Exclusive Interview With Jemaine Clement And Stu Rutherford On What We Do In The Shadows

From the production notes, it sounds like you and Taika had a loose outline of what you wanted to do.

JC: No, no, we had a really strong outline of what it is we wanted to do. We had a whole script. People think when you say it’s improvised that we come up with the whole story improvised, but I think that would be crazy. Especially when you want to have special effects and stuff. Just the words: the dialogue is mostly improvised, like 98%. But the story –we always know that a scene is going to start off with, you know, “Taika’s going to raise up out of his coffin, he’s going to go to this room, this room, this room, and then he’s going to do this meeting, and the he’s going to end up doing the dishes while I’m floating and doing the vacuuming.”

We know the exact things that are going to happen, it’s just the lines that are improvised. We knew it was going to be a mockumentary. I think you could do a movie that’s not documentary with that –I like Curb Your Enthusiasm, they don’t have a script.

Was there a particular movie you were modelling this after? Spinal Tap is the usual go-to for mockumentaries.

JC: I think Spinal Tap for, “How little story you can get away with,” and just make jokes. The films we talked a lot about as being the perfect comedy films were Spinal Tap, and Holy Grail. They’re both really light on story, not many things happen. People nowadays are used to more story, they like to be guided. We wanted it to be more modern than those, in that we wouldn’t follow the same basic patterns as a lot of movies do. You know, someone discovers they’ve got powers and all those kind of things. There was a limit on how gag-y you can make it though.

The film’s already been distributed in New Zealand. How’s that been for you, Stu?

SR: I’ve been in New York for a while so I’ve only been back in New Zealand for about ten days. A few people started coming up to me. I bought a beer at a bar, paid, signed, and thought, “What else do I have to do?” because the woman was looking at me. And I asked, “Did that not go through?” She said, “You’re from the film, right?” And I realized, oh yes, right, that’s it.

[Laughs]

SR: It was a bit awkward.

JC: Stu is New Zealand’s most famous IT worker.

SR: Probably.

JC: I remember one night going out with Stu before we made the film, we were just about to make it, and we got takeaways or something. This drunk guy came up to me and he’s like, “Can I take a photo man, can I take a photo?” And Stu was just waiting outside, and I’m looking at Stu and think, “Oh no, I’m about to do this to you.” [Laughs]. I’m going to make you go through the subject matter of drunken guys’ 2AM photos.

So you guys shot the film two years ago, and did pick-ups a year later. Is it the sort of thing you forget about once you’re done until it’s released?

JC: Well I didn’t because I was editing it, I couldn’t forget…The editor’s and the editor’s assistant make a first version, and then I did a first edit on the film, and Taika does. So that took a month, and then Taika does the next month, and then I do the next month, and we also had three different editors at that time working with us. It worked out really well because each had their own strengths, and each had a fresh eye, and could see what the last person had done, and tell us what we were doing the wrong way.

SR: I think I sent these guys an email saying, “I haven’t been trying to hangout with you guys so much because I think you’re probably sick of my face.”

JC: That’s funny, because I get guilty about that too, when I’m acting. When I’ve acted in things and I see the editor, I’m like, “I’m sorry for all the bad takes.” Just being there, and having to look at me for hours, I actually apologize to editors for that [Laughs].

So once the film is out in North America what are you hoping is going to be the word?

JC: Just hope people like it, pretty simple. And if there’s people who hate it, I hope they’re dicks [Laughs]. I hope they’ve done bad things with their lives.

That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Jemaine and Stu for their time. Be sure to check out What We Do in the Shadows when it hits theatres this Friday!