Walton Goggins is readying himself to say goodbye, officially, to one of the best characters he’s every played: Baby Billy in The Righteous Gemstones.
After four seasons and six years, the Danny McBride HBO comedy about a self-righteous televangelist family is coming to an end and promising to go out with a bang. For Goggins’ character, that finale includes a storyline — as absurd as ever — about creating a TV show based on the life of a teenage Jesus — “Teen-Jus,” if you will. For the Fallout and The White Lotus Season 3 star, it’s an apt ending and a heartbreaking goodbye to the show that allowed him to be the whackiest version of himself week after week.
“I am mourning the fact that I don’t get to play Baby Billy anymore because I just love him so much,” Goggins said in a recent sit-down interview with DECIDER.
According to the Justified alum, who earned a Satellite Award nomination for his role in the show back in 2023, the only people (aside from the fans) who will miss Baby Billy more than he will are his wife, Nadia Conners, and their son, Augustus. He explained that what initially was another McBride and Goggins team-up — the pair previously worked together on HBO’s Vice Principals — turned out to be a family affair in more ways than one.
“I would do Baby Billy for my wife and my son all the time. I’d just walk around the house with these new scripts because they were so funny to me. And my wife and my son love Baby Billy as much as I do. I would base my success on their reaction,” he said, adding that he’s still digesting the loss of the outrageous character. “I’m not going to get to do that anymore.”
For more of Goggins’ thoughts on this season, plus his reaction to becoming a meme from The White Lotus and his other iconic projects, check out Decider’s full interview below.
DECIDER: Walton, I want to start by asking about people finding The Righteous Gemstones off that other little HBO show you just did. People are tuning in and are flabbergasted by the difference between. What has that been like for you?
WALTON GOGGINS: It’s just been so lovely. The response and the support between the two extremes of these experiences and the good fortune. The way the stars aligned to have them on one night, after the other. I mean, no one knew that when we were doing this, no one really could have planned that. We knew that I was contractually obligated to do one, which I would have done no matter what. And then Mike [White] invited me to go on this journey. So we knew that they were gonna be close in some ways, but I certainly had no idea that they would be on top of each other. I’m just so grateful and it’s just been a wild ride, it’s been a lot of fun.
Before we go any further, I have to tell you that you have given the world one of my favorite memes of all time, which is the one from Vice Principals where Lee is absolutely tripping and sees the goat demon. How often do people send that to you?
I’ve been very fortunate to be a meme a number of times now as a few of these different people. For me, it takes me back to the day that we filmed it, right? And it’s such a great memory. And I’ll never forget standing in the locker room after we had doused each other and I said, “This is acid.” And, for me, it’s no different than anything else I do. I gotta believe I’m on acid. That entire day was so much fun so for me. I don’t remember doing that [face]. That wasn’t a choice to do that, that’s just who Lee Russell is. But I remember every part of that day and the locker room and then the subsequent walk outside through that crowd which ended with the scene where we are under the bleachers and we’re lifting up whoever we’re lifting up with our superpowers, you know, like off the ground. And we did that last shot right as the sun was coming up. And then I think we all went out to like Waffle House or something.
And now we’re at the tail end of another Danny McBride project. It feels a little disingenuous to ask if will you miss Baby Billy because you guys wrapped a while ago. But do you find yourself walking through the world at all with Baby Billy still with you?
Yes, I will. I am mourning the fact that I don’t get to play Baby Billy anymore because I just love him so much. One of the greatest experiences that I had every season of playing Baby Billy was talking to Danny and getting these scripts before the season started and working on them at home and just digesting them and making them become a part of my body. But I would do Baby Billy for my wife and my son all the time. I’d just walk around the house with these new scripts because they were so funny to me. And my wife and my son love Baby Billy as much as I do. I would base my success on their reaction. It was so much fun and they loved it because it was never planned and it would just kind of happen. And I’m not going to get to do that anymore. That being said, it’s nice to see so many people and hear so many peoples’ reaction to Baby Billy over the course of these six years that we’ve been doing these four seasons.
Among all of your characters and shows, where do you think Baby Billy falls for your wife and your son?
