Catching Up With The Righteous Gemstones

It is a long way around and it is a lesson, a pill that is easily swallowed, because you’re doing it when you don’t even know it—with your mouth agape from laughter. I just love that man. I love that person. And I love him as a writer. A really good friend of ours was guest writing this year and he was in town when I got there. And he said something about Danny and about leaving the writer’s room with an assignment. He said “Danny said, ‘I don’t want you to write anything. I want you to take the weekend and I want you to write a word. I just want you to sit with it and your imagination.’”

He does the same thing for Eli, he does the same thing for every one of these people. But his advice was “Don’t try to get it right, don’t try to write anything that’s funny. Just understand the pain and insecurity in his heart and see the world from his point of view and meditate on it.” It’s the approach that Danny has to the work that inspires people.

Paste: Adam, after doing seven seasons of Workaholics, you’re no stranger to a show finding its groove after being on-air a while. When it came to filming Season 3, was there a noticeable shift in just how comfortable everyone was together on screen and how you guys could all play off of each other’s energy?

Adam Devine: Yeah, for sure. I’ve been saying that! With a movie, it’s hard. That’s why, when movies work, it’s totally magical. We’ve known each other for years now and we’re really good friends. And it takes a long time to shoot this show, but I really feel like we found it even after the pilot. In season one, I think we were really in a good groove. That groove is even deeper this season, baby. Better than ever!

Paste: Tony, I adore Keefe. He’s great, and we get to see him explore more of his eccentricities this season. What’s it like getting to step into a scene and be this devotional, off-kilter neutral amid a family of religious zealots? Is there a freedom to being just on the outside of the Gemstone drama?

Tony Cavalero: You just nailed it. Very selfishly, it’s so amazing to get to do a lot of the scenes [where Keefe is] there observing. And what a dream to watch John Goodman, Danny McBride, Adam Devine, Steve Zahn—all of these legends—and just get to observe, but also be like, “Wait, I’m in the scene. Be Keefe, do your weird little eccentricies.” It’s a role of a lifetime, to bring this guy to life and it’s just so special in this spazzy, Christian world to get to be the guy who’s [inhales] breathing—or not breathing, because he’s looking at Kelvin’s bod too hard.

Paste: Tim, I’ve always loved the character of BJ, because he has some of my favorite lines in the whole show. What does your collaboration process with Danny [McBride] and Jody [Hill] look like when piecing together some of BJ’s language? Do any of those quips come off the cuff in the heat of a scene?

Tim Baltz: Some of them do. I remember, “the elixirs,” when Baby Billy’s truck falls over, that was off the cuff and Jody was like, “I like that, keep that.” It really comes back to when we were doing the pilot and I first sat down with them. Danny said: “BJ is the eyes of the audience within the show, so you’re reacting to the family’s behavior the way that regular people in the audience will be reacting to this kind of behavior.” I’ve kept that with me the entire time. And, the one [line] that stands out, which was kind of a happy accident, was in the Outback Steakhouse scene [in Season One]. Jody has a Southern accent and, when were finishing that scene, he said “Why don’t you say ‘Good day’ to Judy when you’re leaving, but we were at Outback and I heard his accent and I was like, “Oh, because it’s Australia.” So, at the end, I say [mimics an Australian accent] “Goodbye, Judy.” And he laughed and he was like, “That’s so funny, dude, the way that you pronounced that.” I’m like, “Right, because it’s Australian.” And he goes: “Oh, interesting. Yeah, okay.” I’m like, “Oh, all right. Do you want me to change it?” He’s like, “No, no. Keep doing it!” So there’s definitely collaboration with it, but, all in all, it’s so easy to play together that the collaboration just happens organically in every scene that we do.

Paste: Edi, we see Judy reap what she’s sewn a little bit this season. Her chaos gets leveled out by an emotional, complex storyline between her and BJ. When you have to tap into that heavier place, how do you find the balance between keeping parts of Judy’s essential comedy alive while also maintaining her humanity of going through necessary growth in difficult moments?

Edi Patterson: It’s interesting. The approach—the coming up on it—is always the same for me, in that I think the funniest stuff with Judy and the most authentic, more dramatic stuff is all just true. So, if I just mean it, whether it’s something ridiculous or whether it’s something really heartfelt or sad, I just have to trust the truth of it. I really love Judy and I think she is always doing her best. She just screws up sometimes. I think it helps to come at her with affection, which I definitely do. I think she’s awesome and, dude, she’s trying her best.

Paste: Danny, you were raised in the Bible Belt and you’ve said before that church was a big part of your life growing up. As you continued conceptualizing The Righteous Gemstones into Season 3, how much were you still pulling from your upbringing?

Danny McBride: You know, when it comes to the church, no part of my history with church ever involved me running any churches or anything. But I feel like the familial dynamics and the father/son things, everything is always pulling from what you know or what’s there. I grew up, though, going to Sunday School, so I know all of the Bible stories. So, sometimes, we use those as inspiration for the stories we’re telling.

Paste: Cassidy, some of my favorite moments from this season are your interactions with Edi Patterson. Judy and Amber have very different energies, but they’re both cunning in a similar way. What’s it like diving into a scene with Edi, and how does her approach to playing Judy influence your own approach to playing Amber?

Cassidy Freeman: First of all, Edi has become the love of my life in real life, so she and I are very close and getting to play scenes together is really fun. But, I’ll tell you something, we can be joking behind the scenes and then, when we’re in the scene, I think she might actually kill me. There’s no “wink, wink, we’re in this together,” it’s balls to the wall. Sometimes I end the scene and I’m like, [mouths] “Are you mad at me?” And she’s like, “No!” I’m like, “Oh, my God.” There’s just a ruthlessness to her when she plays Judy that I think is—it inspires Amber, in some ways. It makes Amber bring her A-game, because there’s no other choice. She’ll get eaten.

Paste: Danny, I know you’re a big fan of Sturgill Simpson. What was it like getting him on this season?

McBride: It was awesome. I think Sturgill is a really awesome actor and I’ve been buddies with him for a few years now. When we were trying to fill out who was in this militia, I was talking to him and I was like, “Hey, would you ever want to come down to Charleston and just hangout for a few months and do this little role?” And he was kind enough to say yes. We had a blast, being able to work with him here. I was a fan of his music before I met him and, yeah, he’s just such a good dude. I think he’s so insanely talented and it was awesome to have him come in and mix it up.

Paste: One of the best parts of Gemstones is when you all let a joke run too long. There are a few perfect instances this season. Is perfecting that balance a product of natural energy while shooting, or have you made it to a place in your writing where you’re confident you know how far to take everything?

McBride: I think it’s just relying on your instincts. I do think we’ve been doing it long enough that we, kind of, understand those realms. But, I mean, I think our way to foolproof it is to never limit yourself on the set. While we’re shooting, we’ll push things as far as we can. And then, I think, once you get into the editing, you start making those calls and you can start to really tell when [a joke] has lost its energy, or when staying in a bit longer gets a chuckle. I think that just comes from just doing it, you know, and your own taste being refined.

Freeman: That’s such a cool part of the process, too, that you guys do. Because you do the scene and you think “this is the whole scene” and then, later, you’re like, “Oh, that part went away.” But it makes so much more sense now. It’s like carving the statue that’s already in there.

Matt Mitchell is Paste‘s assistant music editor. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, but you can find him online @yogurttowne.