Spinning off from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s legendary 2014 indie film—which we ranked near the top of our definitive countdown of the 15 best horror comedy movies of all time—the FX television adaptation of What We Do in the Shadows achieved something exceedingly rare in modern television: it surpassed its cinematic predecessor.

Set in an ornate, dust-covered Victorian manor in Staten Island, the series follows four eccentric vampires—Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry), Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou), and energy vampire Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch)—along with their long-suffering familiar, Guillermo de la Cruz (Harvey Guillén).

What transformed the series into a cult comedy phenomenon is its unparalleled dialogue. From Matt Berry’s operatic, jaw-unhinging vocal cadences to Mark Proksch’s agonizingly accurate bureaucratic droning, every line delivery is a masterclass in deadpan absurdity.

Much like the social embarrassment analyzed across the anatomy of deadpan cringe and the witty dialogue decoded in our guide to Derry Girls slang, these lines represent comedy perfection.

Here are the 15 best What We Do in the Shadows quotes of all time, ranked by absurdity, delivery, and lasting meme immortality.

The 15 Best What We Do in the Shadows Quotes at a Glance

  🧛 1. "Bat!" — Laszlo Cravensworth
  🧛 2. "Just a regular human bartender from Tucson, Arizonia." — Jackie Daytona
  🧛 3. "Fucking guy." — Nandor the Relentless
  🧛 4. "New York Cit-ay!" — Laszlo Cravensworth
  🧛 5. "Creepy paper." — Nandor the Relentless
  🧛 6. "I don't live to drain. I drain to live." — Colin Robinson
  🧛 7. "We drank the blood of some people, and now I'm a wizard." — Nandor
  🧛 8. "She speaks the bullshit." — Nadja of Antipaxos
  🧛 9. "What's updog?" — Colin Robinson
  🧛 10. "I became a vampire to suck blood and be cool." — Laszlo
  🧛 11. "You really are the most devious bastard in New York City." — Baron Afanas
  🧛 12. "Guillermo, shut the fuck up." — Nadja
  🧛 13. "Gregor! My sweet Gregor!" — Nadja
  🧛 14. "I would like to try some of your human pizza pie." — Nandor
  🧛 15. "Yes, yes, very good, thank you." — Laszlo Cravensworth

1. “Bat!”

  • Spoken by: Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry)
  • The Scene: Any moment Laszlo needs to exit a conversation, flee accountability, or move across a room.
  • Why It’s #1: No single syllable in 21st-century comedy has produced more involuntary laughter than Matt Berry shouting “BAT!” before poofing into a tiny winged mammal. While gothic vampire lore always treated shapeshifting as a dramatic occult ritual, Laszlo treats it as a lazy punctuation mark. The aggressive plosive delivery makes it the defining catchphrase of the entire franchise.

2. “Just a regular human bartender from Tucson, Arizonia.”

  • Spoken by: Jackie Daytona / Laszlo Cravensworth
  • The Episode: Season 2, Episode 6 (“On the Run”)
  • The Context: Fleeing Jim the Vampire (Mark Hamill) over an unpaid 160-year-old bar tab, Laszlo hides out in rural Pennsylvania under the alias Jackie Daytona.
  • The Delivery: Wearing blue jeans, a denim jacket, and a toothpick stuck in his teeth, Laszlo is convinced he has achieved foolproof human camouflage. The way Matt Berry pronounces “Arizon-i-a” with unwarranted grandeur is comedic alchemy.
Hall of Fame Episode ★ 10/10 Television Season 2, Episode 6 • "On the Run" • Guest Starring Mark Hamill

The Legend of Jackie Daytona: The episode is widely considered the single greatest half-hour in the series. Watching a 300-year-old aristocratic English vampire coach a small-town girls' high school volleyball team to victory while serving domestic draft beers is pure comic brilliance.

3. “Fucking guy.”

  • Spoken by: Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak)
  • The Scene: Repeated throughout the series whenever anyone (especially Guillermo, Colin Robinson, or human bureaucrats) does something mildly irritating.
  • The Magic: Kayvan Novak delivers this line under his breath with a heavy, melancholic Persian cadence. For an ancient warrior who conquered entire nations and impaled tens of thousands of soldiers, encountering modern everyday incompetence reduces him to a disappointed, mumbling dad.

4. “New York Cit-ay!”

  • Spoken by: Laszlo Cravensworth
  • The Context: Reflecting on the glamour, grime, and debauchery of living in the Tri-State area.
  • Why It Works: Matt Berry does not pronounce vowels the way mortals do. He stretches the word “City” into three distinct, vibrating musical notes (“Cit-ay!”), giving ordinary American geography the rhythm of Victorian melodrama.

5. “Creepy paper.”

  • Spoken by: Nandor the Relentless
  • The Scene: Season 1, Episode 1 (“Pilot”), preparing for the arrival of ancient master Baron Afanas.
  • The Mistake: Examining ordinary holiday crepe paper party streamers from a supermarket and assuming it is high-gothic dark sorcery: “Ooh, multipack!”
  • The Humor: Guillermo gently corrects him (“It’s crepe paper, Master”), but Nandor remains wide-eyed and terrified of the festive craft supplies.

6. “I don’t live to drain. I drain to live.”

  • Spoken by: Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch)
  • The Concept: The philosophy of the Day-Walking Energy Vampire.
  • The Genius: Unlike blood-sucking vampires, Colin Robinson sustains himself by boring people to tears with tedious small talk, IT explanations, and micromanaging office politics. Mark Proksch’s monotone flatline delivery is so authentically soul-crushing that viewers feel their own energy draining through the television screen.

