Jemaine Clément on his vampire universe with Taika Waititi

Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi put a little more bite in their cult vampire universe.

Their latest addition is “Wellington Paranormal” (Sundays at 9 pm on the CW), a horror comedy-show created by the “What We Do in the Shadows” duo. It follows the adventures of incurable police officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O’Leary (Karen O’Leary) as they investigate supernatural incidents around the titular New Zealand capital.

The basic idea for the show came about a minute after watching Karen and Mike work together [while filming 2014 movie ‘What We Do in the Shadows’]”Clement, 47, told The Post on a call from Wellington, where he is based.

“If you look at the scenes in the movie where the police are talking to us, if you look at our faces, we are all hiding smiles. This is the most we laughed at while making this film, having us reprimanded by the police.

“Wellington Paranormal” is the second spin-off of the original “Shadows”, a mock documentary about the lives of vampire roommates, which Clement and Waititi wrote, directed and performed. 2) takes place in the same world and follows different vampire roommates living in Staten Island.

Although its first season has just landed in the United States, “Wellington Paranormal” has already aired in New Zealand, where it has confused viewers, Clement said.

“There’s a show here called ‘Police Ten 7’, which follows real policemen and they often talk to drunk people. So that was another big influence [on ‘Wellington’]. When this show originally aired it was airing after three New Zealand reality TV shows… I loved hearing stories of people telling me their mothers were confused when they turned on the police show and that there would be alien plants chasing the cops. Like what? Why did this happen? ‘ Because they were watching real the cops just 10 minutes earlier.

While the “What We Do In The Shadows” franchise is large today, it had humble beginnings, beginning with an onstage skit from Clement and Waititi, frequent collaborators and longtime friends (they all got together). are met while they were students at Victoria University of Wellington).

“Taika gets up and tells jokes about vampires, then I get up and heckle him,” Clement said of the first version of their premise. “I play this rowdy vampire who has been heckling his comedy for 200 years. And he can’t get through a set, because the same rowdy follows him all over the world.

But turning that sketch into a movie and then into two spinoff shows “actually took us a long time,” he said.

“We made a short film [in 2005] as a prequel concept with $ 180 I think. And at the same time, things started to happen for us. ‘Flight of the Conchords’ was picked up as a show and Taika was nominated for an Oscar for a short film [2004’s ‘Two Cars, One Night’]. So we were busy. So, about 10 years later, we finally made the film on a low budget for less than a million US dollars. We thought, “Maybe we could get that money back!” And it continues with at least two shows.

A third show on werewolf characters was also in the works, but Clement said, “What’s happened since we talked about this is that Taika is now one of the greatest filmmakers in the world. And I spent all that time doing other paranormal TV shows. So, I don’t know if we’ll ever do something about it – who knows. It would be fun.

In addition to “Wellington Paranormal”, Clement is working on another show with Waititi. “It will be our next thing,” said Clement. “I can’t tell you about it yet – I’ll tell you in about a year.” And he’s also back in front of the big screen camera, starring in the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster 2009 films “Avatar,” which are filming simultaneously.

“I’ve just been writing and directing for the last few years, so it’s good to play an acting role,” he said. “It turns out that it is on this massive low budget movies. So every time I show up for work it’s like, “Hope I remember how to act!”