Tim Baltz chats with Screen Rant about his character on HBO’s new comedy The Righteous Gemstones, and what it’s like being a counterpoint to chaos. Fans of comedy are likely familiar with Baltz, whether they know it or not. The Chicago iO Theater and Second City-trained funnyman has a long list of roles from Better Call Saul to The Opposition with Jordan Klepper to Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, Fresh Off the Boat, Drunk History, and more. He’s also the creator, executive producer, writer, and star of the absurdly entertaining and criminally underseen comedy series Shrink (which can and should be streamed via the NBC app), which was part of the now-defunct OTT subscription service Seeso.
Right now, Baltz is regularly popping up as B.J., the somewhat innocent and eager-to-please finance of Judy Gemstone (Edi Patterson) on HBO’s latest dark comedy from Danny McBride and Jody Hill (Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals), where he is regularly upbraided by members of the Gemstone clan, including John Goodman and Adam Devine. And while it may seem that B.J. exists solely to be a doormat on which the Gemstone’s frequently wipe their soiled soles, Baltz sees his character as a necessary contradiction to the disorder caused by Jesse (McBride), Judy, and Kelvin (Devine).
In speaking with Screen Rant about his work on The Righteous Gemstones, Baltz discussed what B.J. is meant to represent, and he also went into detail on what it’s like working opposite a talented improv comedian like Patterson, and how their collaboration has resulted in one of the funniest (and, despite how deliberately absurd it sometimes can be, oddly believable) relationships on TV at the moment. Check out Screen Rant’s interview with Tim Baltz below:
Tell me about how you came to be on the show and what working on the first season was like for you?
It was incredible. I auditioned for Vice Principals many years ago with Bialy/Thomas Casting, who I auditioned with many times. They booked me for Better Call Saul. They're really incredible among my peers and friends who audition a lot. They're very prestigious and always have the best projects and great taste. It was an honor just to get called in for that.
And obviously I didn't get it, but my reps were like, 'No, it's okay. They're introducing you to the world.' And then when this came along, I read the script and I thought, 'Man, I gotta really take a solid shot at this.' It's in the wheelhouse of characters that I play often. And I grew up in Illinois so I'm no stranger to ... Illinois has all kinds of accents. I'm no stranger to that Southern accent. I toured the Southeast side of the city a lot.
So, I went in, auditioned, felt good about it, didn't really think about it - which to me is always a good sign. It means I either did really terribly or really well. And they called me and said, 'Yeah, we need you to fly to LA and test for it in front of, you know, HBO and the whole Rough House team.'
Danny and Edi was there. Edi, I had only known in passing. I met her once at Groundlings. We were supposed to do a show together at one point - just a little improv show but we didn't. I just really, really trust and appreciate her improv skills. She's brilliant and she's super easy to play with. And when I found out that I was reading with her, I was like, 'Oh, no matter what, I'm going to have a really good time.'
Rough House [Pictures] runs such an amazing ship. Their cast and crews are always perfectly selected. Everyone is really excited to be there. They believe in the project. And there's just this, I don't know... it's like every good set feels like a summer camp. You see this glee about being able to do something like this and get paid for it. And that fun feels like the fun that you had when you were first discovering [acting] as a kid or your teens or twenties when you're doing it for free. So that's always a great time.
But then, you know, they're also film school nerds. And I mean that in the most complimentary way. So, you know [the project is] going to be richly textured and come with all the knowledge that they bring to the table, which is a huge privilege to get to work on a set like that. And HBO, you know, they're prestige TV. So it was very, very, very exciting and welcoming and a little nerve wracking because all of a sudden you're walking in and John Goodman is there and he's like, 'Hello. Looking forward to this?'
And you're like, 'Yeah, I mean I'm definitely looking forward to this. You're John Goodman.' But he couldn't be nicer and sweeter. And everyone from the top of our cast list on down is a pleasure to work with.
One of the things I found so funny about your character and your performance is the degree to which BJ is something of a nonentity. His very obvious plainness drives so much of what's funny about him. How do you see the character and what do you think is the source of the humor he brings to the show?
Well, he's very ... Like he means so well, you know? And I think that in the midst of all this drama, like the family tragedy and corruption and the really, really high stakes that are behind it, B.J. stands apart from all of those stakes as someone who just genuinely deeply loves his fiancée. And I think that he does have - as we see in the pilot - a little bit of insecurity about fitting in when it comes to some of the materialistic ideals or glamour. I feel it's the reason why he gets a nose job. It is absurd, but he means so well that he's a nice counterpoint to all of that drama and chaos.
And he really does say what he means, which isn't necessarily the case with any of the other family members, especially not when they're talking among themselves and they're feeling themselves out when it comes to, you know, the conflict in the first couple of episodes. So he's definitely a change of pace.
Danny [McBride], when we first sat down, when we went to Charleston to film the pilot, he told me B.J., in a way, is the voice of the audience. He's looking at this family and he's probably more open-minded about giving them the benefit of the doubt than the audience. But we still see B.J. reacting to them and meekly speaking his mind when he disagrees with something. And the audience is going to relate to that. And that's how I feel about this crazy family, too.