The Comedy Physics of the Energy Vampire

Colin Robinson is the most inventive original monster in modern comedy because everyone on Earth has worked with one. He feeds on awkward elevator silences, unnecessary company reply-all emails, and pedantic grammar corrections.

7. “We drank the blood of some people, and the people were on drugs, and now I’m a wizard.”

  • Spoken by: Nandor the Relentless
  • The Episode: Season 1, Episode 6 (“Baron’s Night Out”)
  • The Chaos: Taking ancient Baron Afanas out for a night on the town, the vampires accidentally consume drug-laced blood from nightclub partiers.
  • The Comedic Visual: Nandor, wearing traffic cones and glowing neon necklaces, experiencing a drug trip for the first time in 700 years with total childlike wonder.

8. “She speaks the bullshit.”

  • Spoken by: Nadja of Antipaxos (Natasia Demetriou)
  • The Context: Listening to modern human self-help gurus, relationship therapists, or hypocritical Staten Island neighbors.
  • The Delivery: Demetriou’s scorching Mediterranean deadpan cuts through modern pretension instantly. Nadja has survived centuries of plagues and goat-farming; she has zero patience for wellness jargon.

9. “What’s updog?”

  • Spoken by: Colin Robinson
  • The Trick: Attempting to feed on strangers by tricking them into saying the oldest schoolyard setup in existence.
  • The Desperation: Colin calls his grandmother, coworkers, and random telemarketers trying to get someone to ask “What’s updog?” When Nandor finally falls for it in the kitchen, Colin glows with radiant, gluttonous energy.

10. “I became a vampire to suck blood and to be cool. A five-hour deposition is not being cool.”

  • Spoken by: Laszlo Cravensworth
  • The Reality: The harsh administrative reality of modern vampire life.
  • The Satire: Puncturing gothic romance tropes with modern bureaucratic torture. Being immortal means eventually having to deal with local zoning laws, property taxes, and noise complaints.

11. “You really are the most devious bastard in New York City.”

  • Spoken by: Baron Afanas / Laszlo
  • The Tone: Utter delight at minor deceit and petty social sabotage.
  • The Impact: Whenever the vampires hatch a scheme that is either pathetically small or completely unhinged, being dubbed a “devious bastard” is the highest compliment Studio 8H or Staten Island could bestow.

12. “Guillermo, shut the fuck up.”

  • Spoken by: Nadja of Antipaxos
  • The Rhythm: Rapid, dismissive, and delivered without looking up from whatever bizarre hobby she is currently pursuing.
  • The Dynamic: Guillermo is the glue holding the entire house together—saving them from rival vampire hunters, paying their electric bills, burying corpses—and his reward is being told to shut up at five-minute intervals.

13. “Gregor! My sweet Gregor!”

  • Spoken by: Nadja
  • The Lore: Nadja’s eternal obsession with her reincarnated human lover Gregor, who gets reincarnated every hundred years (as a knight, a laundryman, and eventually a park ranger named Jesk) only to be decapitated each time.
  • The Name Mangle: Her absolute inability to pronounce his modern name (“Jesk… Jusk… Gregor?”) is a masterclass in vocal confusion.

14. “I would like to try some of your human pizza pie.”

  • Spoken by: Nandor the Relentless
  • The Tragedy: Vampires cannot digest human food without violently projectile-vomiting blood and dough across the room.
  • The Delivery: Nandor staring wistfully at greasy New York pizza slices like a child locked out of a toy store.

15. “Yes, yes, very good, thank you.”

  • Spoken by: Laszlo Cravensworth
  • The Dismissal: The ultimate polite British wave-off when someone attempts to challenge Laszlo’s fabricated historical facts or question his bizarre fashion choices.
  • The Power: It ends any debate instantaneously, leaving the other person completely powerless.

What We Do in the Shadows: Character Breakdown Table

Character Actor Archetype Signature Comedic Weapon Best Quote
Laszlo Cravensworth Matt Berry 18th-century English hedonist Operatic plosives & absolute shamelessness “BAT!”
Nandor the Relentless Kayvan Novak Ancient Ottoman warlord Childlike sincerity & existential defeat “Fucking guy.”
Nadja of Antipaxos Natasia Demetriou Greek peasant-turned-vampire Screaming Mediterranean curses & dry roasts “She speaks the bullshit.”
Colin Robinson Mark Proksch Bureaucratic Energy Vampire Monotone small-talk & corporate jargon “What’s updog?”
Guillermo de la Cruz Harvey Guillén Familiar & Van Helsing descendant Exhausted eye-rolls & secret lethal combat “I’m just a familiar…”

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Matt Berry’s line delivery in What We Do in the Shadows so famous?

Matt Berry uses an exaggerated, theatrical British vocal cadence with distinct musical vowel elongations and punchy plosives. His idiosyncratic pronunciations of everyday words (such as “New York Cit-ay” and “Arizon-i-a”) turn simple dialogue into viral internet quotes.

Who is Jackie Daytona in What We Do in the Shadows?

Jackie Daytona is the human alter-ego adopted by Laszlo Cravensworth in Season 2, Episode 6 (“On the Run”). Dressed in denim with a toothpick in his mouth, he poses as a small-town Pennsylvania bartender from “Tucson, Arizonia” while hiding from Jim the Vampire (Mark Hamill).

What is an Energy Vampire?

In What We Do in the Shadows, an Energy Vampire (embodied by Colin Robinson) is a day-walking monster that feeds not on blood, but on the emotional exhaustion and boredom of humans and vampires alike through tedious small talk, corporate jargon, and awkward silences.