrity.” It’s like, “Yeah, I’m going to get like Instagram followers and maybe I can like sell some CBD oil, but I’m not about to like be able to launch like a porn line like Farrah from Teen Mom.” Ii’s more realistic to this just being like some 15 and 16-year-old kids who like, “Well, I don’t know. I just thought that like the birth-control I would gain some weight, so we didn’t like to use the condoms and then I do know. Now, I’m pregnant” and it’s just — Yeah. And the parents are way more involved too, which I think really is eye-opening how much the parents have to take on.
Harvey Guillén!
Ashley Ray: I’m so excited, so excited we have Harvey Guillén from What We Do in the Shadows. Guillermo De la Cruz. What We Do in the Shadows was my number one show of the year last year. So so excited to have you. How are you doing?
Harvey Guillén: I’m doing great. It’s so nice to meet you, Ashley. I’m so like — yeah, it’s just been like a crazy week of like shooting Shadows and everything that’s happening in the world and everything that’s good in the world.
AR: Yeah. And amongst all of that good, you got a Critics’ Choice Television Award nomination for best supporting actor in a comedy series for What We Do in the Shadows. How does that feel?
HG: It was so funny because I had a text and it was from my friend in [inaudible 00:17:43] and she said, “Congratulations” and I said, “What?” I thought it was like, the show. I was like, “Something happened?” I was like, “Did I miss something?” I don’t know what it was and I said, “Wait. What?” She’s like, “You got nominated for?” and I was like, “Oh, the show got nominated?” She’s like, “Yes and you got nominated.” So that was very nice. I think I screamed. I was like, “What?” Because I finally got on the phone with her she was like, “Yeah.” It was exciting. It was really nice to do that, because you don’t do it to get actually a recognition, but it’s really nice when that does happen, because you kind of drop your guard and you’re like, “If it happens it happens” and it did. And out of all the shows that were on the air, like, “This is the critics that chose the contender” so it was very nice and I’m very thankful.
I was thinking about this yesterday with my sister who posted or reposted my post and she said, “Here’s to the boy who dreamed about this. The teenager who helped raise his younger siblings in a low-income family and the man who didn’t stop dreaming.”
AR: Yeah. I also feel like giving Guillermo in that character, it’s so beautiful that it happens for this character. Guillermo, my favorite on What We Do in the Shadows. Just his plot, how he doesn’t give up faith, how you’re just always cheering for him. This is one of the questions one of my listeners submitted is, how do they always get us to cheer for him and root for Guillermo even though we know he has killed so many people?
HG: You know what, it’s a fine line, right? The character of Guillermo because out of everyone, he’s the most grounded, he’s the human. The vampires are these characters. They’re just bigger than life because yeah, they’re immortal. They have nothing to risk, nothing to fear. I guess we see them live their life fearlessly, because they just think about lust, blood, feasting and that’s all they care about and having a good time. As humans, we’re driven by ambition, and dreams, and hopes and love. So those things that Guillermo gets to play out as he’s going along with the horrible demands of his master, even kind of gathering victims if you will. If you look at it, you’re like, “That’s that.” But he never loves doing that if you notice, and he’s never the first one to sign up. He hates that he has to do that, but he has a dream, and he has goal and if this is what it takes, then he’s like, he really has this fight within himself all the time, even when he almost sacrificed his best friend in the past season. That he has a conscience, and he regret it, and he rushes to make it right.
Then thankfully, it all worked out in the end, but he does have a conscience and that sometimes is what really kind of draws the audience to connect with Guillermo because we see ourselves in Guillermo. We’re all Guillermos. We all root for him because we all root for each other, we’re human. We’re supposed to uplift everyone, so we all root for Guillermo because he’s just a representation of ourselves.
AR: Yeah. He’s such an underdog and I don’t want to spoil anything. I mean, if you haven’t watched this last season of What We Do in the Shadows, what are you doing? Watch it immediately. But the final episode and that scene with Guillermo, I stood up and clapped. I was just like, “Oh my gosh!”
HG: It was great. You know what’s funny. I had 104 fever shooting that scene. Yeah. I was sick as a dog. I just remember —
AR: You’re wearing like a lot of leather jackets in that or like layers.
