Emmy spotlight: Harvey Guillen (‘What We Do in the Shadows’) brings human touch to vampire comedy

“What We Do in the Shadows” will soon come screeching back to our TV screens as season five will premiere next month on July 13. But before that, season four will hope to have secured some well-earned Emmy nominations. The mockumentary vampire comedy show was created by Jermaine Clement and is based on his and Taika Waititi‘s 2014 film of the same name. It follows four vampires living together in modern-day New York City — Matt Berry‘s Laszlo, Kayvan Novak‘s Nandor, Natasia Demetriou‘s Nadja, and Mark Proksch‘s Colin Robinson. But while the vampires are the stars of the show, the unsung hero is Harvey Guillén as Nandor’s familiar, Guillermo.

Guillermo has hoped to be made into a vampire since season one but instead has remained his master’s long-suffering familiar. While the vampire actors get to hilariously ham it up as people from different time periods, Guillén is the grounding factor. He is the one who ties it all together and it’s his more restrained performance, flecked with exquisite comedic timing akin to that of a seasoned comedy veteran (those glances to the camera are the best since John Krasinski‘s ones in “The Office”), that allows the others to be more eccentric. It’s an entirely selfless performance because, without Guillén’s Guillermo, the show just wouldn’t work. And critics agree, Guillén is vital to the success of this show.

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Bonnie Qu (Polygon) explained: “Guillén also continues to deliver one of the strongest performances on TV, simultaneously embodying the soft-spoken familiar and ruthless vampire hunter. At this point, it’s hard to even imagine that Guillén wasn’t always meant to play this role.”

Carly Lane (Collider) observed: “Guillén continues to be a welcome injection of reality to counteract the high-energy antics of his co-stars, with his long-suffering dead-pans looks served directly to camera operating as the perfect punctuation to nearly every scene he’s in.” She continued: “Given the natural chemistry that Novak and Guillén have as scene partners, as well as tantalizing, occasionally jokey tidbits of dialogue that are dropped in to tease out more complexities in the relationship between Nandor and Guillermo, it’s difficult not to wonder if the person who might be best suited for the vampire as a partner is the one who’s been right under his nose, loyal by his side, from the start.”

Chris Evangelista (SlashFilm) wrote: “It’s hard to fault the show for maintaining this dynamic when it works so damn well — Novak and Guillén are laugh-out-loud funny together.”

However, despite this critical acclaim, as well as the continued fan love for Guillén’s Guillermo, the actor is currently outside of our predicted eight nominees for Best Comedy Supporting Actor: Ebon Moss-Bachrach (“The Bear”), Nick Mohammed (“Ted Lasso”), Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Harrison Ford (“Shrinking”), Anthony Carrigan and Henry Winkler (both “Barry”), Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso”), and Tyler James Williams (“Abbott Elementary”). But the Emmy nominations always throw up a surprise or two — who’s to say that Guillén couldn’t be one of them?

Firstly, Guillén has already been given the support of some major awards bodies. He was nominated for Best Comedy Supporting Actor at both the 2021 and 2022 Critics Choice Awards, while he also earned a bid for Best TV Movie/Limited Series/Horror Series Actor at the Critics Choice Super Awards this year. That shows some recent support for this performance, which is vital, while there is evidence that awards bodies a) like this role and b) can get behind Guillén as an actor. And why not? Season four has been Guillén’s best season yet as Guillermo. The character was proactive, took more charge in the vampire household, had some great conflicts with Nandor, and came out as gay to his family. Guillén had some major storylines as Guillermo so if awards bodies like his performance in the first three seasons, they’ll love his role in the fourth.

And let’s talk about the fourth season’s reception. At this time of writing, the series has a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 100%. That’s truly impressive and is a better score than the majority of the seasons that Guillén’s competitors in this category starred in. Only the second seasons of both “Abbott Elementary” and “The Bear” earned the same 100%. The fifth and final season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and the fourth and final season of “Barry” both earned 95%, the inaugural season of “Shrinking” achieved 82%, and season three of “Ted Lasso” received an all-time series-low of 79%. This could give Guillén and company a little bit of an edge in this category.

Plus, we know that Emmy voters do actually like this show. It has been nominated for 17 Emmy so far, including two bids for Best Comedy Series in 2020 and 2022, while it won Best Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes in 2022. However, season four has been better reviewed than any of the first three outings — so if they liked those entries, they will adore this one. If they did, Guillén, as the main human in the show, could stand out amongst the vampire crowd in a similar way that Jennifer Jason Leigh did when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 2016 for “The Hateful Eight.” She was the only woman in a cast full of men and came away with all the awards plaudits. Guillén could do the same year for playing the only human in a vampire show. And he’d deserve this first-ever Emmys bid. Let’s see.

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