‘The Righteous Gemstones’: The Next Generation
HBO may have lost one trio of failchildren vying for their claim to one empire, but another persists. Ahead of the Season 3 premiere of ‘Righteous Gemstones,’ Danny McBride, Edi Patterson, and Adam Devine talk about the series, NASCAR, and the challenges of working around so many funny people.‘The Righteous Gemstones’: The Next Generation
HBO may have lost one trio of failchildren vying for their claim to one empire, but another persists. Ahead of the Season 3 premiere of ‘Righteous Gemstones,’ Danny McBride, Edi Patterson, and Adam Devine talk about the series, NASCAR, and the challenges of working around so many funny people.
Early in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones, something unexpected emerges from deep beneath Jesse’s bushy sideburns and hollow machismo: self-awareness. The eldest of three spoiled heirs to a Southern megachurch pastor, he understands what he and his siblings are up against.
“Nobody’s rooting for born-wealthy people to become more wealthy,” Jesse says, correctly.
The large adult Gemstone children—wannabe mogul Jesse (Danny McBride), budding Christian rock star Judy (Edi Patterson), and youth minister Kelvin (Adam Devine)—know that they’re not powerful or beloved like their father is. But Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) is retired now, and his offspring have no choice but to try to keep the family’s massive collection plate overflowing.
“It’s so easy to talk shit on the bench when everybody else is doing the work,” says McBride, who created the HBO series. “And now they have to step up and do it.”
If last season was the story of how Eli built and maintained his empire, this one is about whether his progeny have what it takes to lead his kingdom into the future. Sunday’s premiere picks up where the Succession finale left off: with a bunch of rich kids desperately attempting to prove that they’re not actually a failson or faildaughter.
“They have none of the life experience or anything to earn this spot, and it affects each of them differently,” McBride says. “And I think it’s weirdly a tragic element, because they didn’t choose this. This is just what they were given, and, for better or worse, they’re left to flounder in front of everyone.”
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Praise be for that. It is hilarious to watch the trio attempt to run the church without their daddy helping them. This season of The Righteous Gemstones is, unsurprisingly, full of ultra-specific, zeitgeisty humor and ridiculously committed performances. There are monster trucks, militias, moral panics, and … pickleball. Shea Whigham pops up as a chain-smoking, grizzled NASCAR driver sponsored by Winston cigarettes. Stephen Dorff plays a Falwellian preacher. And a bewigged Steve Zahn even emerges as the comedy’s latest agent of chaos, the leader of a faction of fundamentalist doomsday preppers.
Yet as joyfully absurd as the series can be, the absurdity never fully hijacks the narrative. After all, McBride says, “What this show is really about is family, and it’s about power and wealth and the passage of that to the next generation.”
And who better to expound on that transition than the Gemstone children themselves?
One thing I wanted to bring up first, because it just made me laugh: I think you’re the rare show set in modern times that has cigarette smoking. Danny, was that an ordeal to try to figure out?
Danny McBride: I think we fly just under the radar, where you do this shit and you’re like, “Oh, no one’s allowed to do that.” I know that Warner Bros. scrubbed cigarettes out of the poster for McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and we just have people starting the show fucking smoking.
And then the Winston ads.
McBride: Yeah, the Winston ad right there too. We’re turning the clock back.
For the three of you, what was your experience with NASCAR growing up?
Edi Patterson: I grew up in Texas, which you would think, “Oh yeah, this bitch has seen some NASCAR.” I never went anywhere close to it. So going to that track was wild for me. I had no idea the scope of it. I had no idea how loud they are.
Adam Devine: I didn’t grow up in a NASCAR home, but I’ve gotten to do a few things with NASCAR over the years. I’m going to be the grand marshal next weekend for a NASCAR event.
McBride: Yeah, you are.
Devine: And I get to say, “Drivers, start your engines!” Yeah, it’s just huge how many people go to those events, and it’s such a party. Even though I do not care about NASCAR, it makes me want to care, because I’m like, “I want to just go to that party.”
McBride: I had seen NASCAR races when I was a kid. I had been to a race in Richmond. I grew up in Virginia. I went to the Coca-Cola 600 this past weekend. And you saw how big Darlington was. That is a drop in the bucket [compared] to how big the Charlotte Motor Speedway is. It was so fucking cool. Honestly, I lost my mind when I was [filming] there. It’s 95,000 people. I was supposed to drive the pace car, so all week, I had been researching it, and I read stuff that the drivers will fuck with you, that they’ll rev behind you. And you gotta do four laps around.
And the day that we were going to do the race, it got rained out, so they couldn’t certify me to drive it, so then I just rode in the passenger seat. And God, when I got there to do it, I was so fucking glad I was not driving. It was so intimidating. You got there and you saw that whole lineup, all those cars, all that noise, everyone in the fucking stadium looking at you. I just looked over at the [driver], and he’s like, “Your seat’s the best. You can take it in. If you were driving, you’d just be pissing your pants and white-knuckling it the whole time.” And he was right.