HG: [Crosstalk 00:20:46] combat and I was burning up, and it was my last day of shooting because it was the last day before we wrap up. It was December 22nd or something like that. We shoot really close to Christmas and then we go back home, then we’re done with the season. It got to the point where it was the last scene and set up of the day and it was the last shot. I’m just like, I’ve been kind of feeling like this all week and I’ve been taking care of myself but it’s not working. I felt it, like I was like, “Oh man!” I was just concentrating between takes and Kayvan walk by and he knew that I was filming. He said, “I know what you’re doing man.” He said, “I know what you’re doing.” He’s like, “Good on you.” He’s like, “Yeah. I know you’re saving your energy. You’re going to kill it. You’re going to kill it.” Because I was not talking to anyone, I was just saving any ounce of energy that I have left just so when they said action because I did it. Then as soon as we got in, we wrapped, I literally just collapsed and I went to the hotel and slept for like 12 hours.
AR: How many takes did you have to do?
HG: Thank goodness. Well, I had gotten the moves down from the get-go. I think that would have been terribly a really long night if I would have been like, “Oh, sorry guys. I messed up.” But thank God I’ve been on it, and top of it and learning those steps and stuff. We only did about I think I want to say three from on angle and then like two from another. The fight scene is really quick and all together it’s like two minutes.
AR: Yeah. But it’s so like choreographed, like kind of ballet the way that it just, like so perfectly has the holy water and then it like turns and he has this.
HG: Yeah, it is a ballet. It’s like a dance and Tig, our stunt coordinator is so amazing. I said that from day one, because first of all, they didn’t know I could do stunts, so they’ve said, “We’re going to give you a little bit like a trial, like we’re going to give you a move.” So Tig would be like, “I’m going to give you this move. Don’t worry, we can do it, our stunt in person” and I do it. Then he’ll give me another one and he’s like, “How about this?” and I’ll do it again. And eventually just goes, “I’m telling the producers you can do all the stunts.” I was like, “What?” I ended up doing a lot of the stunts myself except for one, for insurance reasons. I couldn’t do it. The one where he falls downstairs backwards on his back.
AR: Okay. Yeah. I thought maybe you’re going to say the one when he likes climbs off the wall outside and like gets on the roof.
HG: Yeah. That was me top of it all. So I did like the half turn, the other one is definitely — the back is definitely not me. That one I didn’t do. That one is on a harness and all that thing. But the other one that I did do was the out the window, like backwards, where I flip everyone up. That one. That’s was a real two-story window and I fall into like padding and stuff. It was nice and I like it, I like doing the action stuff. It’s nice to see someone that you root for and he’s like, “Yes, he’s a badass.”
AR: Yeah, and he has like all the moves and he saves the day. It’s so great. One question that listeners had is, what is the process for becoming a familiar do you think? Like how did Guillermo even find that job posting? Like is this something that you think he would stumble upon on Craigslist?
HG: I don’t know and I made my own back story obviously, but I don’t know what the writers or the creators, really Taika and Jermaine originally had in mind for that. But in my head, I feel like he was at Panera Bread and it was like closing the night, like closing the shop. And he somehow encountered like Nandor, like he might have came in for a question or something. And he noticed him and he called him and was like, “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” And maybe it’s like a moment of like he’s going to kill him or was going to be a victim and then he made a deal. He was like, “I want to be just like.” That’s the story I made in my head, which is like, “That’s how he got here.” It’s probably not what they run over —
AR: I feel like it makes sense though. I feel like for Guillermo, it would be something just super innocent. Like he’s working his day job and it’s just like, “Oh my gosh” and just can’t let it go.
HG: Yeah. And I think that Nandor will take pity on him and there’s just this really great connection between those characters, where it’s familiar in master or where it’s buddies, is it more, is like are they, aren’t they. It’s all this like — again, it’s a thin line to play because you’re always walking on that tight rope and he’s not going to give you that. It’s always nice to be on that tight rope.
AR: Yeah, I love it. Another question from the listeners. They wanted to know, Mark Hamill was in this last season and I know you aren’t too closely connected to that plotline in that episode, but did you get to talk to him? What was it like to have him on the show? Then also, they wanted to know if you had any guesses on what he did before he was a vampire and how he became one.
HG: Oh, that’s a good one. I didn’t have lot of scenes with him. I did one scene outside when he first lands and he tells them, “Raven.” Like that’s the only scene we had, and that’s the night that I got to meet him. We were all really excited. It was very like waiting for his like transpo car to drop him off from location to us and we’re all waiting outside and we’re all lined up. It was very like Downton Abbey like waiting for like royalty to come. He couldn’t have been nicer. He just got out of the car and he just came over and he’s like, “Guillermo” then he was so nice, and super sweet and his daughter was there. That’s how he got into the show. He became a fan through his kid. They love the show, and they share the movie, and they share the show. He became the fan of the show and I was like, “You watch the show.” Matt Berry just had a ball because that was like a childhood dream of his come true, like to get to do that scne with him and light savers, basically with the cool fix.
