Danny McBride Talks ‘Righteous Gemstones’ Finale, Walton Goggins’ Big Moment & Convincing John Goodman To 69 On TV

Danny McBride spoke to Deadline about bidding farewell to 'The Righteous Gemstones' with his signature absurdist comedy and a rare dash of sincerity.

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Services to share this page. Danny McBride and John Goodman in 'The Righteous Gemstones' Jake Giles Netter/HBO

SPOILERS: This post contains details about The Righteous Gemstones series finale episode ‘That Man of God May Be Complete’

The end is here, and Danny McBride is bidding farewell to The Righteous Gemstones with his signature absurdist brand of comedy, plus a rare dash of sincerity.

Ahead of Sunday’s series finale, the Emmy-nominated creator and star of the HBO show spoke to Deadline about wrapping up Jesse Gemstone’s arc with “an inkling of growth,” watching the world “realizing how incredible” co-star Walton Goggins is, and convincing his onscreen dad John Goodman to perform 69 onscreen.

“I just grew up idolizing John Goodman and always have thought he’s awesome, he’s such a good actor, he’s such a funny comedian,” he raved of the actor, who stars as patriarch Eli Gemstone. “I’ve always appreciated his choices that he’s made in his career, and it felt unreal to walk onto the set with him. And you’re watching him and he’s saying your words and he’s bringing things to it that you didn’t anticipate. I just think he’s such a special person, and it was great.”

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McBride continued, “I would have never imagined when I was a kid that I would be an adult trying to talk John Goodman into like 69ing someone on camera like that, something in my life I never imagined happening. I remember when he first got to Charleston this season, there were rumors that he had walked into the production office and was just saying, ‘No on Proposition 69, no on Proposition 69!'”

Following his breakout performances in his previous HBO creations Eastbound & Down (2009-’13) and Vice Principals (2016-’17), McBride debuted his epic comedy about a dysfunctional family of disgustingly rich televangelists in 2019.

John Goodman, Adam DeVine, Edi Patterson and Danny McBride in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (Jake Giles Netter/HBO)

Jam-packed with his absurd self-aware humor, the finale deviates from the show’s usual slapstick raunch with a rare tender moment between Jesse and his equally crude siblings, Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam DeVine).

“And I always kind of knew that would be somewhat of how I would leave those characters, is that they would be tried in the simplest of ways, without all of those advantages that they’ve had, and what they would do in that moment,” said McBride.

Read on for Deadline’s interview with Danny McBride about The Righteous Gemstones finale, now available to stream on Max.

DEADLINE: Tell me why a show like Righteous Gemstones was so important during this era. 

DANNY MCBRIDE: Man, honestly, I don’t really know why it was so important. I think when I started writing it, I wasn’t thinking about trying to make something that would be ultimately important in this era, but it was just sort of about putting up that antenna, just sort of feeling what you wanted to talk about, and maybe that stuff is influenced by the conversations that are happening in the world, and what would be appealing or what needed to be discussed. But I think at the beginning of it, we were just setting out to have a good time and to tell a story that we felt like would be special. 

Danny McBride, Edi Patterson and Adam DeVine in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (Jake Giles Netter/HBO)

DEADLINE: Tell me about Jesse’s duel in the finale and how that kind of wraps up his arc. 

MCBRIDE: Well, you can’t challenge someone, you can’t show that there’s gonna be the possibility of a duel and not do a duel. You have to. So, with all of this stuff, it’s like you’re trying to kind of wrap up these in subtle way—not really subtle—but just in small ways, I’m showing that there’s a little bit of growth, without making the person completely different at the end of the day. And so, I think Jesse has always been someone who’s chasing clout. He’s always worried about how he’s perceived or if he’s impressive enough, or seen to be the man that he imagined himself to be. So, weirdly, at the end of the day, when he has this opportunity to smite his enemy, and he chooses the path of ultimately restraint, I do think it kind of shows that through all of this, there has been an inkling of growth for Jesse. 

DEADLINE: Tell me about filming the Bradley Cooper bottle episode at the beginning of the season and how that connects back to the finale. 

MCBRIDE: You know, it was kind of wild because usually when you’re starting a season of the show, it’s like everybody’s all in and they’re sitting here trying to develop all the new things for the season that you’re involving all your main talent and everything that we’re used to kind of doing. And so, to have everyone show up, our whole crew, and be prepping a period piece Civil War drama, it almost gave the crew—they had to prep for two shows, they had to prep for this Civil War thing and then still do all the crazy shit, like figure out how we’re gonna do jetpacks or work with Capuchin monkeys. But it was a lot of fun, and I think it was a cool way to start the season for us, not just thematically with the show, but even just for our crew, we’ve all worked together on this thing for a good bit of time now, and we always kind of push ourselves to try something new and to do something new and push our abilities. And this was kind of a final time to do that with this group. From our costume designer, our production designer, to our DP, everyone was asked to flex a muscle that they hadn’t flexed in the show before, and I thought it was fun to see everyone rise to the occasion. 

