‘Judy Gemstone, You Save That Piss for My Chest’: Tim Baltz Talks BJ’s Quiet Strength on 'The Righteous Gemstones'

It’s tough being married to a Gemstone, and no one knows that better than Judy Gemstone’s husband BJ, played by Tim Baltz. Throughout the first three seasons of The Righteous Gemstones, BJ was verbally and physically emasculated by his wife and brothers-in-law countless times. He was also hit with a steak, wound up in a fight with a naked guy and got a ninja star stuck in his head. During this fourth and final season, BJ found his lowest point yet. After a horrific pole-dancing injury he was forced to rely on a helper monkey named Dr. Watson.

Even though BJ has been the butt of the joke for four straight seasons, he’s also shown a gentle-yet-persistent resilience that paradoxically makes him one of the strongest and most self-assured members of the Gemstone clan. Baltz is convinced that, while seemingly contradictory, those gentle and persistent sides define BJ’s character, including his relationship with Judy, his role in the Gemstone family and his own singular sense of masculinity. 

I recently talked through all of this with Baltz over Zoom, just in time for The Righteous Gemstones finale on Sunday. 

To get started, how do you view BJ’s role in the Gemstone family?

When we started filming the series, I sat down with Danny McBride and the other executive producers and he said, “BJ is the eyes of the audience within the show. He’s looking at the family the same way that the audience is looking at the family. But he’s also gotten a nose job. He wants to fit in. He wants to be accepted by the family.” That acceptance really doesn’t come until the end. And, in hindsight now, looking at all the seasons, I realize that he’s kind of the most Christian character on the show, despite the fact that he’s an atheist.

And while being a low-status character, he goes on a journey where, whether he’s accepted by them or not, he has to find the resolve within himself to not care. He evolves and grows through his weird little hobbies and through all his injuries to a place where he’s content with who he is as a man and as a partner around people who behave in a homogenous way that he doesn’t behave. And, oddly enough, he does find acceptance at the end — both for himself and from the family.

BJ seems like a low-status guy, but he’s also overcome the most in the series and wasn’t privileged in the way the Gemstones were. Do you see him as a strong character and, if so, at what point did you recognize that in him?

It kind of reset each season where it was like, “Oh, okay, he’s really low status again here.” How do I process the growth that he’s going through with the kind of lack of acceptance being reset again, or the verbal abuse continuing again? The first inkling of that was at the end of Season One. It sounds silly, but him saying, “You save that piss for my chest,” he says that with a full chest. He’s in command, and he means it.

That was a big clue. In Season One, everyone’s kind of figuring out what their character is, and they’re doing their best to nail a consistent tone. But with that line I was like, “Oh, okay. She likes this.” Judy loves this about him. He’s a secret freak. She’s a not-so-secret freak. And they go together really well.

Then, in Season Two, I’d say it was probably when he’s trying to rip off his romper that you see his emotion. That’s the first time where we really see him upset. Obviously, it’s for a ridiculous reason — to be upset that nobody appreciated his absurd outfit. But it reveals a little bit more about who he was.

He’s often simultaneously emasculated and empowered in the same moment. It’s so funny.

It was such an interesting depiction. There are guys like that in the South, but they get painted with such a wide brush that it misses a ton of the nuance. He’s being emasculated because he’s comfortable in his masculinity. That’s the point. 

There’s a ton of toxic behavior that looks at someone who’s behaving slightly differently and it comes out with aggression and verbal abuse toward the person acting differently. So, he has to have a ton of resolve to live in that world and not conform. It’s really subtle, the way that he’s not conforming. He’s not loud about it. He’s not braggadocious about it. He’s just himself. Unless you count the outfits, which are ridiculous, but are most likely bought and styled by Judy. But throughout the seasons, I started to realize this is a very singular character. 

And, comedically, he’s the straight man in a lot of scenes, and I got to do some very subtle work that I’m very proud of, and also a lot of physical stuff.

God, you on that pole.

I’m still in physical therapy, by the way. The whole routine from Episode Two is me. I actually learned it.