AR: Yeah, the whole fight scene, they’re just — they just are having so much fun in that scene. The whole character and Jackie Daytona is just one of my favorite character names I’ve ever heard, just brilliant.
HG: Yeah. Stefani Robinson wrote that episode and she’s amazing. She’s one of our executive producers and she’s incredible. I love that episode too. If anything, it’s just more FOMO of like, “I wish I would have done more in that episode. It’s such a fun episode.” But all the episodes are fun, so if you miss any of the episodes, you always have FOMO, you’re like, “Ah can” – but you can’t be in all of them too much, because it’s like the same story we’re continuing, continuing, continuing.
AR: Yeah. It’s a show I watch probably every episode three times. I could ask about it all day, but I do want to talk about your larger career as to me someone who has been working in TV for a long time. I write about TV so I really notice people. So I remember you in like iZombie, you were in The Real O’Neals.” I used to review that show forever ago, so I remember you on that and Raising Hope. Then obviously, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, which is very different from What We Do in the Shadows.
HG: Yes.
AR: So I’m a little curious, what it’s like to kind of work that balance and work that line of just night and day in terms of going from sitcoms and then to blowup with something that’s so dark and so yeah FX, I guess.
HG: Yeah. It’s nice to do something different, which I love the challenge. You don’t want to do the same character as an actor. You don’t want to be stuck in like the same punch line or something like say, “Hey! What happened?” It’s like the same ongoing Joe. But I really like that I get to play different characters and to show being versatile. Guillermo is so different than George and completely different. It’s like their mannerism are different, even the way they talk, even their facial expressions are different. I like that and I like that I got to put on different hat and go on play on a different set. It’s a musical and I get to dance, and sing, which I went to school for, which is a musical theater. Then come back and do this like really grounded comedy and Guillermo is like the anchor of humanity in that setting. So he just is like the most grounded I feel like.
Sometimes it’s so hard because he’s so grounded. Sometimes I want to be like project to the back row and like sometimes when I get, “Oh, I didn’t put up with this BS” you want to like — but he’s just always under control because he’s always working. If you notice his voice, it’s different when he’s in the household with the vampires. He’s very endearing, and quiet and submissive. And when he’s out of the household and he’s talking to regular people or other people he’s interacting; his voice actually gets in his regular register.
AR: I love the scenes when Guillermo kind of steps into his power whenever he can. I love the witch’s episode where at the end he like has his little business figured out and then he’s like talking to the goat.
HG: Shark tank. The shark tank.
AR: Yeah, the shark tank pitch. And he’s like talking to the goat like he’s a business guy in control and the goat is just like, “No, you’re just like me, like you’re —” But it’s the one moment where he like finds kind of the strength in his voice and he’s just like, “Oh, you know, I’m just dropping off another delivery.” I love how you played it.
HG: A lot of people, they get it or they don’t. It’s why I pointed it out, because like, no, if you noticed, he’s talks different when he’s in front of people who have his future in their hands. It’s like when you’re talking to your boss. When you’re in a conference, meaning you’re not going to talk to your boss like you talk like a buddy because it’s like that’s professional, it’s a corporation. It’s like keep it professional and that’s kind of what he can sit all the time professional, because he wants to be a vampire so bad. But now, he’s at a crossroads. Does he? Should he? It’s in him to be a vampire killer.
AR: And I know you can’t tell us anything about this upcoming season, but I am wondering, are we going to see more witches? Do you think they’re going to be any new types of vampires? We have emotional energy. Anything like that?
HG: I think that we will have new creatures and new characters for sure, so whatever that entails. So there will be that. But I mean, that world, there’s so many possibilities. I mean, I’m thinking off the top of my head like it could be fairies, mermaids, all like these whimsical creatures that could potentially live in our world. So yeah. I know for a fact that a lot of characters that you might have seen in the past might be coming back to revisit.
AR: Okay. I’ll leave it there. That’s a good little, fun surprise. I’m really curious, what TV did you grow up watching?
HG: That’s a good question because I didn’t see anyone want like myself on TV. Like I watch TV to look for a wanting to like, “Oh, where’s me being represented?” I know we say that often, but it still holds. Representation matter, it just like it really does. I grew up watching Spanish TV. I watched like El Chavo del Ocho, I watched Cantinflas with my dad, which was this big comedian. All of these are still on black and white, we still watch those all the time. So I grew up watching a lot of like black and white early ’60s, ’70s Mexican cinema. Like all these actors acting in Spanish, which is the Golden age of Mexican cinema, the ’40s. All of that was just what I grew up watching because that was what my parents are watching.