I think for my son, Baby Billy might be number one. He loved The Unicorn, he really loved Wade Felton, and he hasn’t seen much else. He hasn’t watched Fallout for his own personal reasons. And he didn’t watch Justified, or The Shield, or Vice Principals or Six or the thing I did for this UK production over in Morocco. He hasn’t watched a lot of them.
I always think of Baby Billy when I think of lines that are delivered with so much humor and sincerity, lines like “She’s got them old world villain vibes, makes me feel like Indiana Jones.” What goes into pulling off the absurdism of lines for you?
Well, I don’t think of them as lines, right? So I think of it as thoughts. And I don’t practice like how to say a line. I just kind of think about, “Well, where is he in his life?” And these lines are just gold. Danny, and these writers, everybody over there, they spin gold, but then they also leave room for me and everybody else. Edi and Adam, these guys are pro improvisers. And it was just so much fun [to create] the relationship between Baby Billy and Sola [Kerstin Schulze]. You know this this woman who he is constantly so tough on and she’s so patient with him because become addicted to cocaine because he is trying to provide for his family and make a show about teenage Jesus Christ. It’s bananas, just the whole thing is so absurd but grounded in truth and I just love saying every line that comes out of my mouth. Every other actor here on Tim Baltz, these guys are pros. These guys do sketch comedy — Edi is a master, Adam DeVine is a huge comic, as you know. All of these people in this stable of actors that Danny has are really accomplished in that world. Not breaking is not a part of my training and I’m the guy that does break and ruin takes more often than not. So usually it takes me more times to get it in the can than it does anyone else.
Well, we have to talk about Teen-jus real quick, because it is the thing driving a wedge between Baby Billy and Tiff in Season 4. What was your initial reaction to the script there and then, of course, to it being that Baby Billy would just be taking over the role?
We’re talking about this absurd comedy in a very realistic way because that’s how we approach it, too, right? These circumstances, although albeit at times can be inflated, are very real to me and to the rest of us in the show. but for me, they’re very real and it is such a lesson for anyone who has a moment and anything in your life that you can and probably will lose sight of the things that are most important to you and that’s exactly what happens to Baby Billy over the course of the latter half of this season. It isn’t just because the success has gone to his head. His motivations really are that he never wants to be poor again, he wants to provide for his family, and he doesn’t know how much longer he has left on this earth. And he’s never had these opportunities before, as he says in this conversation with Eli. I just love this talk between myself and John Goodman, because it got very real. I’m sitting here, I’ve got all these opportunities and it’s raining and I’m trying to catch every drop and Eli says in a very real way, “well, that’s not what’s important, it’s something else.” I’ve lost the plot. I don’t need any of this. The only thing I need is that woman and those two children. And it’s just so beautiful to me.
Not to get too deep, but I do feel like between this particular storyline, Fallout — living through an apocolypse and all — and then dying in The White Lotus, maybe you’re facing your own mortality. How has it made you think about your own legacy?
I didn’t think about it for such a long time. I just keep my head down and go to work every day and I still try to do that. I guess I think about in a much smaller way, like in a day-to-day way. I’m really tired, Hope. I am really tired. And I am trying to catch every drop, not masticate, but to be grateful for the opportunities that are coming my way. And yesterday was a particularly hard day for me as The Ghoul [from Fallout]. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to get in that makeup. I didn’t want to go through that experience yesterday but you get there and you clear your mind and if the totality of the experience that you’re asking me to reflect on is broken down into the most myopic version of that experience which is just a day at work. And what I have tried to do is have 34 years of great days at work and that is the thing that has always been most important to me. I guess, if you’re asking me what I want to be remembered for, it would be, “I worked with this guy,” “I met this guy,” “he showed up for a conversation,” “he showed up every day at work and he gave it his all.” And then maybe the next page of of that conversation would turn to projects and [someone asking] “what’s your favorite?” They’re all my favorite. I can’t believe that I’ve gotten the opportunity to live the life that I have been able to live. But if you’re asking what I hope my legacy is, it is how much I respect the work and the people around me who are also making that work and the collaboration between the two.
The Righteous Gemstones is currently streaming on Max. New episodes premiere Sundays at 7 PM PT.
The post Walton Goggins Says He’s Struggling To Say Goodbye To ‘The Righteous Gemstones’: “I Am Mourning The Fact That I Don’t Get To Play Baby Billy Anymore” appeared first on Decider.
