Danny McBride and Walton Goggins’ Friendship: From Co-Stars to Close Friends

Danny McBride and Walton Goggins’ friendship began on the set of HBO’s Vice Principals, but it quickly became more than a professional relationship. The two actors first worked together on the 2016 dark comedy, where they played rival school administrators whose uneasy alliance became the center of the story.

Behind the scenes, however, their relationship developed in a very different direction. Goggins has repeatedly described McBride as a close friend, while McBride has spoken about Goggins with the same affection and respect. Their partnership eventually continued into The Righteous Gemstones, turning one successful collaboration into a long-running creative friendship.

How Danny McBride and Walton Goggins Met

Their first collaboration on Vice Principals

The foundation of Danny McBride and Walton Goggins’ friendship was Vice Principals. The HBO series premiered in July 2016 and starred McBride as Neal Gamby and Goggins as Lee Russell, two ambitious vice principals competing for the top job at their South Carolina high school.

Their characters begin as rivals, but circumstances force them into an unlikely partnership. That setup required the actors to develop strong comic chemistry, and their performances became one of the show’s defining features. The series ultimately ran for two seasons and 18 episodes.

Goggins already admired McBride

Goggins did not enter the project as a stranger to McBride’s work. In a 2016 interview, he said he had admired McBride and been a fan of his work for years. More importantly, Goggins said the greatest thing to come from Vice Principals was the friendship they developed during production, describing McBride as someone he considered like a brother.

That distinction is important when looking at their later collaborations. Their relationship was not simply the result of repeatedly being cast together. Goggins’ comments show that the professional partnership developed into a genuine personal connection while they were making the show.

Why Danny McBride and Walton Goggins Became Close

Their personalities complement each other

Part of their chemistry comes from how differently they approach comedy. McBride is known for constructing characters around exaggerated confidence, insecurity and bad decisions, while Goggins can move between dramatic intensity and broad physical comedy with unusual ease.

In interviews, the two have also found common ground in their personalities and experiences. While discussing Vice Principals, both joked that they had moved between different social groups during high school rather than belonging exclusively to one clique. Goggins specifically noted that this was something he and McBride had in common.

Goggins values McBride beyond his comedy

Goggins’ admiration for McBride goes beyond his abilities as an actor or writer. In a later Men’s Health interview, Goggins described their relationship as a decade-long working relationship and said he deeply respected and admired McBride. He also praised McBride’s intelligence, reading habits, observations about the world and, most of all, his ability to make people laugh.

That perspective helps explain why their collaborations have continued. Goggins does not appear to view McBride merely as a successful comedy creator who provides him with good roles. He has repeatedly spoken about genuinely enjoying McBride’s company, which is a different kind of relationship from a conventional Hollywood working partnership.

McBride feels the same way about Goggins

McBride has been equally direct about his affection for Goggins. In a 2025 appearance on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, McBride described Goggins as one of his best friends and said their friendship developed very quickly after they first worked together on Vice Principals. He also revealed that their families had taken a trip to Greece together.

That detail provides perhaps the clearest indication of how far their friendship extends beyond the workplace. Spending time together with their families is a much different relationship dynamic from simply appearing together on an HBO production.

Vice Principals Turned Into a Real Friendship

Fictional enemies, real-life friends

One of the more interesting aspects of their relationship is the contrast between their characters and their real personalities. In Vice Principals, Gamby and Russell are initially motivated by ambition and mutual distrust. Their alliance is based largely on convenience before developing into something more complicated.

Off camera, the opposite happened. The actors began with a professional relationship and developed a genuine friendship. Goggins said after the show that McBride was not merely his friend but a very good friend, while describing the people involved in the production as feeling like family.

Their on-screen chemistry benefited from their trust

Strong comedy often depends on performers being willing to look foolish, take risks and react instinctively to one another. McBride and Goggins developed that kind of trust during Vice Principals.

The result was a pairing that could shift rapidly between insults, physical comedy, anger and unexpectedly sincere moments. Their characters were deliberately excessive, but the performances worked because the actors understood how to play off one another rather than simply delivering jokes independently.

The friendship survived after the series ended

Vice Principals was designed as a finite story and concluded after two seasons. The end of the show therefore did not mean the end of McBride and Goggins’ professional or personal relationship.

Instead, their collaboration became the starting point for another major project. When McBride developed The Righteous Gemstones, he again found a prominent role for Goggins, this time as Baby Billy Freeman.

Danny McBride and Walton Goggins in The Righteous Gemstones

Baby Billy was a very different role

The Righteous Gemstones premiered on HBO in 2019 and was created by McBride, who also stars as Jesse Gemstone. Goggins joined the series as Baby Billy, a flamboyant and frequently unreliable member of the extended Gemstone family.

