Who is Nadja in What We Do in the Shadows?

Show

What We Do in the Shadows

Played by

Natasia Demetriou

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired March 27, 2019

Role

Main cast

Network

FX

Occupation

Vampire, nightclub owner, and Council member

Show run

2019 to 2024

Also known as

Nadja of Antipaxos

Nadja is the most ambitious and dramatic of the vampires on What We Do in the Shadows, a centuries-old seductress with a thick accent and zero patience for fools. Played by Natasia Demetriou, she also voices her own ghost, who lives on inside a doll.

On What We Do in the Shadows, Nadja's story runs through Laszlo Cravensworth (Husband), Nandor the Relentless (Housemate), Colin Robinson (Housemate), and Guillermo de la Cruz (Housemate).

Other FX sitcom characters from around the same time include Frank Reynolds (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Charlie Kelly (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Who is Nadja?

Nadja is a Romani vampire from Antipaxos, a small Greek island, who now lives in a Staten Island mansion with her husband Laszlo, their housemate Nandor, and the energy vampire Colin Robinson. She grew up as a villager whose home was pillaged, and she is horrified to learn in season two that the raider was Nandor.

Across the centuries she has carried on a doomed love affair with Gregor, a man who keeps being reincarnated and keeps losing his head. Her marriage to Laszlo, though, is the steady center of her life: they bicker, scheme, and seduce strangers together, and they are completely devoted to each other.

Personality and comedy

Nadja is vain, impatient, and quick to insult, but she is also the most practical of the vampires and the one most likely to come up with a plan. Natasia Demetriou plays her with a heavy accent, theatrical scorn, and sudden flashes of girlish delight, especially when she gets the respect she feels she deserves.

She is fiercely ambitious. Nadja wants power in the vampire world, and much of her arc is about chasing status, whether that means leading the local Vampiric Council, launching a nightclub, or taking a job in the human corporate world.

Key storylines

In season two, a seance stirs up the house's ghosts, and Nadja's own ghost settles into a doll made in her likeness. The Nadja doll becomes a recurring character, with her own grudges, romances, and dreams. In season three, Nadja and Nandor co-lead the newly formed local Vampiric Council, and at the end of the season she is invited to join the Supreme Council in London.

In season four, back in Staten Island, Nadja converts the old Council building into a vampire nightclub and struggles to keep it afloat. In season five she fears she is cursed, and in the final season she takes a job at Cannon Capital Strategies, the private equity firm where Guillermo works, and quits when he does. In the series finale, it is Nadja who hypnotizes the audience into seeing whatever ending they like.

Behind the scenes and legacy

Natasia Demetriou, a British comedian of Greek Cypriot heritage, played Nadja for all six seasons. She won Best Actress in a Science Fiction or Fantasy Series at the first Critics' Choice Super Awards and has also been nominated for Critics' Choice and Saturn Awards.

The character's name nods to the 1994 vampire film Nadja. Between Nadja herself and the Nadja doll, Demetriou essentially played two of the show's most quoted characters at once.

Nadja: frequently asked questions

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