The Georgia native has seen how Hollywood traffics in stereotypes about the American South. He talks with Tonya Mosley about making creative work that challenges them. His HBO show The Righteous Gemstones, which satirizes televangelists, just wrapped its fourth and final season.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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Welcome to Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is Danny McBride. His latest show, The Righteous Gemstones, just finished its fourth and final season. It's a dark comedy about a rich Southern family of televangelists who talk about salvation on TV, but behind the scenes, it is all dysfunction, greed, scandal, and sometimes even crime.
We've watched throughout the show's run the most ridiculous antics, a mass baptism and a wave pool going wrong, a full frontal parking lot scene that's a fight, and the gospel banger Misbehavin'.
At the center of the Gemstone family is Eli Gemstone, played by John Goodman, and his three deeply flawed adult children who are constantly caught up in rivalries and schemes to keep their religious empire intact.
In the scene I'm about to play, the three siblings, played by McBride, Edie Patterson, and Adam Devine, are all trying to convince their dad, Eli, who is retired as the head preacher, to come back to the church for a fundraising event to honor their late mom. Goodman's character, Eli, who speaks first in this clip, has left town on a boat to escape the church and the family.
What can I do for you kids?
Ain't nobody heard whether you were coming back for Mama's birthday celebration telethon. Just curious if maybe your RSVP is floating around some bottle out here.
Yeah, well, I'm not going to make it. What? Why come? It's for Mama, Daddy.
Yeah, that's your dead wife, remember, dude?
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