James Marsden Says a Jury Duty Producer Told Him the Show ‘Might Not Be for You’ Because He’s Too ‘Good’ of a Guy
James Marsden is reflecting on the challenges of filming Jury Duty.
During a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Marsden, 51, opened up about his experience filming the mockumentary and how it differed from his past projects. Explaining that he was tempted at times to blow his cover to the unassuming Ronald Gladden, Marsden said he was warned about the difficulty of the fake reality show.
“I remember having this conversation with one of the producers who had also worked on Borat, all of Sacha [Baron Cohen]’s stuff,” the actor explained. “And he was like, ‘If you’re a really good guy, this might not be for you.’ And he didn’t say that directly at me, but it was kinda like, this is f—ing hard, how you navigate getting the comedy people actually wanna see. Yes, it’s at the expense of somebody. The nature of the show is that.”
Throughout the series’ eight episodes, Gladden thought he was in a real case as the foreperson of a jury while the rest of the characters were actors and comedians improvising. Marsden shared that it was “the closest thing I ever got [to] not acting” while on camera.
“I came in, there were scripts, but there was no dialogue really written because you don’t know what [Gladden] is gonna say,” he explained. “You can set certain scenarios up, and I thought the scripts were so f—ing funny, brilliant writing. And I was howling reading and going, ‘Oh my god. I’m taking a s— in his hotel room bathroom. I’m trying to get him to take the blame for it?’”
“The lines between reality and fiction are blurred,” he added.
When it came time to finally reveal that none of it was real, Marsden recalled feeling “nervous” to see Gladden’s reaction.
“I was the most nervous when Ike [Barinholtz]’s father [Alan Barinholtz] turned to him and said, ‘This is all fake,’” Marsden said. “And for a split second, I saw his eyes kinda go dark and scared, for, like, a millisecond.”
“I hated that,” he continued. “And I already knew what I was gonna do, and we all were gonna do, was storm the box where he was sitting and just let him know, ‘Yes, this is probably a lot to comprehend and to take in and process right now, but if you’re wondering if all of this was real, this was all real, and we adore you and love you.’ The last thing I wanna do is, like, ‘Okay. That was fun. Cool. See you around.’”
After they wrapped, Marsden said he gave Gladden his phone number and told him they should “hang out” sometime. The cast even had a wrap party, where they hoped to show Gladden just how much they appreciated him.
“He’s perfect,” Marsden said. “[We wanted to] reassure him that, ‘Yes, we took you along for a ride, but you are a shining star in this big time, and here’s what the show’s about. It’s about you, my friend, and everything about you that people are gonna love about you, we love about you.’”
He then joked: “And so it was a love fest after that because I really was like, is it gonna be an insult when we hold up a check for a $150 or whatever he got paid.”
Jury Duty is now streaming on Amazon’s free streaming site, Freevee.
Source: People