Young Jesse and Judy from ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ on the Dirtiest Things They’ve Had to Say on the Show

The flashback episode of a TV show is routinely a low part of the season. Usually, it takes you away from the current storyline and saddles you with a backstory you were doing just fine without. However, on The Righteous Gemstones, each season’s flashback episode has been a banger — not only for presenting interesting, integral stories, but for the younger depictions of the Gemstone children who absolutely nail their older counterparts.

Danny McBride’s character, Jesse Gemstone, is played by J. Gaven Wilde in the various “Interlude” episodes, as they’re called. Edi Patterson’s Judy Gemstone is taken over by Emma Shannon, while Tristan Borders fills in for Adam Devine as Kelvin Gemstone. Every season, these three kids almost-eerily inhabit their older selves while spouting lines just as foul and disgusting as their adult depictions. 

I spoke with Young Jesse and Judy via Zoom before Sunday’s series finale to get their perspectives on playing the younger Gemstones for all four seasons as well as which lines from the show made them — and their parents — blush.

How old you were when you were cast?

J. Gaven Wilde: I was 15.

Emma Shannon: I was itty-bitty. I was 12.

When you each auditioned, The Righteous Gemstones wasn’t on TV yet, but did you find some way to study the actors you were going to be filling in for?

Shannon: We didn’t know much about the character that I was going to be playing, but we knew who I would be playing the younger version of. So, we did a lot of research on Vice Principals — I love that show. When I went in for my first audition, I wore a really cute unicorn dress. I was really excited about it. 

A week later I got a callback, and I was in the room with (executive producer) David Gordon Green and with Gaven as well. At the end of my audition, he’s like, “Let’s just play around with it. Come up with whatever you think.” We completely went off the script. It was really awesome. And then, probably a week later, I was coming out of school, and something that my mom does when I get a role is she’ll tell me by calling me by the name of the role. So I came walking out of school, and she goes, “Hey, Judy” and I’m like, “Really? I got it? Really!?” And she’s like, “We’re going to South Carolina, baby.”

Wilde: For my first audition, I didn’t. At that point in my career, I was so done with auditions. Just before that, I’d actually just gotten an audition for a show called The Resident, and I was apparently the director’s choice and I was super excited. This was going to be the biggest thing I’d ever done, and they just went in a different direction at the last minute. I was super bummed. I was about to quit acting. I was getting five auditions a week. It was just too much. That, on top of school, was crazy.

So I auditioned for it the first time, and then it came through again with more character description, and my agent asked, “Hey, can we audition for this again?” They said, “I don’t see why not,” and I went in again. That time, we watched both seasons of Vice Principals. I also knew Danny from The Land of the Lost. That’s one of my favorite movies. It was mostly Vice Principals, though. I tried my best to base it on Neal Gamby.

I know you’re 21 and 18 now, so I’m sure it’s no big deal these days, but when you started, were you even allowed to watch The Righteous Gemstones?

Wilde: Yes. We watch everything. Both of our parents are super relaxed when it comes to that stuff. My mom is just like, “Look man, this is how the world really is. Of course, I’m going to teach you how to be a good person, but this is your hard work and your effort. You want to see it.”

Shannon: I did too. I watched the whole series. When we were watching it as a family, my mom would throw blankets at me when certain things would happen.

Were there any lines that really made you blush or made your parents feel embarrassed that you were saying it?

Wilde: One thing that was a little shocking in the first season was when the principal comes out, and he goes, “Are you starting any shit?” In between takes, David came up to me and whispered in my ear. David loves a shock factor, he loves to tell one actor to do something to surprise all the other actors. So he told me, “When the principal says ‘Are you starting any shit, boy?’ just put your finger in his face and go, ‘You smell that? That’s your wife.’” I said that, and everybody just turned their heads and looked at my mom wondering, “Holy shit, is the mom okay with what he just said?” And my mom just laughed and shook her head, and then everybody just started dying laughing.

Emma, you were notably younger than Gaven, and Judy’s lines are way dirtier. Were there any that you or your parents were embarrassed by?

Shannon: Honestly, during Season One, I was so young that I don’t think that I understood what I was saying. Like when I say, “I like seeing Jesse get in trouble. It makes my bird twitch.” I didn’t know what that meant, so I just embraced it. Really, I feel like, when I’m Judy and I have all the wardrobe and hair on, I feel very confident, so I don’t really get embarrassed when it comes to saying lines. It’s this character, you know what I mean?

That “bird” line is one of those moments where you just perfectly inhabit the character and the actor you’re impersonating. And Gaven, this season, there’s a moment where you kick that slide, and I thought, “Wow, he really is young Danny McBride.”

Wilde: I feel like, with every season, I somehow convince myself that I lost it. I think I can’t top what I did in the last season — and there’s the accent. And it’s hard to play a character where every single line has to be rehearsed with, “How would Danny say this? How would Judy say that?” So, in Season Four, I thought the same thing. I was in my head in that scene. I was like, Man, I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job. I even said something to you, Emma. So I just improvised my kicking the water slide. I was like, I feel like this is what Danny would do. I actually messed my foot up, though.

Shannon: We had gone a couple times, and your foot was purple. 

From Season Two onwards you were joined by Tristan Borders as young Kelvin, who is a lot younger than you. What was it like to add him to the mix?

Shannon: So great. So easy. He’s so funny. He’s so smart. He’s very mature. He’s very professional.

Wilde: Most of the time, with little kids like that, you really never know what you’re going to get, but Tristan was awesome. When he started playing Kelvin, I was like, “Holy cow. His impersonation of Kelvin is perfect.” I understood why they cast him. He was just the sweetest kid too. He would write songs for us, draw pictures for us. 

Shannon: He made us little comic books, and in Season Three and Season Four, we would write songs together and record them together.

You two are great at hurling insults at each other, but you’ve also had to play a few sweeter, more sensitive brother-sister moments, like the one in Judy’s bedroom. Is there anything you want to say about that?

Wilde: I was in Georgia and she was in California when we both got the scene and we read the script together on FaceTime. When we were reading this scene, we were like, “This is the scene. This is going to be such an impactful moment.” It was written so well. That’s what they do — they tie in comedy and drama so well in this show. And, both me and Emma were like, “This is our scene. We’ve got to nail this.” So we really worked and worked at it. 

Shannon: That was our proudest moment. We did such a great job on that scene.