Bradley Cooper in Civil War
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for the 4 -premiere season of “The Righteuze Gemstones”, which now streams at Max.
For the last season premiere of ‘The Rightous Edelstones’, the HBO comedy that describes a fictional family of Megachurch Pastors in South Carolina, the maker and star Danny McBride knew that he had to take the casting. “Gemstones” had previously done delivery-long flashbacks, but always with younger versions of characters that we already know, such as Patriarch Eli (John Goodman) or brothers and sisters Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam Devine). Season 4, on the other hand, starts in the past for more than 150 years and stays there for almost 40 minutes.
“I knew it would be a big task,” said McBride Variety During the seasonal premiere event earlier this week. “Fans have waited for the new season for more than a year, and it was difficult to write an episode in which none of the cast is in the show.” (McBride wrote the episode together with fellow producers John Carcieri and Jeff Fradley.) To play Elia Gemstone, a Ne’er-Do-Well that is being swept into the civil war and the family tradition of religious hypocrisy, the ‘gemstones’ team needed a guest star.
“My pie-in-the-sky pick would be someone like Bradley Cooper,” said McBride. Cooper broke out like the star of the “The Hangover” franchise and is no stranger to lusty, shameful comedy. But in recent years he has also turned to prestige projects and directed himself in the Oscar-nominated films “Maestro” and “A Star Is Born” and until McBride Cooper sent the script for the episode, entitled “Prelude”, the actor had never watched the show before. McBride called Cooper the role anyway ‘a bit of a miracle’, in accordance with the evangelical themes of the show.
By the end of ‘Prelude’, Elia experiences his own miracle. But first he visits the Church of Virginia Pastor Abel Gieves (Josh McDermitt), who praises ‘the Rights of the State’ in his sermon and collects donations from congregants that are already stretched by the current war. “Doesn’t seem very just to me,” Elijah pulls. He then shoots Abel, steals the donations and bags of Abel’s gilded Bible before some confederated recruiters arrive on the spot. As soon as Elia discovers that alms are paid a princely amount of $ 50 a week, he hastily draws the corpse of the collection plate, his own death and assumes the identity of the preacher.
Elijah can present as a man of God, but it is not a convincing front. He drinks and gambles and then tells a suspicious soldier that he could go to hell because he could interrogate his character in a decided Jesse Gemstones-like tone. His idea to comfort a dying man is: “Go be with him … Well, I think that’s it, I think!” Instead of an inspiring homily, he tells his audience that he “stopped competing with God and just doing your best.”
McBride wanted to partially cast Cooper because he could give Elia a twilight that lasts all this. “With ‘precious stones’, all these actors involved – there must be a level of charisma and charm, because these characters do such despicable things,” he said. “If you cast someone who is too dark or does not have a charm, it can be a bit difficult to look at. That is the cord that we always walk with ‘precious stones’: make sure it is fun, even though you are rooting for people who know, you are a little shitty. “Elijah is no exception, killing a man who recognizes him and stores the corpse in an already occupied coffin. Yet he always has Cooper’s characteristic sparkle in his eye, making it difficult to root against his surviving campaign.
To subtract ‘prelude’, however, ‘the righteous gems’ also had to build the world around Elijah, who organizes bloody battles and busy camps in less than 10 days. McBride grew up in Virginia – which caused Elijah’s origin to be a nod to his own wink – surrounded by Lore of the Civil War. “When I was a child, I would find bullets and all kinds of artifacts in my backyard,” he said. Bringing the era to life was an old dream, but this included photographing almost completely outdoor scenes in the moist, rainy south. “It was a lot of floating and weaving and trying to get the best out of our daylight,” McBride recalled. “Everything was a challenge.”
Even for a production that was used to organize musical songs, motorcycle and monstertruckrallyes, “Prelude” breaks new terrain. What McBride said is the point: “It just lets the public know not to expect anything this season – that everything can happen. We all try to push ourselves creatively to deliver something they have never seen before. “After all, the episode is the last first impression that the show will ever have.
Elijah’s time in uniform comes to a shameful end when the Union captures him. But while the skirmish is raging around him, the thief, murderer and habit drank something new: he prays, sincerely and only for himself. As if he is in response, the captain of the Union finds his Bible and saves his life. Before walking away a free man, Elia prays with his former comrades and is now staring at their execution. He has not magically changed to a master rider, but his words sound wonderful than before. “They killed people because they had to,” he says about the soldiers. “I know that is not great, but it is better than killing for money or out of meaning.” As soon as the deed is completed, Elijah loads the corpses into the car and brings them back to basics, through which God has saved his life. He seems to believe it, because that night he opens the gilded Bible and reads it from the start.
“Prelude” is a story of origin for the gemstone dynasty, but also the gemstone mindset: a contradictory mix of acquisitive greed and deep in the belief that is fascinated, McBride and his contemporaries from the beginning. Before that institution reached its lush, late capitalist stage in the form of Christian resorts and ‘Baby Billy’s Bible Bonkers’, it was born on a battlefield, in the service of a lost and destructive matter. Everyone is a sinner – Elia Gemstone and his descendants more than most.
Abby Lee has contributed to this report.
