SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 7 of “The Righteous Gemstones,” “For Jealousy Is the Rage of a Man,” now streaming on Max.
As the youngest child of the namesake family on HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones,” Adam Devine’s Kelvin Gemstone hasn’t always held the spotlight. But now that Danny McBride’s epic evangelical saga is coming to a close after four seasons as the funniest (and only) religious family action-comedy on television, Kelvin has finally gotten his moment in the sun.
Kelvin spent the entirety of “The Righteous Gemstones” trying on different identities. First, he was the overgrown kid leading the Gemstone megachurch’s youth program. He then channeled his (barely) repressed desires into leading the God Squad, a homoerotic tribe of body builders, and started the Smut Busters, a gang of vigilante, sex-negative prudes. Finally, he ended Season 3 by embracing his true self — including his obvious feelings for Keefe (Tony Cavalero), a reformed Satanist and Kelvin’s right-hand man.
But while the Gemstones themselves have embraced Kelvin and his coming out, the rest of the world — particularly rival preacher Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff), Kelvin’s competition for the ridiculous title of Top Christ-Following Man — is more critical. After Vance humiliates a blindsided Kelvin on live television, Kelvin begins Sunday’s episode (titled “For Jealousy is the Rage of a Man”) cooped up in his palatial childhood treehouse. Only after a pep talk from his jet pack-equipped siblings Jesse (McBride) and Judy (Edi Patterson) does Kelvin decide to make a stand, snatching Vance’s trophy with a heartfelt speech in a sequined suit.
“He’s having more fun,” Devine says of this new, improved version of Kelvin. “He’s relishing in the fact that he’s loud and proud.” Ahead of the series finale, Devine spoke with Variety about Kelvin’s role as a gay evangelical, why the siblings had to come to the rescue and why his “bitch ass” didn’t love doing stunt work with jet packs.
I’ve watched that video of you in the Jennifer Hudson spirit hallway many times, so it’s really been a big Adam Devine week for me.
That got a lot of love. I didn’t know that if you just have enough spirit, the world will reward you.
Something I thought was really interesting about how “The Righteous Gemstones” handles Kelvin’s coming out is that there’s relatively little friction within the family once he does it. How did you think about Kelvin’s reception within this evangelical Christian dynasty?
That’s what I thought was so smart about it, because it could have gone the other way. And I think a lot of people would expect it to go the other way. He’s in such a staunch Christian family that they wouldn’t accept him, and that would be his storyline this season. Danny likes to keep things very hush-hush until he gives you the scripts. He might whisper some things in your ear, but I didn’t really know which direction he was going. And then I got the scripts, and I was so happy that [Kelvin] was just accepted. You kind of get a little bit of that at the end of Season 3, when our characters kiss. Kelvin and Keefe, they kiss and then everyone just kind of looks like, “Oh, okay.” It wasn’t like, “Ah, what are you doing? Disgusting! You’re going to hell!” Which, sadly, I think might be more in line with what would happen in the real world.
To that end, when the friction does come in the show, it’s from Vance Simkins. I love that Kelvin is almost taken aback by that animosity, even though you’d think it would be very predictable.
I know! I thought that was fun to play it that way, because I think Kelvin is such a coddled character. He’s in such a bubble, and I think he doesn’t deal with the outside world that often. He lives on the compound with his family. When he goes out, he has security. So I think he was thrown back that this is such a big deal, and why doesn’t everyone love him in the way that people at his church are loving him? But, you know, I think that probably would be the reaction he would get. If this were real life, I’m sure more people would be coming out and saying that he is ruining the Bible.
Throughout the show, Kelvin has been so repressed, and that repression has manifested in incredible ways, like the God Squad and the Smut Busters. Now that you’re getting to play Kelvin as an out gay man, is there anything different about your performance?
I have family members that have come out, and you see the weight of the secret that they’ve held on to sort of lift from them. Suddenly, they get to be the person that they actually are. They’re just more free, and everything’s a little lighter. That’s what I was trying to play with Kelvin this season. He’s having more fun, and he’s relishing in the fact that he’s loud and proud. He’s out, and he isn’t afraid to speak anymore.
In this episode, Keefe tries to coax Kelvin out of the black hole he’s in, but it’s ultimately Jesse and Judy who succeed. Why was it important to have that sibling moment?
Your siblings, obviously, have been with you since day one. Especially Kelvin, being the youngest. And as much as there’s infighting between them, they are his best friends. Siblings are able to speak to each other in ways that no one else can speak to you. They can cut to the core of you in the meanest ways possible, but they also can bring you out of your darkest moments, because they know everything about you. They can see you as you actually are, not the front-facing version of you that you put on to go out into the world.