The role gave Goggins another opportunity to demonstrate his comic range. Unlike Lee Russell, Baby Billy is not simply another ambitious authority figure. He is theatrical, opportunistic, eccentric and deeply entertaining, giving Goggins a completely different comic vehicle while preserving the creative connection established in Vice Principals.

McBride specifically envisioned Goggins for Baby Billy

McBride has explained that the role came after the pair had already worked together in Vice Principals. In discussing the later series, he recalled that he had a different idea for Goggins when it was time to create Baby Billy.

That casting decision says a great deal about their professional relationship. McBride understood Goggins’ abilities well enough to imagine him in a role radically different from Lee Russell. Goggins, meanwhile, embraced the eccentric character and became one of the show’s most recognizable performers.

Their friendship remains visible in their interviews

Their affection for each other is particularly noticeable when they appear together in interviews. In a 2025 Interview Magazine conversation, Goggins called McBride one of the funniest people he knows and described him as a longtime friend. McBride responded warmly, and the exchange ended with both men expressing love for one another.

The conversation feels notably different from a standard promotional interview. There is an ease between them that reflects years of collaboration and personal familiarity. Their humor frequently comes from the friendship itself rather than from simply discussing their television work.

What Makes Their Friendship Stand Out

They genuinely enjoy working together

Many actors develop professional relationships that disappear once a production ends. McBride and Goggins appear to have built something more durable. Goggins has said he enjoys simply hanging out with McBride, while McBride has referred to him as one of his closest friends.

Their continued collaboration also suggests that the friendship has a creative dimension. They understand each other’s comedic rhythms, know how far to push a scene and appear comfortable giving each other room to experiment.

Their friendship has influenced their creative partnership

The relationship also benefits the audience. Vice Principals relied heavily on their two-person dynamic, while The Righteous Gemstones gave Goggins a memorable recurring role within McBride’s larger ensemble.

McBride has continued to recognize Goggins’ abilities outside their shared projects. In discussing Goggins’ success in The White Lotus, McBride expressed happiness that a wider audience was recognizing what he had already seen in his friend and collaborator.

Both actors speak about each other with unusual respect

Goggins has repeatedly emphasized McBride’s intelligence, humor and character. McBride, in turn, has spoken about Goggins as both a close friend and an exceptional actor. Their public comments are unusually consistent over several years, making the friendship one of the better-documented actor friendships to emerge from a television collaboration.

In 2025, Goggins also praised McBride’s creative work on The Righteous Gemstones, calling him extraordinarily talented after reading material connected to the show’s final season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How did Danny McBride and Walton Goggins become friends?

A: Danny McBride and Walton Goggins became friends while working together on HBO’s Vice Principals, which premiered in 2016. Goggins later said that one of the most rewarding aspects of making the series was the friendship he developed with McBride. Their relationship continued after the show ended and eventually led to another collaboration on The Righteous Gemstones.

Q: Are Danny McBride and Walton Goggins still friends?

A: Yes. Both actors have publicly described their friendship in recent interviews. McBride has called Goggins one of his best or closest friends, while Goggins has described McBride as a longtime friend he deeply respects and enjoys spending time with.

Q: What shows have Danny McBride and Walton Goggins worked on together?

A: Their best-known collaborations are Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones. In Vice Principals, McBride played Neal Gamby and Goggins played Lee Russell. In The Righteous Gemstones, McBride plays Jesse Gemstone while Goggins portrays Baby Billy Freeman.

Q: Did Danny McBride and Walton Goggins travel together?

A: McBride said in a 2025 podcast appearance that he and Goggins had taken their families to Greece together the previous year. The story was shared while discussing how their friendship developed after their first collaboration on Vice Principals.

Q: Is Walton Goggins one of Danny McBride’s close friends?

A: McBride has publicly described Goggins as one of his best friends and one of his closest friends. Goggins has made similar comments about McBride, describing him as someone he deeply respects and enjoys spending time with. Their comments indicate that their relationship extends well beyond their professional collaborations.

Conclusion

Danny McBride and Walton Goggins’ friendship is a strong example of a professional partnership developing into a genuine personal relationship. They first connected through Vice Principals, where their characters were fictional enemies forced into an uneasy alliance. In real life, the actors moved in the opposite direction, becoming close friends.

Their relationship has since continued through The Righteous Gemstones, interviews and time spent together away from work. Both men have repeatedly expressed admiration for the other’s talent, intelligence and sense of humor. What began as a television collaboration has therefore become a long-running creative partnership built on genuine friendship, mutual trust and an obvious enjoyment of each other’s company.