Bradley Cooper may have needed just a little nudge to sign on to appear in the fourth and final season of The Righteous Gemstones.
Danny McBride — who created the HBO comedy series and plays eldest Gemstone sibling Jesse — exclusively opened up to PEOPLE about casting Cooper, 50, during the season 4 premiere in Los Angeles on March 5.
“You know what? I would imagine that I would’ve had to persuade him,” says 48-year-old McBride, who attended the premiere with wife Gia Ruiz, of Cooper’s appearance in episode one. “I sent him the script and he called me back pretty quickly. He liked what was presented.“
“What was interesting is [Cooper] had actually never seen The Gemstones before, but he didn’t want to watch it until we were done shooting,” McBride adds. “He didn’t want it to influence him, which I appreciate. I thought that was a good way to approach this.”
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McBride and Cooper have previously worked together, co-starring in the 2015 film Aloha, which also stars Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray and John Krasinski.
The Righteous Gemstones, which also stars Adam DeVine and John Goodman, follows a family of televangelists who find wealth in running a renowned megachurch and try to protect their religious empire.
McBride acknowledged that The Righteous Gemstones has taught viewers to “expect the unexpected” and that the first episode of the final season exhibits a certain level of unexpected intensity.
“That was part of it as we were going for this last season — I wanted to push ourselves to not fall into formula and routine,” he says. “There was something interesting about starting this season with something that goes so far back in time and shows you a glimpse of maybe how it all began.”
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As The Righteous Gemstones comes to an end, McBride is looking back at writing the show, which premiered in 2019 and will conclude in May.
“When you’re working with a group that’s as talented as this and these characters that these actors have brought to life, they have far more dimension than anything I could have ever imagined sitting in my room by myself,” McBride explains. “Part of the trick of writing this is steering it in the direction you imagine, but then also looking around you and taking advantage of everything else that everyone’s brought to this.”
He adds that cast surprised him with the “humanity” they brought to “these kinds of despicable characters.”
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“What I’ll miss most is honestly just seeing all these faces every day,” McBride says of his cast. “This was a beautiful job. It was a lot of fun. I had a blast doing it, and I really made some great friends on this thing.”
“I mean, some of these people that we work with are just so kind and so talented and so much fun that, yeah, I’ll miss church lunch,” he continues. “Those days were always a lot of fun, but I’ll make sure that I stay working with some of these cats again. Absolutely.”
Season 4 of The Righteous Gemstones premiered on HBO on March 9.
