Righteous Gemstones Season 2 Updates: On the second day of filming the second season in March, the cast and crew of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones were present when the novel coronavirus arrived in Charleston, S.C. or, as it was characterized by creator-star Danny McBride, “Everything got real, real quick.”
So work on the comedy, about a family of televangelists who for weeks or even years at a time appear to be misplacing their WWJD bracelets, shut down, unsure when it will be able to resume.
During a new joint interview with series composer Joseph Stephens about their season one musical partnership, the “Misbehavin’.”
In addition to playing the mercurial Judy Gemstone, the sister of McBride’s Jesse and Adam Devine’s Kelvin, Patterson also works as a writer on the series, the only beloved daughter of John Goodman’s Eli. Aside from McBride, she’s the only one who pulls that special double duty.
Here we can see some of the answers to the questions in the interview.
So you’re still the only woman in the series’ writers office, along with Judy being the only woman in the immediate Gemstone family right now.
It’s exciting. As far as publishing, I don’t sense Judy’s anger. Danny and I have a wonderfully imaginative way of getting together. I feel like almost 100 percent of the time when I write something that really makes me laugh, I know he’s going to get it almost without fail.
Even if it’s super odd, or it’s super unique. We’ve got a chip like this, where I know he’ll know what I’m going for. Luckily! Thankfully, as I am blogging, I don’t sense Judy’s frustration. God, that would be bad! Hey. (Laughs.)
You were in Charleston on the second day of shooting season two as everything shut down? So, in two days, everything went from “We’re doing everything completely normally” to “We’re shutting it all down indefinitely”?
Completely. I say we were on a huge set for our second day of filming. Like a period piece collection where, on another day, the entire block was turned into another city. We were going full speed ahead. And it was like, “Hmm. Can’t do that.” from one day to the next.
Right at the beginning, was there still any chance of getting back quickly?
“Oh, we’ll just press the pause button for a minute”Oh, we’re just going to click the pause button for a minute, “even if it’s a month or a month and a half.” even if it’s a month or a month and a half.”Oh, we’re gonna have to wait a while.”Oh, we’re going to have to wait a bit.
So filming at this stage has been postponed to next year, so is there a proposal in August to film a Christmas special?
The plan is that. I mean, with enormous fingers crossed! (Laughs.) I’m with my parents in Texas right now, and there are so many states that are going through weird surges right now. But it’s very impossible to say.
Righteous Gemstones Season 2: But there’s no talk of a complete Lion King Reboot of CGI?
It’s fascinating because there are occasions when CGI painting is used on crowds, sometimes in the first season, you know, as you said, we’re in a megachurch, so sometimes the crowds are massive.
I mean, for some scenes, we’ve got too many extras and only [use] a little bit of drawing. But I have no idea how we’re going to do that, even with the huge base amount [of extras] we’ve had before. It’s very complicated.
But we did a series called “How I’m Living Now” earlier in the pandemic, and the last question was: What’s the first item on your to-do list when—do I have to answer “if” now? Is everything returned to normal?
My reaction is that it’s going to sound nerdy, but I can’t wait until I get back to filming. I feel like I have just had the small, tiny drug blow. I just want to go and start filming what we wrote to keep going on something that I’m so proud of that we worked so hard on.
No, that is a brilliant response. I assume Joey [Stephens] was just thinking, “I want to go to a restaurant.”
(Laughs.) Man, sitting somewhere and eating something tasty for a long time in a really sensually lit restaurant sounds amazing. Like one of those dinners where you only have two and a half hours of lying there. Sounds awesome.
The Righteous Gemstones series is now available on HBO max.