It wasn’t until probably like six years old that I was starting to watch like TV, regular stuff on TV and I thought this was a brand-new show called Annie on TV. I was like, “Whoa! This show is amazing. All these kids that are dancing and singing.” I didn’t know it was a movie, because we did not grow up in theater. That was a luxury. I grew up in low-income, like immigrant family, like they’re just scraping by, so that was like a luxury for us. To go to the theater was not going to happen.
I told my mom, I wanted to do that. I wanted to be an orphan. She looked at me weird and she’s like, “[Inaudible 00:31:05] loco.” I was like, “Oh, I want to do that.” All I thought is they’re actors and that’s how I knew I wanted to be an actor, which it’s full circle because I just did Annie on Zoey’s.
AR: Yeah. Oh my gosh! That’s just so cute. I feel like when I was a little kid, I would be the same way. I’d watch these like these movies on TV, but we didn’t get to go to the movies a lot either and I would be like, “This is a TV show. This is —”
HG: Yeah. Why would the TV lie to me?
AR: Yeah. Why would this — and just being like, “I want to be an orphan.” Like, yeah. I feel like I used to do that with Hocus-pocus and I was like, “I want to be a witch. I can do it. This is how you do it.”
HG: Yeah. I need a cauldron and your broom.
AR: Yeah. It’s just like you said, representation is so important and yes, there is like the silly end of it where you’re a kid and you’re like, “Yeah, I want to be an orphan.” But also, there is the other side of it where it’s like a character like Guillermo when that person behind the character is someone who is openly queer, who’s a person of color. That’s so powerful, that’s so great.
HG: Absolutely. Because again, and I can speak for myself. I grew up like not watching that on screen. It wasn’t — so if any feel like there wasn’t a place for me and all the things that I grew up and being told that were strikes against me, “You’re brown, you’re round, you’re queer.” All these things were strikes against me and I have to come to realize that all those strikes are my strengths. And my strengths is what gets me ahead, my strengths is what moves me forward. So letting other people tell you what your flaws are or what’s going to keep you back, you’re giving your power away to someone else. When you take that back and say, “No. I won’t allow you to tell me that these are my strikes, these are my strengths.” Use them and sky is the limit.
AR: Yeah. Especially, I feel like in comedy, it’s so powerful too. Because I think in comedy, you so often see when they do get more minorities or when they do say, “Okay. We’re going to not just hire skinny white guys.” So often, you just kind of become a punchline or you become so boxed in. That is not the case with What We Do in the Shadows at all, for you any —
HG: Yeah, and I love that and that’s a credit to our writers, who collaborated and ask. When we get the whole scene with my mom last season, they came to me and they said, “What should she be doing in the kitchen because it’s important?” And down to the details where I got so many text messages or tweets and messages on Instagram where people are like, “I saw that. I saw you talk to your mom and you said ama.” Like small little things that would have been like, “Oh, that’s just normal.” People really do need that and they latch on to that because it’s important to see themselves on screen. It’s important that we say our stories are valid. Everyone’s stories are valid. We live in a multiethnic world, why doesn’t the screen represent that?
AR: Yeah, exactly.
HG: So it’s important to show that as much as we can, whenever we can. Down to like mom is making buñuelos in the background or the scene. They’re Mexican buñuelos because there are different types of buñuelos.
AR: Yeah. You did an interview where you talked about that process and working with the writers to make sure they got it right and I think you said, you wouldn’t be able to live it down if they had gotten it wrong.
HG: Yeah. Because I got to set and they put down — she’s making buñuelos but they weren’t specific and then it said Mexican buñuelos. When we get the set, our prop master is amazing and they had these flown in from the states and like, “Oh yeah, I got this.” And I looked in and it was like, they were balls of donuts. I was like, “Oh no, these aren’t from El Salvador. These are not Mexican buñuelos. They’re delicious but they’re not the same.” She went, “Oh, I just Googled. It was the first picture that popped up.” I was like, “It’s okay. We’ll fix it.” I was like, “I just need flour tortillas, I need sugar, cinnamon, oil.” So while we were setting up for the scene because we had this house that we had rented for the scene, I just started cooking the buñuelos and we started making them right there.
AR: Harvey, that’s so cool.
HG: We’re making buñuelos down to the last moment. It’s is also the day that had gotten our costumes. There’s a mix up and so the sweater that we had for that scene have to be continuity for a scene that just happened before but they had mixed them up. So that sweater was being watched. They have to get it out of the washer, and it was still damp and it was winter. So I had to wear this like really cold wet sweater and I was like, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” We’re indoors, so at least we’re not outside in the cold, but it’s starting to get really cold, that it’s wet, it’s cold water, it’s so damp. I had to wear it because they had put it in the washer without knowing.
