Righteous Gemstones star Danny McBride says improv is key to show’s success

Creative multi-hyphenate Danny McBride says his hit show The Righteous Gemstones works because it’s a collaborative effort behind the scenes.

He’s given us television gold in the acclaimed series Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals and, most recently, The Righteous Gemstones, but Danny McBride says he can’t take all the credit.

The creative multi-hyphenate – he’s an actor, writer, producer and director – says collaboration is the key on any set, including his latest offering, which is led by funnymen John Goodman, Adam Devine and Walter Goggins.

The Righteous Gemstones follows a family of televangelists who made their fortune through their megachurch production spearheaded by patriarch and pastor, Eli Gemstone (Goodman). The family are devout Christians, but viewers soon question Eli, his three children – Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Devine) – and their faith-based circus as they are clearly driven by greed.

Danny McBride is the creator and star of the Foxtel series The Righteous Gemstones. Picture: Foxtel

The series has developed a cult following and this week, it returned for a third season on Foxtel. McBride says the stellar ensemble and their ability to improvise has everything to do with the show’s success.

“We take a lot of time to like sculpt out the story and to make sure that everything there is on the page to communicate to these actors what we’re going for, what we want to do,” he says.

“But I wouldn’t be so obnoxious to think that like, I’m gonna think of the best version of this scene by myself in a room. Once you’re on the set, and you have these other intelligent minds there that also have their own perspectives and their own angles, I think that you’d be a fool to limit that. So we very much encourage everyone’s opinions and what everybody wants and what everyone thinks.”

Stream all the seasons of The Righteous Gemstones now on Foxtel.

The Righteous Gemstones also stars Adam Devine and Edi Patterson, who play McBride’s on-screen siblings. Picture: Foxtel

The patriarch of the family, Pastor Eli Gemstone, is played by John Goodman (right). Picture: Foxtel

McBride says scripts read differently once on set, so it pays to go with the creative flow.

“I think that when you’re on set, it’s not a matter of shutting down people’s ideas. I think it’s a matter of collecting as many as you can,” he explains.

“Then I think when you get into post [production], you kind of figure out what’s too far, what’s not enough, what beat what was on the page, what doesn’t. I think on the set you want to encourage as many options as possible.”

Patterson and Tim Baltz, who play the Gemstone middle child Judy and her on-screen husband BJ respectively, tell news.com.au they feel they have a “ton of creative freedom” to adlib on set.

The Righteous Gemstones has developed a cult following since debuting in 2019. Picture: Binge

“The show is very written though – and we always do [a scene] at least a few times, if not the entire time, as written,” she shares. “There are some of us who come from an improv background. So if I do have a scene with Tim, I know and I hope that there is room for at least one or two takes where we can just sort of run down field as fast as we can and see what happens.”

“You just wanna let it rip sometimes and see what starts to float there that wasn’t there before.”

Adds Baltz: “I think Danny and the directors have always trusted us to take the character where we see fit because they trust that they’ve cast us well and they have everyone with an improv background.”

Edi Patterson and Tim Baltz play husband and wife on the show. Picture: Foxtel

Danny McBride says he allows stars such as Adam Devine improvise their scenes. Picture: Foxtel

“You’ll look at the script and you’ll be like, Ooh, I really wanna make sure that we get this moment because emotionally it’s so well-written. But I can’t really even think of a scene where they didn’t say at some point, ‘OK, this one’s for you guys.’”

Season three is by no means the last, but McBride has previously said he writes every season as if it were the show’s final outing. So if Righteous Gemstones were to be cancelled tomorrow for some unforeseeable reason, McBride is proud of what he’s put out there and the legacy the show will leave behind.

From left to right: John Goodman, Danny McBride, Cassidy Freeman, Edi Patterson and Adam Devine. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

“Honestly, I feel like I’d just like to give people a good time. I feel like in this day and age, it’s so easy to get bummed out by things. Everything is so dark and the times are dark, and I just hope that this show just brings people a little bit of light. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to capture,” he says.

“There’s a genuine and true camaraderie between all the people who create this and make this show together. If we can put that on the screen and let people laugh and have fun and be moved and go on a journey, that’s really what I want it to be. That’s it.

“I mean, the main job of creating anything is to have it affect people in a positive way. And I hope that’s what this show does for people.”

The Righteous Gemstones Season 3 is now streaming on Foxtel.