Danny McBride on how Bradley Cooper became the first Gemstone

The fourth season of The Righteous Gemstones is now streaming on Showmax, with new episodes on Mondays. 

The HBO comedy follows a world-famous but highly dysfunctional televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed, and charitable work.

Series creator and star Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals) has confirmed this will be the final season. “The Lord spoke to me and said it’s time to wrap this sucker up,” says Danny. “The story this season made the themes, ideas, and characters in The Righteous Gemstones feel whole and complete. I have loved every second of working with this team for the past eight years, and there are some incredible payoffs, twists, and turns in store over the course of this wild final season.”

Watch the trailer for The Righteous Gemstones S4

Returning cast includes Emmy nominee Walton Goggins (The White Lotus), Edi Patterson (Knives Out), Teen Choice winner Adam Devine (Pitch Perfect), and Golden Globe winner John Goodman (The Big Lebowski, Roseanne). Emmy winner Megan Mullally (Karen in Will & Grace) and Seann William Scott (Stifler in American Pie) join the cast this season. 

Remarkably, Danny managed to keep his biggest guest star a secret until the premiere: 12-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper, playing the first Gemstone in an episode-length flashback. He stars as Elijah Gemstone, who receives a divine wake-up call during the height of the Civil War. 

Danny had the idea of an origin story exploring the genesis of the Gemstones during Season 3. “I was listening to an audio book about the Civil War, and they were talking about chaplains. And I was just like, ‘I’ve never really thought about that.’”

While The Righteous Gemstones is set in the world of Christianity, it’s also rated 18 D L N P S V. So the first Gemstone, like the current lot, was no saint. 

“You start realising that a lot of the characters in the Bible are scoundrels,” says Danny. “They’re imperfect tools, but that’s part of the message: that anyone can sort of find their way. The Gemstones being so flawed, it just kind of felt appropriate that the first one would have lied and cheated his way into the deal.”

Casting Elijah Gemstone was a challenge. “Everyone’s like, ‘Who are you going to get to do this?’ And it started to become a very crazy list of attributes that this person would need to have. It needs to be someone who has a lot of charisma that can really pull this off, who’s going to make people excited that he shows up. I was like, ‘You know, someone like Bradley Cooper or something.’” So I sent it to him at 11:30 at night, and then the next morning I had a text message from him at like 12:01, saying, ‘I want to do it; call me back. Oh, this sounds amazing.’”

Danny couldn’t be happier about how the casting turned out. “You see why Bradley Cooper is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, because he knows what he’s doing. He could convey a lot with very little.”

Emmy predictions for the performance immediately followed the S4 premiere, from some of the most influential publications in the world. But Bradley’s biggest endorsement came from Danny’s mom. “When my mom watched it for the first time, she’s like, ‘I kind of just want the show to be about him now.’ And I was like, ‘Mom, you can’t say that. I’m in this f**king show,’” says Danny. 

With four Emmy nominations already and an 8.1 score on IMDb, The Righteous Gemstones S4 was one of Variety’s “most anticipated” shows of 2025. The comedy hasn’t disappointed, with a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As the critics’ consensus there says, “The Righteous Gemstones takes a bow with plenty of heavenly inspiration left in the tank, delivering a riotous final season that goes out on a holy high note.”

As RogerEbert.com put it, “The Righteous Gemstones is funny, wry, clever, disgusting, moving, shocking, and endearing in ways that are purely aspirational for most comedies on TV, and I’m sorry to say goodbye to it.”

Watch The Righteous Gemstones on Showmax.