There are all these things that’s happening. We have to get the shot and this is also the last week of shooting and so we’re shooting it. And I’m starting to get sick, that’s when I started getting sick because of the sweater.
AR: Now, it’s all making sense.
HG: Yeah, all the pieces. I just figured it out. Actually, you solved the mystery.
AR: We solved the mystery. The cold sweater. These are the background stories I love about shows, because now I’m going to re-watch and just be like, “Oh my God! He’s wearing a damp sweater in this scene.”
HG: Yeah, absolutely. And look for the buñuelos that we cooked five minutes before.
AR: So one last question, I’m just curious. What are you watching right now? What are you excited about? Any shows that you love, you’re obsessed with, especially through quarantine?
HG: Yeah. I just finished watching Night Stalker on Netflix. Because I grew up in Rosemead and that’s where that whole thing started. I remember stories when I was little, like being terrified of like, “If something bad happened or something, it was just having like that thought of, “This happened in the city.” There was all the kids in the playground where it was talked about it. And even though that person was long gone, it was just like scary to think that that happened in our city. There’s like. “Is it haunted? The city is haunted.” Watching that on Netflix brought back all these childhood memories. I’m like, “Oh my gosh! Montebello, I used to go there to the mall. Oh my gosh!” Like all the cities they were talking about were all like the cities that you grew up as an Angeleno because born and raised in LA and it just blew my mind. It really terrified me and of course, I couldn’t sleep. That night, I had to lock my door double. I was like, “Is it locked again? Is it locked?” You’ll never know. It’s scary.
AR: Yeah. I watched it and I locked my bedroom door, like we have a door between our living room and our bedroom. I locked that one too. I was just like, “You never know.”
HG: It can keep you safe and I was like — in fact last night, because I just finished like two nights ago. But last night, I was great and I was falling asleep in bed and I thought I heard something. Like, “What that?” Like anything was just, I’m so! “All right. He’s gone. He’s not here.”
[Crosstalk 00:36:52]
AR: I’m always like, “There's going to be copycats” when Netflix had those documentaries. I’m like, “What if some crazy person is inspired to start doing this now?”
HG: Yeah. Like, “What if this is like someone’s training video.” I was like, “No.” It was a terrifying thing to watch, but very important to watch and to be informed. If anything makes everyone a little more cautious, then good. It serves its purpose. Be a little more careful.
AR: Yeah, and that’s the very least now. It’s 2021 and everyone knows, cops can get DNA and you’re not going to get away with murder.
HG: Right. I was a little upset about the work done by the detectives where I was like, one shoe sold to LA and it’s like, “You couldn’t figure it out.”
AR: Yeah. They’re like, one shoe and we found the people who sold it and then it just went dead. I was like, I feel like that’s just —
HG: You feel like you could have continued. I feel like we could have continued there or something. It’s one pair. One pair got sold. One pair, just one.
AR: Yeah. I did have a lot of questions about the police working in that documentary.
HG: Yeah. Yeah. I think it was the San Francisco Department that cracked the case basically. So I was watching the show and was like, “Is this show about two guys who like didn’t find —" or the dentist, the dentist is another moment. Anyways, we can go on and on.
AR: Yeah, on and on about that. Is there anything else? Just watching a lot of true crime?
HG: I really like a documentary or I do like scripted and then flipped to like reality. I just got to Toronto and unfortunately, I brought my stick and put in on the TV, but it won’t work in Canada. So I can’t — all my shows and programs are on, like, HBO Max and all those things. I can’t watch because it’s in Canada. So I didn’t realized that. I was like, “Oh!” I brought my fire stick, I put it on the TV and it’s like, “Welcome” and I was like, “Okay” and it like, “Not available.” I was like, “No!”
AR: That’s my nightmare. I’m just like — if I don’t have my TV shows, I don’t know what to do.
HG: Yeah. But I’ve been taking it good and easy in Toronto and it’s chilly. So it’s like a nice and like fireplace keeping warm, so it’s been nice. I’m going to read more.
AR: That is so great. Harvey, thank you so much for doing the podcast. I cannot wait for the next season of What We Do in the Shadows. All of these special little notes you’ve given us, I am so excited now. I’m going to re-watch also the last season, just because I want to watch it again with these little special notes too.
HG: I love it. Well, thank so much for having me, Ashley.
AR: Thank you so much.