‘Righteous Gemstones’ Production Designer Richard A. Wright Talks Creating the ‘Bible Bonkers’ Set & Uncle Baby Billy’s Esther Williams Moment

Awards Daily talks to Richard A. Wright, production designer on Season 3 of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, about faking a silo, paying homage to Family Feud, and choosing the right space for an epic fight scene.

Just as you can never predict where a season of The Righteous Gemstones is going to go (Nude fight scenes! Robberies gone wrong! Locusts!), the set pieces are just as varied and unpredictable. There’s the silo where the Gemstones kids are held for ransom, a middle-class suburban house with a maze of hallways, and an Uncle Baby Billy pool scene worthy of Esther Williams, just to name a few.

I had a chance to e-chat with production designer Richard A. Wright about what it was like working on these sets and how they contribute to the bonkers third season of the HBO show.

Awards Daily: There’s an epic fight scene this season, that I think is one of the greatest scenes of the show, if not TV history. From a production design stance, what went into supporting this scene?

Richard A. Wright: I’m guessing you are referring to the fight between BJ and naked Stephen. That was a great episode and an epic fight directed by Jonathan Watson and choreographed by Corey Demeyers. The three of us scouted many houses to find the right setting for the battle. The chosen home had a maze of hallways and a giant picture window that inspired a lot of what takes place. We workshopped the chain of events over many visits. Lots of breakaways, softened landings, and rubber props were designed to give the stunt team a safe playground. Stephen’s tenuous relationship with his wife is set up well in a previous episode, so one of my favorite moments from this fight scene is when Stephen’s bare ass smashes the glass on their “happy-couple” portrait in the bedroom. Pretty brilliant. I’m really proud of the entire episode and love the last line that BJ utters: “How you like me now?”  

AD; The Gemstones kids are kidnapped and held in a bunker this season. How did that space come together? 

RW: We knew we wanted the siblings to be locked in a silo when they are kidnapped. It’s dark, smelly, creepy, and when the Gemstones all start screaming, it becomes echo-y chaotic hilarity. Because silos are designed to dry out crops and grain, they tend to get really hot! So we built our interior silo on a temperature-controlled stage.  (It was actually a warehouse. There are no real stages in town.) The set was constructed using a kit for a real silo… we scenic-ed it to match the old silo at our farm location and adapted it into a camera-friendly space. There are flyaway walls and removable ceiling panels designed into it.  My favorite part inside the silo was doing the photo shoot for the creepy ransom video that is sent to Eli.  

AD: The militia’s space in general really tells us a lot about this other side of the family. I feel like a lot of work probably had to go into it. How did you find authenticity here?

RW: The Brothers of Tomorrow’s Fires seemed to have their shit together at first while they train and commune at an old decommissioned scout camp called Camp Woden Feather. But things quickly go downhill when they are raided, first by the feds, then by Gideon in the Redeemer at an old farm and once again by the feds at their sad hideout under the freeway. The scout camp was one of our biggest sets. We built militia training courses, gun towers, latrines and showers, a chapel, and huge barricades made of sea containers. It was a 360-degree setting for Jody Hill to direct the introduction of Peter, Chuck, and Karl. The art department had fun, first creating the carved logos and embroidered flags left over by the scouts, and then defacing them with the Brothers’ insignia and graffiti. I love all the texture that we accomplished with that.

AD: The scene where the locusts come into the Bible Bonkers set is really well-done and shocking. There are a lot of set pieces to play with here, including that glass case. Was this a challenging scene to work on?

RW: I’ve always thought it would be fun to design a game show set. And even though Bible Bonkers was sort of derivative (it’s supposed to be a Family Feud rip-off), it really tickled that itch. Similar to the Gemstone’s sanctuary set, there are major collaborations between departments happening on Bible Bonkers from conception to photography.  I worked closely with the composers and choreographers to make sure the stage was conducive to the opening dance number and collaborated with our lighting designers and electricians on the interactive lighting.  Plus, I spent many hours with Special FX and Visual FX to develop our methods for achieving the locust swarm. We used thousands of inanimate grasshoppers that were tediously stuck to walls, floors, and clothes.  And a lot of the background movement of the swarm was created with truckloads of black confetti that was continuously blown about by large fans.  Our art department created a two-foot-long scale model of a locust that was used by VFX to record the on-set lighting conditions that would help them realistically recreate 3D locusts in post. It was a major team effort that I think we are all quite proud of.

AD: Uncle Baby Billy’s big “Payday” song feels so epic and beautiful, almost like an Esther Williams film. Was that sort of what you were going for? Is Uncle Baby Billy Esther Williams?

RW: Haha! I think Uncle Baby Billy wishes he was a Million Dollar Mermaid, but in reality, he’s kind of washed up, right? “Praise-be” for the Gemstones that are keeping him relevant with a 10-times daily gig at their new Zion resort! Baby Billy’s song and dance number really came to life on the shoot day.  [Danny] McBride surprised me when he showed up on set with his plan to take “There Will Be a Payday” into stylized musical cinema territory.  I’d say it was kind of a brilliant take that capitalized on the colorful set and Baby Billy’s incredible clamshell costume.  

AD: Everything feels even more heightened and epic in this third season. Where can the show go from here? 

RW: That’s the beauty of The Righteous Gemstones. I think they can go anywhere they want to. They have no bounds, and neither does the show. It’s what makes my role so enjoyable. I’ve been given the opportunity to help create laser-light show concerts, cycle ninja stunt courses, monster truck rallies, the list goes on. Every season and episode of this show brings great challenges to overcome, and I view every one of them as a gift. I look forward to seeing what Season 4 will throw at me!

The Righteous Gemstones Season 3 is streaming on MAX.