Mostly, I tried to go into it by reminding myself that [B.J. doesn't] know any of the drama that's happening. All I know is that I love Judy so much and I want to not only be the best fiance for her possible, but also give her the boost that I think she deserves. Because I look at the family and I know how much Judy works. I know what she deserves and she's not getting it. It's really fun to play because he has a naivete to him, but he's also mostly naive to just in the circumstances, which means that I get to play very emotionally with Judy. And Edi is just, she's such a joy to act and improvise with. Especially as the season progresses, you'll see where the two of them are headed and I think it's very unique.
Speaking of working with Edi. What's it like working opposite her? How does your process work with hers, in terms of playing your comedic styles and sensibilities off one another?
Well and it starts with the scripts, which are great. Every single one that rolled in, I just kind of would shake my head at and laugh out loud, which is rare when you're reading a script alone. Those are kind of baseline. David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, Danny, whoever was directing, they cast ... I think that the cast so well and specifically across all their projects and the history of their work and careers, that I think they trust the people to go off the page when they want.
I think the scripts are great, and I always want to get what's on the page first. And Edi wrote on the show, so I'm sure she agrees, too. But Edi and I ... we've been studying improv for over 20 years, independent from each other. And when we first started talking during the pilot about what our approaches were, just to get a sense of each other I really, really respected her take on it.
I was trained at iO in Chicago at Second City. I toured and did three shows there on the stages. I played at the Annoyance once it reopened in Chicago. And then I moved to LA in 2014 and I played, you know, various theaters out here. But a very broad range of improv education. And she has a very similar broad range. She's part of the Improv theater and Groundlings here, which are two very different things. And she studied all over and studied theater in college and she had as as wide of an appreciation for all these different sub genres of it and all of these approaches. And so it was very easy to almost like ... I don't want to be someone who likens improv to jazz, but it kind of is like that. You're making an offer and have to trust that your scene partner is going to recognize what that offer is, right? And you trust they will respond with a note that corresponds or compliments what you did. And so it is musical to a certain degree. And with Edi, I always trust that she's going to recognize exactly what my offer is and I try to return that to her.
For me, especially if you're improvising around a script on camera, it's different than on stage, in the sense that the scene has a function within the script and episode itself. And so there are some parameters that you have to work within. And in order to make the improv ... to maximize its potential for actually getting in and past the editor and into the episode, you're always keeping in mind what your character's emotion and knowledge to this other character and what that dynamic is and what the scene needs for the episode itself. Then you can maximize the number of improv takes that are useful to the editors and the producers when they're looking at it in post.
And whether I've ever verbalized that to Edi or not, she plays it that way and it makes it really seamless. And then, you know, you do anywhere from three to six takes and it's done and you're like, 'Oh, dammit. We could have gone forever.'
Can you, without giving anything away, what can audiences expect from BJ as the season rolls along?
Well, they can expect him to be by Judy's side as she deals with all the family chaos and still continue to be, you know, a nice blend of naive, supportive, and caring. But he's on Judy's side before anybody else. And I think the audience is going to have a good time seeing where the line is for what he'll put up with and what he won't put up with. And when he discovers that line, I hope that it's as enjoyable for the audience as it was for us.
In what way is The Righteous Gemstones different from your experience on Shrink. Is it a little difficult moving away from something where you have more creative control or is that something that you like to have a mix of when you're working?
I mean, well, Shrink was...it was really difficult. You know, it was about 8 85-90 hour weeks in a row. And that was after two months of writing where we wrote eight episodes in eight weeks, which is breakneck speed.
It really, it was a great acting challenge. And I do think that I rose to the occasion. I had a great team around me. We went through a gauntlet and I'm super proud of what we came out with. Improv wise, I'd worked on Bajillion, which was based off an outline curve style. And I went into that knowing, okay that we have scripts, but we had about a quarter of it improvised. So we were improvising probably a good two to four hours a day, which is hard to yield a lot of material when you're working that way.
But I was really proud of how seamlessly integrated all the improv. And then the show came out, my dad was sick. My dad ended up passing away from ALS in November of 2017.
When Seeso went under, we knew about it a few months early, so I took this job in New York because I came up with Jordan Klepper in Chicago and I think the world of him. And I was like, al lright, so Shrink isn't getting a season two, Seeso is going under, my dad's going to pass away. I want to keep working but I can't be in charge. I don't have the bandwidth.
I went to New York and I worked for Jordan, but I was away from home. I was all the way across the country and it was brutal. So, to slide into something as seamless and as already figured out as Righteous Gemstones, as the Rough House world, it's been a since such a welcoming change of pace, and I'm so, so grateful. I'll get back to developing and running my own thing and being an EP or whatever it is or lead of something at some point. But for the break from that to include a project like this, I'm the luckiest luckiest guy. So giving this everything that I have is, it feels like I've trained at 10 times gravity and I show up here and I'm like, 'Yeah, you just want me to emote and love this character and think that her family treats her poorly? Oh, my God, I'll put 100 percent into this. of course.'
It's a real privilege. Every character's storyline is great to me. I'm so excited for everyone to see episodes six, seven, eight, and nine.
The Righteous Gemstones episode 3, 'They Are Weak, But He is Strong' is streaming early on HBO Go and HBO Now.