Skyler Gisondo on Gideon Gemstone’s Redemption Road

The Righteous Gemstones’ Skyler Gisondo didn’t get to drive the Redeemer monster truck himself, but he says watching it in action was “the most fun I’ve ever had on set.� Photo: Jake Giles Netter/HBO

Spoilers follow for The Righteous Gemstones season three, episode seven, “Burn for Burn, Wound for Wound, Stripe for Stripe.�

No Gemstone has changed their perspective on the televangelist family quite like Skyler Gisondo’s Gideon. In the first season of The Righteous Gemstones, the eldest son of Jesse (series creator Danny McBride), the eldest Gemstone heir, is estranged from his parents and working as a stuntman in Los Angeles. He returns to blackmail Jesse and steal money from the church vault, then moves to Haiti for missionary work. In season two, Gideon’s icy relationship with his parents thaws, and his martial-arts and motorcycle skills help defend the Gemstones against their array of enemies. As Eli’s driver in season three, Gideon is now fully enmeshed in the family dynamics with a deeper appreciation for how his grandfather ran the church and a willingness to stand up to rival relatives the Montgomerys.

As soon as Jesse’s monster truck, Redeemer, appeared onscreen this season, it was a given that Gideon would drive it — and in “Burn for Burn, Wound for Wound, Stripe for Stripe,� he uses it to save his abducted father, aunt Judy (Edi Patterson), and uncle Kelvin (Adam DeVine) by destroying the separatist militia compound where they’re being held. Gisondo never actually piloted this juggernaut, which was created by the Metal Shop, but he describes watching it in action as “the most fun I’ve ever had on set.�

Gisondo makes Gideon one of the most likable, seemingly normal characters in the series, a polite, thoughtful young man determined to leave his misdeeds in the past and get his cigarette habit under control. And if he needs to drive a monster truck through a group of militiamen to protect his family? Get out of the way of Gideon’s redemption.

This interview with Gisondo, conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, has been edited and condensed. 

When we meet Gideon this season, he’s wearing a neck brace that limits his mobility. Did you prepare any differently knowing you’d be constrained?
From the first scene — the image of Gideon smoking the cigarette by the pool and drinking a beer, and it’s noon and he’s in this bathrobe — I was really stoked for all of it. It wasn’t really too much of a challenge. The costume department was great; they made this neck brace supercomfortable. It’s always fun to have those physical things to lean into and play around with. As far as workload goes, it doesn’t get much easier. You’re showing up to work, you get into pajamas, and then you’re told to lie down in the lounge chair by a pool for 12 hours.

Gideon’s parents then force him into being Eli’s driver. Are you actually driving during those scenes? 
Either they have a stunt driver or they’ll have us on a rig where the car is being towed or attached to something so they can get good coverage of the scene. But then, there is a fair amount where I am driving and it’s just me and John Goodman. On the page, it’s like, John and I are driving around today, and then you get in the car and you’re actually driving and you realize, Oh, I am currently responsible for John Goodman’s life. This man is a national treasure, and I am driving him. There’s definitely a lot of stress that comes along with that. Not since I got my driver’s permit ten years ago have I been so nervous to be behind the wheel of a car. Oh God, please don’t let anything happen while I’m responsible for John Goodman’s well-being.

I did get to do some fun stuff. There’s one shot of me reversing really quickly and slamming to a stop. They had sandbags to mark the spot, and I could see our stunt choreographer in the rearview mirror. I’d be whipping it into reverse and then have a hard mark where I’d need to slam on the brakes. That was the extent of the most dangerous stuff they let me do. Whenever there’s a stunt, whether it was the dirt bike or the car in the earlier seasons, I’d spend a couple weeks with stunts getting comfortable. We’d always do one or two takes where they’re like, “Let’s see Skyler actually pull up on the bike or in the car,� and I’d do it and everyone would be like, “Okay, cool. Let’s see the stunt double.� He would do it once and it would look so much cooler, obviously, than I did it. Everyone would have a moment of, Why did we waste time having Skyler do it? They gave me a shot at it, but then we’d all collectively realize, They’re a professional, and this is what they do.

What was John Goodman like as a scene partner? Was this the most time you two have spent together on set? 
It definitely was, yeah, and he’s the man. John is just the kindest, mellowest, easiest-to-get-along-with dude. We spent a ton of time alone in the car together ’cause we’d be filming these long, sweeping driving sequences or shots and then they’d have to reset the car. Or they’d have a mounted camera with no crew and we would go drive on some surface road and do the scene a few times and have Jody Hill or David Gordon Green or Danny McBride on the headset directing the scene. It’s one of those surreal moments where you kind of take a step back and realize how fortunate you are.