Bradley Cooper in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (Connie Chornuk/HBO)

DEADLINE: Well, it was a really great episode, and I agree it was a cool way to start off the season and to kind of expand the family lore. I also felt like the scene in the finale where the siblings are praying over Corey’s (Sean William Scott) body, it kind of mirrored Elijah Gemstone (Cooper) a little bit. 

MCBRIDE: It totally did. You know, there were a few cases, even just the very end of that episode where Bradley’s in the tent reading from the Bible, he’s like reading the words of someone who no longer is here on this planet. He’s taking direction of what he wants to do with his life. And when it comes to Eli at the end, in his dining room, reading the letter that Amy Lee (Jennifer Nettles) wrote, he is also taking advice from someone who’s no longer here to try to figure out what he should do next with his life. And I even tried to shoot those two scenes very similar, like they’re both candlelit, they’re both sort of shot from behind, and then in the front. So I definitely wanted there to be echoes of that story in how the finale played out. 

DEADLINE: Yeah, and it was a very beautiful, rare tender moment between the siblings, which was nice to see in the finale. 

MCBRIDE: And that ultimately, to me, is kind of what the show was about, is that you’ve seen all this excess, you’ve seen these three siblings have to try to fill the shoes of their parents, and do they have what it takes, do they not have what it takes? And they use things like showbiz and smoke machines and monster trucks and jetpacks, and so for the end to kind of come down to stripping them of all of that excess and just sort of getting down to the soul of it and ultimately do they have what it takes. And I always kind of knew that would be somewhat of how I would leave those characters, is that they would be tried in the simplest of ways, without all of those advantages that they’ve had, and what they would do in that moment. 

DEADLINE: I also wanna ask about your experience working with John Goodman over the years as your on-screen dad, cause The Conners just ended, and it’s so funny, the juxtaposition of Eli Gemstone versus Dan Conner. And I loved the siblings teaming up and trying to convince him to go back to Lori (Megan Mullally) at the end and just like unleashing all that—

MCBRIDE: “He can still do cums.” 

Megan Mullally and John Goodman in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (Jake Giles Netter/HBO)

DEADLINE: Yes. Tell me about working with him and getting him to strip away the Dan Conner.

MCBRIDE: It was awesome working with him. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite elements to this whole show. I just grew up idolizing John Goodman and always have thought he’s awesome, he’s such a good actor, he’s such a funny comedian. I’ve always appreciated his choices that he’s made in his career, and it felt unreal to walk onto the set with him. And you’re watching him and he’s saying your words and he’s bringing things to it that you didn’t anticipate. I just think he’s such a special person, and it was great. I would have never imagined when I was a kid that I would be an adult trying to talk John Goodman into like 69ing someone on camera like that, something in my life I never imagined happening. I remember when he first got to Charleston this season, there were rumors that he had walked into the production office and was just saying, “No on Proposition 69, no on Proposition 69!”

DEADLINE: That’s funny. And also, seeing Walton Goggins’ White Lotus moment and then getting to watch a full season of him in Gemstones was just perfect, especially the Teenjus song. Tell me about watching that moment and giving Baby Billy a good send-off. 

MCBRIDE: I just love Walton Goggins so much. He’s one of my closest friends, and I’m so happy for him in this moment too, where the world is realizing how incredible Walton is. And I saw it coming, because obviously Walton was going to shoot White Lotus before he came to Gemstones, but I remember I kept telling him the whole time when we were shooting, I’m like, “These are gonna air around the same time. It’s gonna be so insane for people to see you do these two different things and to pull them both off, so flawlessly.” And it was just wild. I mean, Walton’s a champ for doing this. I remember when I pitched him this role, we were coming off of Vice Principals, where it was a two-hander with me and him. And so, when it came time to do Gemstones, I was like, “I have a different idea for you.” And he was thinking like, “What am I gonna be your brother?” And I’m like, “Well, not exactly. You’re gonna be our uncle, you’re gonna be in your 70s.” And he was just like, “What the fuck is this?” But I just had a vision of seeing him as an old man, and it just was making me laugh, but I knew that Walton would be able to not make it a cartoon character, but like embed it with something fun and real under it. And it’s been an absolute delight to watch that every season and to come up with all the different ridiculous things we’d have Walton doing. I mean, he’s definitely one of the characters that, a lot of times when you read these scripts back in the writer’s room where everyone’s reading it together and trying to figure out what’s working and what’s not, Baby Billy is like one voice that every writer in the room knows how to do. So, you just hear everyone, like, guys from New England or Edi [Patterson], everyone does their version of the Baby Billy voice, and it’s just such an infectious way to speak and to talk, and Walton crushed it. 

Walton Goggins in ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ (Jake Giles Netter/HBO)

DEADLINE: Do you have anything else coming up with HBO that you can talk about? 

MCBRIDE: It’s just been such a mad rush to complete this show this season, we had to do it in a quicker time than we’ve ever done it. And it’s taken so much of my mind that I’m literally just kind of like, “Hey guys, I’m going on vacation. So, I’m gonna go make a sandwich and relax, and then I’ll come up with what’s next, I guess.”

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