Danny McBride: High-flying 'Gemstones' are 'like a band of outlaws' atop a ministry empire

LOS ANGELES – The family that prays together stays together – in a multimillion-dollar palm-tree-lined compound.

God – or at least the high-flying Gemstone family’s followers – has blessed the evangelical royals and their international ministry with extraordinary wealth and power, which often isn't used for the holiest of pursuits in Danny McBride’s latest misfit comedy, HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” (premiering Sunday, 10 EDT/PDT).

McBride (“Eastbound and Down,” “Vice Principals”), who also writes, directs and produces “Gemstones,” is sympathetic toward the jet-setting family – patriarch Eli (John Goodman) and his adult children Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam Devine) – and sees them as hypocrites, but not outright frauds.

“I think they definitely believe” in their own religious teachings, he says in an exclusive interview with his TV family. “But they believe in a lot of things at this point. They believe in growing numbers at the church. They believe in buying expensive houses. I think their belief was more singular and focused early on.”

The Gemstones, when they're not jetting to China to conduct swimming-pool baptisms, command the pulpit of a megachurch in a town along the South Carolina coast, where Georgia-born McBride moved two years ago.

"This is definitely a Southern family. When I moved to Charleston, you would drive outside the city and there's a church on every corner. It's equivalent to how you see Starbucks in LA," he says.

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The comedy isn't based on any preacher, steers clear of politics and doesn't mention President Donald Trump, who has strong support among evangelical Christians.

McBride, who grew up going to church and has hired writers from a variety of faiths, avoids judgment about the religious beliefs of the Gemstones or their followers and no denomination is mentioned. But he says the preaching family’s gaudy lifestyle – with three jets named Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is rife with comedy-rich hypocrisy.

"When I see news about ministers buying their wife a Lamborghini for their birthday, I always wonder: When did they become so clueless? Or are they as clueless as they appear?"

The religious family's life of luxury has appeal, Devine says, if you can get away with it.

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"That's definitely the funnest version, like 'God wants me to drive Lamborghinis.' On paper, it sounds pretty cool. When I hear these preachers on TV saying 'I need the private jets,' if I was a preacher, I might be like that, too," he says, although he's not endorsing that approach.

Goodman adds, with pulpit-pounding gusto: “I need me a G5 (Gulfstream V jet) to spread the word.”

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The nine-episode season opens about a year after the death of matriarch Aimee-Leigh Gemstone (Jennifer Nettles, seen in flashbacks), as husband Eli and their children are still reeling and their megachurch empire hangs in the balance.

"They're lost. (Eli) is so consumed with his own grief. He's written (his children) off," says Goodman, who plays another widowed dad on ABC's "The Conners."

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Jesse faces a blackmailer who has video of his personal peccadilloes; Judy is fighting for more family power as she hides her live-in fiance; and Kelvin, a hip youth preacher, acts out as the youngest child.

Walton Goggins, McBride's partner in mayhem in "Vice Principals," appears as Aimee-Leigh's younger brother, Baby Billy, who's also a well-known preacher.

As messed up as they are, talent and ability had to run somewhere in the Gemstones' bloodline to build an empire. But as with many family businesses, later generations can squander an inheritance.

"Aimee-Leigh and Eli built it by hand. And (their children) are just expecting it to keep going on. They don't have the vision or the hunger that Aimee-Leigh and Eli had," McBride says. "As Eli is looking to see who is going to fill this space his wife left behind, he’s looking to three kids who don’t really have what it takes to pick up the mantle."

The children grew up in a privileged environment, so their ignorance of struggle leads to funny moments, says Patterson ("Vice Principals").

"There's something to being born into that, of never knowing anything different than that opulent life and the interesting entitlement that might come with that," she says.

Despite the bickering, the Gemstones know everything collapses if they can't maintain the business. Part of that includes muscling in on other churches' congregations – using mob and corporate strategies – in a never-ending drive to expand that pits them against a small-church pastor (Dermot Mulroney).

"They're like a band of outlaws, almost, but they're a megachurch family," McBride says.

Goodman compares the Gemstones to another family: "They're like the Corleones, with all Fredos."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Danny McBride, John Goodman run megachurch ministry in HBO comedy