Interview: Adi Shankar, Showrunner of Netflix’s Castlevania Got More Vampire Slayin to Get To

Castlevania Season 2 just dropped and we now that vampire murda muzik is still bumpin in your headphones if you saw it. If not…then fam, what are you doing? We were lucky enough to talk to showrunner Adi Shankar about the vampire court, the games legacy and bringing familiar voices into the new show. Black Nerd Problems: Castlevania has such a storied history in gaming with so many different iterations and stories. Can you tell me how you and the team came to this specific story, vision and tonality for the show? Was there anything from the games that had inspired more than others? Adi Shankar: I would argue that although there are dozens of Castlevania games there are only two iterations (main timeline and Lords of Shadow timeline). The vast majority of games follow the main timeline. Sam Deats and a lot of the animators are also fans of the show, so they are bringing their own influence to each frame with the level of detail that goes into each shot. From a story perspective It makes sense to start early in the timeline, and no one is a fan of origin stories …

BNP: There is a tonal shift between seasons 1 & 2 that chooses more exposition for both camps, but especially for Dracula’s Court. Can you talk about the significance of expanding the roles of the antagonists in this series? Adi: I liked the idea of really building out this vampire world and giving them their own political nuisance. Warren had designed Dracula to be incredibly empathetic in EP1 of Season 1, so…