How ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Pulled off That Wild Casino Episode

By Alex Zalben @azalben
Published Sep. 16, 2021, 10:30 p.m. ET

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On this week’s stand-out episode of FX’s vampire comedy What We Do In The Shadows, titled “The Casino”, the gang heads to Atlantic City. Except, of course, not really, because despite the show being set on Staten Island, it’s actually (spoilers, I guess) filmed in Toronto. So even with an Atlantic City themed opening credits sequence, the casino was actually in Canada — not New Jersey.

“Well, none of it was in Atlantic City,” EP Paul Simms told Decider at a recent Television Critics Association (TCA) panel. “Obviously, there were challenges this season with COVID and everything… I love that episode, but it was such a challenge … when we are trying to limit the exposure of the actors to other people and to big groups, to try and shoot an episode that looks like it’s in a full, filled casino.”

Though Simms didn’t specify which casino the production shot at, he did note that it was on the Canada side of the border in Niagara Falls, meaning it was most likely either the Fallsview Casino Resort or Casino Niagara (feel free to peruse pictures on your own to determine which is the most likely suspect, if either).

But the even more mind-boggling stunt happens halfway through the episode, when Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is sent on a mission to gather soil from each of the main vampires’ homelands, after their piles of dirt are vacuumed up by housekeeping.

“Guillermo’s around the world journey we all managed to fake somehow,” Simms continued. “I know our British cast members will tell you that there’s no real red, double decker buses that pull up outside of Heathrow. But, for an American audience, they see that red double decker bus, and they go, ‘Holy cow. We must be in England.’ My favorite one of those was the Iran/Iraq border, which I still don’t remember where we found that in Toronto.”

“It was great,” Guillén added. “It was literally, like, 20 feet across from ‘Heathrow’ was ‘Iraq,’ and then down the street was Cherry Beach where we shot ‘Greece’ and so everything was within, like, a mile radius.”

What We Do in the Shadows airs Thursdays at 10/9c on FX, and streams the next day on FX on Hulu.

Where to watch What We Do In The Shadows