Patterson: Oh God, I’d be so scared. That’s so much more pressure than even a pitch at a baseball game.
Every time I watch the post-church scenes at the restaurant, I just wonder how you don’t all crack up every take.
McBride: You have every character present there. By design, we don’t have lines for everyone, because the scene would be 12 pages long if everybody in it had one line. So, you get there, you feel what the rhythm of the scene is, then everybody’s so good that they know when it would make sense to interject or to add something. And it’s fun. They’re the only scenes that have all the characters of the show there, but it’s also just fun to see how everybody basically plays basketball. And those days are also very long. The amount of people on the scene and the amount of coverage you need, we’ll always be there late. And inevitably, everyone gets punchy at some point, where you start laughing at the dumbest shit that there’s no reason why it’s even funny, and you suddenly can’t get through takes, and it’s just pure joy.
Patterson: It’s fun to see who’s game if your character’s just going to ask somebody something. For instance, if Adam had a line and if I, as Judy, go, “Oh, why do you think that?” I know that’s just a soft pitch to Adam to say something. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s a fun place to lob pitches to people.
Devine: It’s fun too, just because you do have to march around that whole table to get everyone’s coverage to remember three takes ago if Edi did something funny on her coverage. Then, you can reverse engineer it for your coverage and go, “Oh, I’ll set her up this way so it’ll all make sense.”
Do you have any favorite moments like that that came out of improv?
Patterson: That first season when the three of us are on the couch, I thought I was going to die. I was laughing so hard.
McBride: When Adam started doing the voice of the devil.
Patterson: I think we had all been working all day, and then we were meeting together for a night shoot, and we were punchy AF.
Devine: That was probably the hardest one to get through.
Do you all have siblings? And I’m curious, what do you take from your real-life sibling relationships into this show?
Devine: I go the opposite route. I take things from our show and interject it into my relationship with my sister. I was like, “I should be cruel to her more often.”
McBride: I have two sisters, and we definitely didn’t go at each other as hard as this. My wife doesn’t have any siblings, and so me and my sisters, we’ll get into fights sometimes, and my wife is like, “Oh my God, are we never going to see them again?” I’m like, “Nah, this is the shit we do all the time. You can say the worst shit to them and they still have to fucking show up at Christmas. It’s fine.”
Patterson: With your siblings, you know where every button is, and even if you’ve made it your goal to never fucking push those buttons, it just happens sometimes because the second they nail one of yours, you’re going to come back with something you know, and you know such weird stuff about each other.
Devine: It can be a super, super deep cut. You could be just like, “Oh yeah, ham sandwich.” And they’re like, “Why would you say that to me?”
McBride: Even in the show, I fuck with my siblings. In the first season, in that fifth episode, Judy says, “It makes my bird twitch.” That’s something that my sisters used to say when we were kids. And so even just putting that in the show was for them to be like, “Fuck you. Now everybody knows that.”
It’s a joke for three people, but that’s the best kind.
McBride: Exactly.
My brother, he was 6 years old and was not using soap in the shower, and we called him a “scrub.” And we called him that until he was 35 years old. So it just never goes away.
Patterson: Also known as a buster.
Exactly. I was going to ask about John Goodman. He just really does feel like your dad. Does it feel like that on set? What has it been like working with him for the last couple of years?
McBride: He pulls pranks all the time. You know what? The evolution of Goodman on the show has been incredible, because I personally was shocked that he was going to be in the show. I am such a fan of his and have always been and just admire the hell out of him. The idea that he was going to come play with us, I was just so excited by but also intimidated by as well. What is this going to be like? Despite everything that he’s done, he still approaches it all the same way we do, where he gets nervous and he wants to be good and he wants to try his best. It instantly levels the playing field, and you instantly are able to look at it as just another actor in this show. It was awesome to feel that with him.
Patterson: I think he’s got a really, really weird and awesome and smart sense of humor, and that was the thing that cut through my kid brain of just like, “Oh, holy shit, it’s John Goodman as our dad.” I noticed that very weird and specific things in the script would really tickle him. And yeah, that’s something where I knew, “Oh, we can get down with this dude. It can get wild. And he’s not going to be offended or mad or not know what’s happening.”
Devine: He’s like my dad in a way where I know he truly loves me, but I’m also not sure he even likes me. You know what I mean? That’s how I feel. I still feel like I’m like, “Huh? Right, John?” But he’s so damn good. I feel like [having] him as the anchor for the whole family lets us go be as wild as our characters allow, and then you’ll cut back to a scene with John and it feels super grounded and real.
You mentioned pranks. Do you have a favorite of his that illustrates that weird sense of humor?
