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FX’s ‘English Teacher’ and ‘What We Do in the Shadows’: Series Business Showcase With Executive Producer Paul Simms
What We Do In The Shadows has gone to some crazy places over its six years on FX — but in its final run, there was one frontier the vampire comedy’s creative team was determined not to cross: A Very Special Season. “We just wanted to make it funny,” executive producer and writer Paul Simms says. “We didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, you’ve laughed for five years, now you’re gonna cry.’” During a Dec. 12 conversation with The Ankler’s Prestige Junkie author Katey Rich, Simms explains how he and his writing staff — mostly the same core group since the second season — kept the show firing on all cylinders. Simms also serves as an executive producer on a new FX series, English Teacher. While the comedy tackles weighty themes (think school shootings, drag shows and homophobia), Simms’ intention was always to create a show with broad appeal. “We didn’t want it to be some stuck-up, stuffy New York, L.A. liberal elite fantasia,” he says. You can watch English Teacher + What We Do in the Shadows on FX on Hulu.
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