This interview contains spoilers for Sunday night’s episode of “The Righteous Gemstones.”
The first thing to know is that the testicles were fake – at least in one of the shots. Anyone who watched Sunday night’s episode of the HBO televangelist’s TV satire, “The Righteous Gemstones,” knows which shot.
Near the end of the episode, the sixth of Season 3, Tim Baltz’s character, BJ, gets into a brutal fight with a naked man who ends up on a suburban lawn. Just when it looks like BJ is cold, his eyes fly open and reach, grab, turn. The neighborhood kids watch in horror.
In the blink of an eye, the typically mild-mannered BJ has victory firmly in his hands. His nemesis, philandering Christian rock guitarist Stephen (Stephen Schneider), falls to his knees and pays a brutal price for his affair with BJs. wife (Edi Patterson).
It was a difficult scene to film, Baltz said via video last month from his home in Los Angeles, and not just because of the endless shooting. He also did most of his own stunts – and was accidentally punched in the face several times.
“There were a lot of little, very quick decisions that either hurt us, or barely prevented an injury,” Baltz said of shooting the scene, which took all day. He added, “That’s the most intense day at work I’ve ever had.”
Baltz grew up in Joliet, Illinois, near Chicago, and he has the kind of boyish blonde looks, deadpan face, and cheerful Midwestern influence that can make it hard to tell if he’s attracted to you. (Given the circumstances, I believed him on the shoot.) That affect is one of the reasons he’s so convincing as BJ, a sensitive soul who lets his wife dress up in shiny pink rompers and who has Rollerblades dressed in full protective gear : It’s hard to believe anyone ever could Real be so serious; BJ keeps surprising you because he is real.
“Despite being an atheist or an infidel, he is the most pious and religious character on the show,” Baltz said. “Which is strange,” he added, for a character who married into a family of ministers.
BJ is also perhaps the most meme-worthy character in “Gemstones,” which is saying something in a show created by and starring Danny McBride. Baltz talked about the character, his outfits and the true cost of BJ’s fight. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
First of all, how did you choreograph that decisive shot?
That fight scene took an entire day to film. Once we got outside, we were worried about the loss of light, and with the camera looking up, the camera moving, I have to get these fake testicles. I look up at Stephen, barely covering his own mess, and I’m like, “Okay man, here we go, and we need to get it right on camera too.”
There was a stuntman involved for at least some of your roles, right?
Yes. My stunt double for the show is a guy named T. Ryan Mooney, who looks shockingly like me. Same body type too. To be honest, I don’t think I’m like BJ in real life, but I never feel more like my character than when I see a guy who looks like me and has my body type, doing crazy stunts, and he does it for a living. It’s a bit discouraging. But aside from BJ being thrown through the railing or being dragged down the stone steps into the front yard, I did that with every shot you see.
Stephen seems like a champ for doing his entire role naked. How were your conversations about the scene?
He was really great. He struggled with whether to go au naturel or use a prosthesis. It ended up being the last shooting day of the season for both of us, so there was a lot of build-up and anticipation. Stephen would come into town every few months filming stuff, and I’d say, “Let me take you out to dinner, man, ’cause we’re gonna have an intense day.” And then halfway through the season he says, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to be naked. I just think there are only so many challenges in life, and I see this as a challenge.”
Presumably he needed your permission.
I mean, the intimacy coordinator definitely called several times to get me ready. But for me it was more like, “Okay, this guy is making himself very vulnerable. So every time he comes to town, we’re going to get to know each other so we’re buddies going to do this. And honestly, it really worked. By the end I considered him a good friend, this naked man I had to fight.
You have played with this image of the sane naive a lot over the years. How much of it feels like you?
I grew up playing sports – I was hyper-competitive. I’m really not like [B.J.] not at all. If I relate to the character in any way, it’s just the kindness and the generosity that he has, and I think a lot of people see that as a hallmark of our society.
When you book something, you lean into it as hard as you can, whether it’s a nice character or a creepy one. But this one you need to understand in particular: where does unconditional love come from? And how do I keep in touch with it? This season is the first time he’s really being tested, and it’s being tested so much that he thinks he needs to change who he is. And the fight scene is the pinnacle of that.
After the fight, BJ tells Judy, “I hope you like me now.” Does he feel worse about beating up Stephen than he is about being beat up himself?
I think he’s probably more hurt that he betrayed his own values. Danny used to say, “When you play BJ, he’s the eyes of the audience on the show. He looks at the family as we all look at the family.” I carried that with me all the time. So that moment is, “Not only did you cheat on me, but you made me betray myself.”
Do you think there’s something about standing up for himself that he takes in a positive way?
I think so. It’s a fascinating evolution of the character. When I first read it I was excited because I think it puts that card on the table for him. I think parts of our culture see something like a rite of passage, or something you have to take the opportunity to do. So in that sense it does. But when he comes back, you can also think of that last line as, “I’m not the same anymore, so I hope you like what this turned me into.” You can’t go back after something like that.
It’s like a more complex George McFly moment.
Right. The sliding door part of it [“Back to the Future”] trilogy is: see what happens when he doesn’t pack the punch and his life is miserable. And then when he strikes the blow, all is saved and the family is all right. With this, I think BJ probably looks at it and says, “No, that’s a doorway I can step back and forth as I see fit.” The truth is, his values are, “You shouldn’t.” He was forced to do it, and he jumped at the opportunity. But if given a choice, he probably wouldn’t.
Can we talk about the outfits? They have a flamboyant dimension to them and I’ve always wondered what that means.
There’s a mix of a few things. First, I think he starts off as Judy’s kept man; this is her wardrobe for him, and he feels a little out of place. And then I think he gets more comfortable with it and starts to make bigger swings. Even if you walk down King Street in Charleston [S.C., where the series is filmed], you will see guys dressed like this. Maybe not so lavish, but the color palettes – there are a lot of pastels.
Lots of salmon.
Before I really explored Charleston and saw some of these outfits, I was like, “Whoa, this is really out there.” And then you see it in the real world, and these people don’t joke about it. They go on with their normal lives. I always say if BJ was a Christian holiday it would be Easter because of the pastel colors. And it’s my duty to feel comfortable and live in those outfits without making them the point of the joke.