McBride: I feel like everyone always asks about pranks.
Patterson (deadpan): Would this count? If his call time is before all of ours, he shits in our trailers. Is that weird? Is that what you mean?
Devine: But what’s funny is it’s not in the toilet. It’s not where you would expect the shit to be.
Patterson: No way.
An upper-decker?
McBride: On a toothbrush.
Anyway, one thing I like about the show is that every year, there’s been this funny agent of chaos that has come in. Walton Goggins you could say was the first season, and then Eric Roberts, and now Steve Zahn. Is that a fun thing to do, to introduce some crazy shit to mix things up?
McBride: After doing so many seasons of TV, inevitably what ends up happening after the first season is you’re creating sequels. And so to avoid it being just the same shit over and over again, I think it’s important that each one feels completely distinct and completely unique. And I think to do that, you rely on these new characters that can expose something different about our characters. Ultimately, all these characters are also filling in the blanks on the backstory of the Gemstones and where they came from.
What is it like for you guys acting with Walton? Is it as fun as it looks?
McBride: Baby Billy’s one of those characters where everyone in the writers room knows his voice. You know what I mean? We all know how to write Baby Billy dialogue. We all know what that sound is, what that cadence is, what that weird turn of phrase is. It’s just a very fun character to fuck around with, and it’s fun to watch Walton not only execute it; it tickles him to execute it. It’s funny to watch Walton become this character and push the boundaries of what he could do and then watch.
Patterson: He cracks up himself doing Baby Billy as we’re just staying in it, being our characters with him. There’ll be times when he is laughing as Baby Billy and then they yell “cut,” and then he’s dying laughing, and you’re like, “Oh, he was tickled.”
Devine: Someone asked me that question earlier today: “Who breaks the most out of you guys on set?” And I’m like, “It’s Walton hands down.” But he breaks as Baby Billy. Sometimes they’ll call “cut” and he’s laughing, and it’s the same laugh as Baby Billy. He’s still in it.
I’m stealing this question from a friend who once asked Anthony Carrigan from Barry what his character’s style inspiration was. What are all of your characters’ style inspirations? I’m especially curious about where Kelvin gets his jeans.
Devine: I’ll send you the link. Well, for Kelvin, I feel like his style has evolved. Maybe he would play acoustic guitar in Mumford & Sons in Season 1, and now, he’s morphed into more of a hypebeast. I feel like he’s decided to drop some coin on his duds this past season.
Patterson: I feel like that’s the trajectory of Judy as well. I think she’s at the point where she’s like, “Oh, I have a ton of money, and I’m going to show it.” And I think there’s way more attention on designer stuff this year and vintage designer stuff. And I just feel like she’s decided that she’s hot shit now, and whatever’s coming out of Paris, “I’m fucking getting it.”
Jesse’s hair is now dyed. I’m curious if that was on purpose too.
McBride: Yes. I think Jesse is looking for ways to really show everyone how masculine he is, and I think he’s really taking a [page] from ’70s Elvis Presley. I think he’s just emulating these other men that have come before, and he dyes his hair this year. I think that as he’s looking for ways to be better at the job, I guess he’s identified that maybe having jet-black hair would make him better.
Patterson: It’s so weird.
Danny, there’s something Jesse says this season that I thought was a great summation of the show: “Nobody’s rooting for born-wealthy people to become more wealthy.” Besides being funny, how do you make these characters sympathetic? And are they sympathetic?
Patterson (deadpan): Yes, they are sympathetic. You should feel for them, and they are all doing their best.
McBride: I think it’s one of those things where it’s so easy to just look at them like they’re toxic, and they are, and they’re conniving and shitty. And so the trick really that we hand to all these actors is trying to find the humanity in somebody who has all of these opportunities and can’t muster being a decent human being.
Devine: What I think Danny and the rest of the writing staff and Edi do so well is infusing these characters with these massive insecurities, especially with my character, where you almost want him to get out of his own way. You’re like, “Ah, buddy, come on.” Even though he can be a total piece of shit, you’re like, “You can do it. You can be a piece of shit.” You’re rooting for him in his shittiness.
Patterson: He’s doing his best, man. He’s like, “This will help kids.” Judy’s really thinking, “I’m not getting enough attention, and I’m a rock star now.”
I feel like you don’t see depictions of that world much. Is it fun showing people a world that you don’t see on TV a ton?
McBride: It could have been anything. They could have owned a fucking cable news network. They could own a fucking ranch in Yellowstone. But we chose a church because I just felt, ultimately, that more people would relate to that. More people would have a point of reference for that. I don’t know. A lot of people haven’t been to L.A. or New York, and they don’t have a point of reference for that stuff other than what they see on TV. And I think it’s interesting to set stories in places that most people actually can relate to.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