I love that Gideon wears his stuntman moto jacket while driving Eli around; he takes that wheelman responsibility very seriously, which is an interesting shift from previous seasons. Were you trying to do anything performance-wise with Gideon this season to show how he’s more comfortable with the family?
Danny let me know about the big macro-lens vision for Gideon’s whole arc. It’s definitely a very different physical and emotional vibe than earlier seasons, where Gideon was just constantly on edge — everything in season one felt like it was in a heist film, right? Angst and pressure and always moving forward. I do spend time, of course, thinking about the material, but I find that whenever I get too heady or too existential, it can kind of lend itself to … I feel a little weird in the performance. Especially with John as a scene partner. He’s such a present guy that you’re able to slide into these scenes and find it with him. I wouldn’t ever go into a scene being overly concerned with my own performance as much as I was just looking to John and following his cues. If I ever come into a scene having drastically overthought the moment, it ends up going poorly.

Gideon also drives the Redeemer this season. Are you a monster-truck person, or was this a whole new world for you?
It’s one thing to read it on the page: “The monster truck Redeemer bursts through the gates and out of the field.� Then you show up and you see the thing. It’s modified with the exhaust, it’s shooting flames, it’s 20 feet in the air. There were so many technical things they needed to capture with the Redeemer, and just to get to witness them executing these crazy sequences and stunts with tons of logistics and planning, it’s insane. I’d never been to a monster-truck rally, and I still haven’t, but I’m jonesin’ to go now.

I never actually drove the Redeemer. I think based on how poorly I had done on the dirt bike, everyone realized, We’re for sure not letting Skyler get behind the wheel of this Redeemer. There’s no way he’s gonna be able to look cool doing this or pull this off. Whenever I would get in the cab, it was always on hydraulics and not in motion. They constructed this crazy rig to get coverage of us when we’re driving the Redeemer. But they had a professional monster-truck driver. Dude was getting to do his thing.

There really isn’t a day on that set where you forget how lucky you are to be a part of something like that: My job today is to sit in a monster truck that’s shooting flames and yell for a few hours with Danny McBride and some of the funniest people alive.

Before Gideon steals the Redeemer, he’s following May-May around Camp Wooden Feather looking for Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin. What was it like creeping around? 
I remember being in such awe of the set design and the work the art department had done. It didn’t even feel like a set; it felt like you were at this crazy militia compound. You were immersed in this crazy world with hundreds of extras, dudes with masks and big guns and flamethrowers and crossbows. There’s definitely moments when you forget the cameras. They’re using these really big techno cranes, and the cameras are really far away. You’re pulling up to 200 hard-core militia-looking dudes, geared up, staring at you with guns. Even though you know you’re in a show, it’s intense.

There’s been a few moments like that. At the end of season two, Danny and I have a scene where we run out of the hospital with the cycle ninjas and they open fire. You read it on the page like, “Jesse and Gideon run out of the hospital doors. Jesse and Gideon duck for cover.� All right, I got it. Then you put in your ear protection and run out for the first take, and when you’re staring at four dudes with semi-automatic guns and they start firing blanks and it’s thundering loud, there’s a moment you completely forget you’re filming a television show. That’s always the most fun and easiest acting to do, stuff that gets you so out of your head.

As Gideon is driving Eli, he starts reading Eli’s latest “definitive� autobiography, In His Kingdom. Is there anything printed in the book when you’re supposed to be reading it? 
I think there’s something in the book. I always find that to be the hardest acting — doing really normal stuff — because in your day-to-day life, if you’re reading a book or changing the channel on the TV, it’s so unceremonious. But you gotta do something for it to read on-camera to get an idea of what’s happening. You always end up feeling like a crazy person. Nobody reads a book with this much effort. You start doing stuff you never do, like using your finger to follow the words. This total throwaway moment ends up becoming this thing that you’re spiraling over: That’s the worst acting I’ve ever done in my life. I look like an idiot reading that book. I’ve always found normal-people activities to be so much more challenging than having to be crying or screaming.

Your line delivery of “fucking Montgomerys� is such a switch for Gideon, who’s normally so even-keeled and mild-mannered. He’s really pushed to the limit of how much he can take from his father’s cousins. 
It was fun to get to tap into that, precisely for what you said: That’s not Gideon usually. I got to channel these Danny-isms, where he has such a specific delivery and cadence to the way he talks; that’s Gideon getting a little bit closer to his dad and his family again, taking on a few more of those Gemstones ways. He’s finding more of a home in the rhythms of his family and the way they interact with the world. Those lines always cracked me up, but Gideon is never the one saying them. I always break specifically on the “daddy� thing Danny says. I can never keep a straight face when Danny says that word.

In this season, Gideon’s younger brother, Pontius, has a very aggressive face tattoo of the word Blessed. If Gideon were forced to get a face tattoo, what do you think he would get? 
Gideon would probably get Ride or die. I just recently got my first tattoo.

What was your first tattoo? 
It’s Hebrew, it’s Gam zeh ya’avor, which means “This too shall pass.� It was something I was thinking about for a long time. I thought my mom would be so sad that I got a tattoo because growing up, it was like, “You’ll never be buried in a Jewish cemetery with a tattoo.� And sure enough, she loved it. God, she almost cried; she thought it was beautiful. I remember when I was 19, I was going to USC and I had to drop out of school for work. Now, I’m about to be 27, and I said to my mom the other week, “Mom, if someone could have told you when I was 16 that your son was gonna be a tattooed college dropout, what would you have said?� And she was like, “You know, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.