And you got hurt for real?

Yeah! It’s really hard! Pole is no joke. I have so much respect for everyone who does that. It’s the hardest thing. I was in this class with people that had been doing it for 20 years, and I was complaining that I was getting hurt and they all very compassionately were like, “Yeah, we know. We didn’t go on a crash course for six weeks to try to learn this.”

I did a speed run of learning my routine. I never thought I’d get upside-down, but I got upside-down and I’m high-fiving my instructor and she’s like, “That’s really cool. It usually takes my beginners about a year to get upside-down.” I did it in five sessions but I really paid the price. I hurt my shoulder. I had a really badly strained tricep, and I got a golfer’s elbow.

It felt pretty bad, and then I had to go through PT, but I kept working out while training for the second routine, which I only did about 40 or 50 percent of so that it could seamlessly go into my stunt doubles for Episode Three. We filmed that six weeks later, so I’m hurt. I’m icing myself. I’m going to acupuncture. I’m going to PT. It definitely was the most chaotic season out of the four.

This character takes a ton of abuse and insults. What was the funniest one for you? And is there one that actually hurt a little bit? 

Well, if I hadn’t gotten along with anyone on set, maybe something would’ve eventually gotten to me over the years, but we were a very happy family, so I don’t think anything really got to me. The one that made me laugh the most was in Season One, when Walton Goggins turns around and calls me “TJ” and he’s like, “Go outside, nerd.” Walton’s so good at throwing a dart at someone with an insult that that one has always stuck with me.

Overall, I had to choose when I let these insults roll off my back and when to take it really personally as a character. When do I fight back? When do I improvise something that pushes back or shows how hurt he is by something?

But his ability to take it, to me, is BJ’s superpower. With Jesse, everything gets to him, whereas BJ lets a lot go by. 

My God, yeah. Look at all the stuff he went through. Season One, I take a steak to the face. I get tased. I fall off a fence. God, what else? Season Two, I take a ninja star to the head. Season Three, I have to fight a naked guy. I get shot in Season Two — I forgot about that. Season Three, I take a chewed up steak to the face. Then I fall off the pole and get somewhat paralyzed.

It does take a lot of strength to bounce back from it. One of the really endearing, funny parts of the character is that he’s so consistent in that. And, when you see him break, you really feel for him. You’re like, “Finally, he’s fighting back.”

How healthy do you think his relationship is with Judy?

That takes a little bit of character backstory work because, on the page and in what the audience sees, the dynamic can feel very unhealthy. To me, I always thought all the good times we’re just not seeing on screen.

Judy is similar to Jesse in that a lot of things set her off, and she can be very jealous of her brothers and out to prove herself. BJ has a ton of empathy for that. They wrote that wonderful scene in Season Two where he goes to Eli and essentially explains her character. That was probably the biggest key to understanding what their relationship was and who BJ was as a partner. He has that compassion, that empathy and that forgiveness to view her in this way — that she’s a hurt person who lashes out.

Finally, what was it like working with the monkey?

The monkey is so cute. There were two monkeys, actually. The one that’s running around, that one was Allie. She was nine years old, and that’s the one I interacted with the most. The other one was 33, I think. She had actually been Marcel on Friends. She was really good at staring and standing still. 

They’re so adorable and you want to play with them, but the trainer’s like, “No. They have a strict training routine.” They see you as a prop, and they can only take orders from one person, so you can’t really befriend it. That said, that church lunch scene, where the monkey is smoking a cigarette — don’t worry, it was fake — that was the last scene we shot for the whole series. Afterwards, the trainer came up to me and said, “Hey, I just want to say it’s not easy to do this, and you did a really great job with her all season long.” She was playful with me, and that’s pretty rare. In another scene, when I’m saying goodbye and I started crying, she bopped me in the nose and started shrieking because she was upset seeing me cry. The trainer was like, “It happens sometimes. She doesn’t like seeing you like this.”

I did start to wonder if the monkey would kill Judy for the finale. The thought entered my head. 

Have you seen the finale yet?

No.

Well, no spoilers.