We spoke w/ Walton Goggins about TheRighteousGemstones, Baby Billy's singing, and the father-son theme this season.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of The Righteous Gemstones.]On the HBO series The Righteous Gemstones, created by and starring Danny McBride, Baby Billy Freeman is the white-haired, singing preacher with a rather loose relationship with the truth and a much younger wife. A very blurry moral compass and an endless desire for personal gain are reminders that he’d throw just about anyone and anything under the bus, even if their last name is Gemstone.
WALTON GOGGINS: I’ve played some pretty out-there characters. There are times when it’s like, “Oh my God, the ground is not under my feet at all. We’re free-floating right now.” But when it lands – and this is something that Danny and I talked about a lot this season and what Baby Billy is going through, outside of the main storyline – it’s a gut punch. It really hits hard, and it’s about something. It’s about fathers and sons, and sons that become fathers who also have sons.
GOGGINS: No, I’m the worst with it, and I have been, ever since I met Danny [McBride]. He’s one of my best friends. We’re eight years into our relationship now, but I’m the guy that will break before anyone. I just find it so funny. It’s not even myself. It’s really the people that I’m with. I’m such a fan of Danny and these guys, and I know how absurd they are. Sometimes it all falls in on itself, and I think about every other thing that they’ve done and just crack up.
This seems like the type of character that would just be ridiculous on paper, but somewhere what you bring to him and everything with it just makes it so great. Was there a moment in playing him, when it all clicked and made sense to you, and you got who he is? GOGGINS: First and foremost, I’m not a singer. That’s not what I’m known for. I’m not a singer. I have to say that I’m not a singer. My son would definitely say that I’m not a singer. And so, when we did that the first year, thank God for Jennifer Nettles. She’s a singer. That’s a singer. I knew if I just stayed flat, I could move around a little bit and make people look somewhere else and not listen to my voice so much. This season, Danny said, “You’re gonna sing a lot.
This show really goes pretty deep with its characters. It’s about family, power, money and dysfunction, and somehow the emotions get really deep.