The third season of The Righteous Gemstones brings together one of TV’s more impressive comedic casts, with established players like Danny McBride, Edi Patterson, Adam Devine, and John Goodman playing off an ensemble that also includes Walton Goggins, Tim Baltz, Tony Cavalero, and Cassidy Freeman — and not all of them can keep a straight face during a take.
Filming, Goggins tells Consequence during a recent press day, is “awesome, man. I don’t know if anybody’s having as good a time as we are.” He says this just before he confirms how much fun he in particular is having while playing “Baby” Billy Freeman, uncle to the Gemstone children and one of the show’s wildest characters.
For, when I ask the cast about who might break the most on set, at first some people hesitate in their responses. “I don’t really know,” creator/star McBride says initially. “It’s like I find myself getting tickled by everybody all the time. But I don’t know who does it the most.”
However, Goggins is quick to declare himself the biggest offender, something which his fellow castmates easily agree with (after finding out that he’d outed himself). “I’m not even ashamed of it,” Goggins says. “I’ve ruined some great takes for people, because I can’t hold it together. I’m just not good at that — I see it, I laugh. I laugh at everything that everybody else does.”
In fact, Goggins adds, “Sometimes, what I’m saying is so outrageous that I ruin my own take.”
Says Devine, “He’s a fantastic actor, but when he finds something funny, it’s hard for him to get past it.”
“The thing that amazes me is the domino effect,” Freeman notes. “There was a scene that we were doing with Baby Billy when he comes in… Sometimes he just goes so hard for it that he makes himself laugh. And then it’s just like this huge domino effect. But it’s so endearing. It’s like this total moment for everyone to just be on the same page and lose it and be in that moment. It’s fun.”
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)
Adds McBride, “I just know Walton so well, too — I know what makes him laugh and I love in a scene watching him and knowing it’s getting into territory where he’s not going to be able to do it. And it’s a lot of fun.”
Just because Goggins breaks doesn’t mean the take will be fully ruined, however, because as more than one person observed, there are times when he actually stays in character while chuckling. People have impressions of it happening, as seen in the video above: As Baltz describes it, “he’ll laugh as Baby Billy and he’ll be like [as Goggins], ‘Haha, now that was wild. That was crazy. That’s not really Walton peeking through.'”
“And then you’re like, well, okay, so Baby Billy’s just kind of getting a kick out of that,” Patterson continues. “And then the scene will call cut or whatever, and he’s laughing harder and you’re like, oh, you were tickled.”
In fact, because of that commitment to character, takes in which Goggins breaks “make the cut sometimes,” Freeman says. “It’s that good.”
Breaking isn’t exclusive to scenes featuring Goggins — Tony Cavalero remembers a Season 1 incident where “I came out and the tip of my penis was showing — having to do that scene with Danny McBride standing there, like, cry laughing… Every time I’d look at him and [realized] that’s Danny McBride laughing at this stupid bit that I’m doing, I’d lose my mind.”
Ultimately, in order to finish the scene, McBride “had to face the van, but was still losing his mind,” Cavalero continues. “I know I definitely get the giggles, but it’s the best when you get the boss.”
Devine also remembers a Season 2 scene where he and Cavalero were up close, because “both of my thumbs were broken and you had to hold my underwear up for me. And then we talked this close to one another, just having a conversation. I know that you had a hard time getting through that one.”
“I did not keep it together,” Cavalero laughs in agreement, before noting that “Adam does not break. He is stone cold.”
“So true. Heartless,” Devine agrees.
The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)
Experiences on set aren’t universal, but John Goodman says that the general vibe can often depend on “what time of the day it is. After lunch, it gets a little screwy. Towards the end of the day, it gets chaotic.”
“But in the best way, right?” Goggins asks him.
“Yeah, it’s just fun,” Goodman agrees. “Everybody works very hard and very takes what they do very seriously, up to a point. Then we start goofing around with it. That’s when the ad libs start coming.”
This especially emerges in scenes that bring together a large amount of the cast, which even as a viewer always contain a certain comedic electricity. “I feel on fire in those large group scenes,” Patterson says, “because I feel like they’re really fun and full of possibility. And I think me feeling on fire and excited for those big group scenes is a helpful thing to my own energy and psyche because they just technically require a lot, lot of time. So they’re gonna take hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. So I think part of my very lucky animal response is I go, ‘Oh yes, I love these.'”
It’s all part of the show’s madcap chaos, which after three seasons shows no signs of abating. When asked about the silliest thing he’s been asked to do on this show, Goodman’s reply was simple: “Learn my lines,” he laughed. “It’s all pretty silly. If I think of one thing, another one will come in and top it.”
New episodes of The Righteous Gemstones air Sundays on HBO.