What we learned at ATX TV Festival: writers still striking, 'Cheers' reunion a highlight

ATX TV Festival returned to downtown Austin from June 1-4. The ongoing writer’s strike put the kibosh on some programming, like a “Dawson’s Creek” reunion, but the fest still hosted several premieres, industry panels and, most excitingly, a “Cheers” reunion full of behind-the-scenes stories.

Here’s what we learned at the fest.

It’s a miracle! ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ returns

Praise the lord. “The Righteous Gemstones,” the HBO series about a family of hilariously crooked evangelists, held its Season 3 premiere event on Saturday at ACL Live. Fest-goers saw the first two episodes, followed by a (too) brief Q&A with the cast and creatives.

Without spoiling too much, we can report that the third season finds our holy rollers rolling in sin, as usual. Siblings Jesse (series co-creator Danny McBride), Judy (Texan Edi Patterson) and Kelvin (Adam DeVine) have taken over the family megachurch, and that’s going as well as you’d think. They’re losing the confidence of their biggest donor and all the pastors, which leads to one of the funniest onscreen fights we’ve ever seen.

Meanwhile, newly retired patriarch Eli (John Goodman) finds himself roped into some long-buried family drama involving doomsday preppers and a wild turn from Kristen “3rd Rock from the Sun” Johnston.

The cast was short on illuminating morsels during the Q&A, but we did learn the one line so vulgar that made Patterson balk — we obviously can’t repeat it here, but it involves lower-body hygiene. And DeVine sang the praises of a taciturn Goodman, telling the sold-out audience how surreal it is to play the son of every millennial’s sitcom dad.

Season 3 premieres on June 18.

− Eric Webb

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen are fest’s first couple

The “Cheers” reunion Friday reminded ATX TV Festival how warm it feels to be where everybody knows your name. The next morning, star Ted Danson returned for an hourlong conversation with wife and frequent co-star Mary Steenburgen at the Driskill Hotel. And y’all: Love is real.

The couple told moderator Emily Longretta of Variety that they met three times before their ultimate meet-cute, which was a film chemistry test masquerading as a fancy dinner. He had loved her in “Time After Time”; she was a big “Cheers” fan.

What was really in Norm’s beer mug? 5 things we learned at ‘Cheers’ reunion in Austin

“I just heard you were really attracted to me,” Danson joked, adding, “I could just soak her up. I was blown away.” Steenburgen, meanwhile, was reeling from a breakup and bemused by Danson’s hair extensions for a role. “This is the most ridiculous creature I’ve ever met,” she recalled thinking.

Their favorite project together: either “Gulliver’s Travels” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Steenburgen said that Larry David is “our crazy friend and it really doesn’t feel like work.”

The desire to be together has led them to keep working together over the years, they said. Ain’t love grand?

“We’re holding back because we’re nauseating,” Danson said.

− Eric Webb

Cast of 'Primo' talks Hispanic representation, working with Shea Serrano

Like many of the screenwriters scheduled to speak at this year’s event, San Antonio-born writer Shea Serrano did not make it to ATX Television Festival for the screening of his new series “Primo” due to the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike.

Primo follows the journey of 16-year-old Rafa (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), his single mother Brea (Christina Vidal) and five boisterous uncles who ravage Brea’s kitchen and badger Rafa with unsolicited conflicting advice. The show, based on Serrano’s childhood, is set on the southside of San Antonio.

'Primo' eschews stereotypes to provide important representation.

“I've been covering entertainment for a good part of 20 years, and it's so nice to see a show that is not full of stereotypes about us,” Cordero said. “It’s just a family that's existing, that could really be any family.”

ATX TV Fest: Cast of 'Primo' talks Hispanic representation, working with Shea Serrano

“The focus was the relationships and the family,” Vidal said. “And we just so happened to be Hispanic." Ethnicity was less important that experience. "It's just real life. It’s the person you work with, the person you went to school with,” she said.

“I don't think ‘Primo’ is a show about Hispanic people any more than, like, ‘It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ is a show about Irish people,” Diaz-Silverio said. It’s important in “the evolution of representation” to get to a point where “minorities can just exist on screen,” he said.

We're at “an important phase of our diversity, inclusion (process) where we are just normalizing,”  Cordero said. “We're just people living.”

“I think when we talk about representation, we give too much leeway for the focus to be on optics," Diaz-Silverio said. "I think when we focus on inclusion, representation takes care of itself.”

− Deborah Sengupta-Stith

Queer actors speak: ‘Do you think I care to make people comfortable?’

“Intimacy coordinators need to go through a master class in gay sex,” Joel Kim Booster said Saturday at the Driskill. “Some gay sex scenes are literally impossible.”

Booster (“Loot”), Jerrie Johnson (“Harlem”), Caitlin Stasey (“Class of ’07”) and Brian Michael Smith (“9-1-1: Lone Star”), all members of the LGBTQ community, sat down with Variety’s Mo Ryan on Saturday at the Driskill for the panel “Queer Stories We Want to See.” It was a hilarious, candid and hopeful dive into the realities of working in Hollywood, just in time for Pride Month.

More: 12 ways to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month in Austin in June

Besides hoping for more authentic love scenes, Booster dished on the difficulties in getting LGBTQ shows greenlit. When he was shopping around 2022 Hulu movie “Fire Island,” studios balked, citing underwhelming response to past queer-centric projects like “Looking.”

“How many shows about white people in bars fail, and yet we keep making them?” Booster said.

Johnson said that queer people in entertainment (and especially people of color) are often expected to act as spokespeople for their entire demographic, a pressure not put on cis white men.

Smith, a Black trans man who co-stars in a show set in Austin, urged people to speak out about the persecution of trans people in state legislatures, including in Texas. “People’s lives are literally in danger,” he said. “It’s a coordinated, systematic attack.”

− Eric Webb

'Manifest' cast at ATX TV Fest says final season will answer all your questions

"The answers you're looking for are going to be there," Long, who plays Zeke, said.

Ramirez said the writers were able to wrap up the story in a beautiful way with "just enough to answer your questions." But some things will also be left open for the viewer to interpret, he said.

'Manifest' has also made the actors popular airline passengers.

When Edwards was on his way to Austin, he received a note from someone on his plane.

ATX TV Fest: 'Manifest' cast says final season will answer all your questions

"It's ironic that you're on our plane," Edwards said the note read. "Welcome aboard."

Taylor, whose character Angelina is a villain, said people get scared when they see her on their flight or anywhere else -- people are terrified no matter the setting, Taylor said.

"I was at a restaurant once and these teenage girls asked to take a picture and they were like, 'We were gonna ask you but as soon as you came in, we were like, is she going to burn the place down?'" Taylor said.

Blaise said agents at customs love to see her.

"They're like, 'You're on 'Manifest!'" Blaise said.

− Kelsey Bradshaw

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: ATX TV Festival: 'Righteous Gemstones,' 'Primo,' 'Manifest' delight