You personally did not get to be in the jet pack this episode —
I was so sick of those jet packs!
It looks like a lot.
It was. Normally, I love doing stunts. But I’m going through a weird health thing right now, so I get spasms. So the jet pack, the harness that you have to wear, when I would take it off, I would get spasms all over, in my stomach and my chest. It looked like an alien was trying to escape my body. Every time I would take it off! It was horrific. Also they were, like, 60 pounds or something. They were heavy. But the first few days were the hardest. And then we figured out, every time we’d come down, they’d slide an apple box underneath us and relieve the pressure of the jetpack. But it took us a minute to figure out exactly how we were going to do it. I have such appreciation for stunt people and how they’re able to just take it. They never complain. Because my little bitch ass was like, “I need an apple box! Can we take a break? I’m sweating. Is this normal? Is this gonna be good for camera?”
You really suffered for your art.
I did, I did. You see people that shoot movies in the wilderness, and they’re like, “We were frozen!” Like “The Revenant,” like Leo. I’m like, “I think I might retire.” I might just quit the business if I was going through that.
On the more fun side of the craft spectrum, Kelvin’s outfits have always been amazing, but the sequin suit in this episode is really a highlight. Could you tell me a bit about the costumes?
[laughing] I guess I’m more of a costume actor, you know?
I just like putting on fun outfits. It was so fun, especially this season, where he’s out, so he can be a little more flamboyant and wear the craziest, most fun outfits. Christina [Flannery], our costume designer, she really went for it this season. I was wearing absolutely insane fits. I guess people actually buy this stuff! I was wearing Balenciaga. I’m like, this is $4,000 or whatever. The fact that someone would buy this rainbow-colored, basically, rain coat that I’m wearing that you sweat in profusely, because it’s not a fabric, it’s just a raincoat — the fact that anyone actually buys that and wears it is absurd to me, but it sure was fun to play.
It’s incredible. And it all leads up to Kelvin’s speech, which is a rare moment of sincerity for “The Righteous Gemstones.” And it’s quite moving. What was it like for you to play that moment?
It was so fun. That speech was a really big one, and I just wanted it to be clear-eyed and not putting anything on, not a performance. Sometimes Kelvin, or any of the characters, because they’re used to speaking in front of a lot of people at church — some of those speeches, it’s a little performative. I wanted this to feel more like, this is him saying what he needs to say. And I hope that came across.
Lots of people involved in the show, including Danny, are Southern, and I know you’re Midwestern. What have four seasons of the show taught you about that part of the country and the evangelical subculture?
The only time I’ve really spent in the South was Louisiana, in New Orleans, specifically. My wife is from there, and I’ve shot a bunch of things down there. And that is so different from the rest of the South. New Orleans is its own thing. So it was so much fun to spend time in the South and in the subculture of mega churches. I didn’t know if I would like it, but I loved it. I thought about moving down there. My wife was like, “No, we live in California.” I’m like, “Are you sure? Because the food is really good down here, and the people are so nice.” It was truly a wonderful experience living in Charleston, specifically. Danny, when he moved down there, 20 families moved with him. So he has this huge crew of friends and family, and we were plugged right into that immediately. It just felt like home and a second family. Especially when we had our son this season, all of a sudden we were just able to plug right into that friend group. And if we needed a babysitter, we had like, 10 people to call, which was pretty fun and nice.
I’m actually trying to get a movie made with [Rough House], and I think they would be great producing partners for this movie, but also, I just want to have an excuse to go back to Charleston and work with these people. I’m really, really going to miss them.
What’s it been like to say goodbye to this show after five years?
It’s bittersweet. I think it was six years, almost seven since we did the pilot. It’s been a long time, and it got us through a pandemic, and it got us through multiple strikes, and these people ended up feeling like family. Usually, it’s right about this time of the year that we’re gearing up to head back to Charleston. It’s pretty sad that we’re not going back, and I’m really going to miss them and what they built. It’s going to be tough to find something that is this fun and this exciting with the same caliber of people as Danny and David Gordon Green and Jody Hill and the entire Rough House gang. Because to me, they’re on my Mount Rushmore of comedy heroes. When I got that call that Danny was interested in me to play his brother, I was like, “Whatever it is, I don’t even need to know what the show’s about. I’m there. I want to do it.” It was coming off of “Workaholics.” I didn’t really want to do TV right away. I wanted to find something else, to do something different. And my agents were a little timid. They were like, “I know you say you didn’t want to do TV..” And then they told me, and I was like, “Please, yes, whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
