Jemaine Clement, from left, Taika Waititi, Ben Fransham, Jonathan Brugh (on stairs), Cori Gonzales-Macuer and Stuart Rutherford star in “What We Do in the Shadows.” THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-GAT

TORONTO - Most people would probably balk — or move out — if a roommate asked to store a coffin in their room.

But Stuart Rutherford, an IT consultant from New Zealand, kindly obliged when his roommate Taika Waititi asked if he could keep a dusty casket next to his bed.

"I was like, 'Sure, but is there a dead body in it?' He was like, 'No, no, it's just an empty coffin,'" Rutherford recalled. "There were a couple days there where I was like, 'Where is this going?'"

It turned out Waititi, a comedian, and his friend Jemaine Clement were shooting a short mockumentary about vampires. It was 2005, before Clement would skyrocket to cult fame in North America with the HBO hit "Flight of the Conchords."

When an actor called in sick, Rutherford stepped in to play a small role. Now, in the feature-length "What We Do in the Shadows," opening Friday in select Canadian cities, Rutherford's role as a rosy-cheeked IT guy named Stuart was expanded.

The improvised comedy documents the everyday problems of undead flatmates Vladislav (Clement), Viago (Waititi) and Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) in Wellington, N.Z. — like old bones left on the floor, rivalries with werewolves, and freak sunshine accidents.

During last fall's Toronto International Film Festival, where "What We Do in the Shadows" won the People's Choice award for best entry in the Midnight Madness program, Clement and Rutherford sat down to chat with The Canadian Press.

CP: How did the idea for a vampire mockumentary come about?

Clement: I wanted to do a vampire film because I had always been obsessed with vampires when I was a kid. And Taika wanted to do a mockumentary. Basically, we just put them together and thought they'd be a good fit because mockumentaries don't tend to go into the paranormal or into things that you can't really film.

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CP: You actually went to bars in Wellington while dressed as vampires in both the 2005 short and the feature film. What happened?

Clement: In the first film, I think we were close to getting beaten up. We got called so many names — guys constantly shouting at us when we dressed like that going into town. But now, you can't get people to do it. We wrote it into the script thinking it was going to happen again, but people never did it. There is a kid who does it in the film. But we asked him, and he was like, 'No way, man, I'm not going to say that.' Attitudes have really changed in a good way.

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CP: What was it like shooting an improvised movie in which only Clement and Waititi knew what was in the script?

Clement: Sometimes people in the crew would let it slip. There was a vampire hunter but we didn't want him to know he was playing a vampire hunter. But the costume designer put his belt of stakes around him and we were like, 'Oh, now he's going to know.' But we kept everything secret from the cast so we could get some real reactions sometimes.

Rutherford: It was kind of like being in a weird game show where you don't know when it's going to end, you don't know if you're passing each test and then strange stuff happens and you just have to react.

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CP: Stuart, what do your friends in the technology sector think of you being in this movie?

Rutherford: There are tweets from people who are like, 'I can't believe geodatabases are in the film.' Like, 'vampires are cool, but getting the word geodatabases in a feature film is a massive step forward for mankind.'

— This interview has been edited and condensed

News from © The Canadian Press, 2015