When casting HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, series creator Danny McBride looked for fearlessness above anything else in his actors, and one of the most fearless performers on the show is Edi Patterson.
In a recent interview with Esquire, McBride explains that from the first moment she stepped onto the set of Vice Principals, McBride’s previous project with HBO, he “just couldn’t get through takes with her.” He explains, “There’s just something special and fucking unique and funny about her.”
The Righteous Gemstones is a special show—unlike anything on the air right now— expertly treading the line between sophomoric humor and its deeper themes of family and forgiveness, and Patterson delivers that uncanny valley McBride dialogue with crass glee while bringing pathos to the frustrated middle child of the Gemstone clan.
But not only did McBride cast Patterson as Judy Gemstone, the middle child of the spoiled Gemstone clan, he also brought her into the writer’s room. “I’ve never been in that mindset like, ‘Guys are funnier than girls and girls can’t be funny,’” McBride explains.
Gemstones executive producer David Gordon Green adds, “Having her involved in the writer’s room is inevitably a very valuable voice for not just her character, but the show in general, and having representation for female characters in the writer’s room, I think is just, is awesome.”
Patterson credits him for allowing her to bring that extra something to her performance. “I felt a creative permission from him to let it rip and to kind of run down the field as fast as I could.” Patterson had done just that, and she became a fan favorite with a standout performance that, in a fair and just world, will garner the actress an Emmy nod sometime over the show’s run.