At long last, The Righteous Gemstones is back. The Danny McBride-created series that follows a family of televangelist grifters as they navigate a corrupt and contradictory world with bombast, swagger, and as much faux piety as they can muster is bigger and better season two, bringing along newcomers Eric Andre, Jason Schwartzman and Eric Roberts to an all-star cast headlined by John Goodman as the Gemstones patriarch.
As season two premieres on OSN in the Middle East, Esquire Middle East sat down with Danny McBride, who has quietly become one of the premiere satirists of the century, about writing, working with his best friends, and how long The Righteous Gemstones might go.
Read our full conversation below:
How do you feel you’ve grown as a storyteller?
You know, the writing career has been a blast. It’s one of those things where I just choose stuff that is going to push me and not end up boring. It’s part of the reason why we move on from the shows that we’ve created in the past so quickly. It’s because I don’t want to ever see my writing job as something that’s formulaic, where I have to just go and paint by numbers.
That was why we ended Eastbound & Down after four seasons, why we made Vice Principals only two. And even with this, I don’t know…
How does switching gears and writing this Halloween trilogy fit into that?
It’s fun as a writer to try and push yourself to try new things and opportunities like Halloween. That was incredible to be able to go into that space and see what it’s like to write that. I do feel like each project ends up influencing the other projects ,as you take certain things or distinct traits from those genres, and you end up like pushing it into other things. I feel like it’s all just part of the journey of it.
You’ve also had this amazing decades-long partnership with David Gordon Green and Jody Hill, which continues with Righteous Gemstones.
What’s been so incredible about working with Jody and David is—I obviously have known those guys since I was like 18 years old. They all have incredible careers individually. And that’s what’s been awesome is that every time we’re able to of get together for one of these shows, everyone is just taking the experiences that they’ve had individually in their own career paths and sort of coming back to the table.
It’s sort of like when you’re around your kid and you don’t recognize them getting older until you look at a picture and suddenly you see how much they’ve grown. I’ll come back to these set, and it’ll be like, damn, David is a really good director. You’re always just so proud and pleased with how good everybody is and how much they continue to evolve and grow.
Honestly, my favorite part about this career path that I’ve been on has been being able to share it with friends, and to be able to go back time and time again to work with friends, and to see how their perspectives change or how their methods change. It’s been the highlight of everything I’ve done.
Where did the Gemstones idea begin? Was it born out of the previous work you’ve done in Eastbound and Vice Principals?
Honestly, it started when I saw a televangelist in expensive tennis shoes flying around in private jets, and like he’s like one of the people. It felt interesting. It felt right. It felt like a world that was going to be fun to play around in. There’s just so much excess and wealth. And a lot of the other shows that I’ve made, it’s always been someone who’s in a small position in life. They’re in a very humble place, but they see themselves in a much larger picture. And this, we had a chance to flip that and create characters that are in a massive world that’s much bigger than them, and then watch how they flounder as they try to navigate their way through it.
How do you feel the last year changed you?
I feel like when we had to sit out for that year under COVID, it really grounded me. It made me see how quickly time is moving and how much I can commit to a project and be in my head, be in the clouds for seven months. And then meanwhile my kids have these milestones that I would have missed out on, so I loved having that time with my kids at the age they’re at now.
I don’t know. It just reminded me how important all that is. I don’t want to miss out on any of that stuff. It made me try to take account of what this is all about. You know, is it just about creating stuff? Is it just about providing for my family in a cool way? What am I aiming for? I’ve tried to be more conscious as I move forward of the direction I’m headed and why.
You trailed off before when you talked about how long Gemstones might go. Is the end in sight?
Hmm, no, I’m thinking 72 seasons. No time with my family. Erase what I just said. [Laughs]
You know, every season that we do, with any of these shows I’ve done, I always approached each season as if it’s the last, just because I have no idea what will happen and, and I never want the audience to feel like they’re in a lurch, that they were following something that wasn’t completed.
I would love to do this as long as we can. I love working with all these people. And I think that there’s enough material here between all these characters that it could go on for a long time. But we’ll see. We’ll see what happens after this next season. We’ll see if people still want to follow the Gemstones or not.
[Turns to my cat] Mingus, do you have anything to add?
I think he’s satisfied with that.