James Marsden Freevee Series ‘Jury Duty’ Sets Cast & Premiere Date; Drops Trailer

Amazon Freevee’s new docu-style comedy series Jury Duty is set to premiere with four episodes on April 7. The 8-episode multi-camera comedy starring James Marsden will drop two new episodes each Friday thereafter until April 21.

Deadline exclusively revealed the top secret project from Amazon Studios was in the works back in September. Watch the trailer above.

Jury Duty chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one particular juror, Ronald Gladden. Gladden is unaware the entire case is fake, everyone except him is an actor, including Marsden, and everything that happens — inside the courtroom and out — is carefully planned.

“What interested me was the challenge of creating a hero’s journey for someone who has no idea the world around him was completely manufactured,” said Marsden, “and whether or not this high wire act could lead him to unite this family of wonderful weirdos and in the process become an inspiring leader for us all under the process of serving Jury Duty.”

Marsden stars as an alternate version of himself alongside Alan Barinholtz, Susan Berger (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Cassandra Blair (Hacks), Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola (South Side), David Brown, Kirk Fox (Reservation Dogs), Ross Kimball, Pramode Kumar, Trisha LaFache, Mekki Leeper (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Brandon Loeser, Edy Modica (Made for Love), Kerry O’Neill (Murderville), Whitney Rice, Maria Russell, Ishmel Sahid, Ben Seaward, Ron Song, and Evan Williams.

“Jury Duty originated with a question: Was it possible to make a sitcom like The Office about a trial, populate it with brilliant comedic performers, and put a real person at the center of the show who doesn’t realize he’s surrounded by actors?” said executive producer Todd Schulman. “We honestly had no idea but when we pitched it to Freevee we pretended like it was a sure thing. Thank God we pulled it off.”

The series is executive produced by David Bernad (The White Lotus, Bad Trip), Lee Eisenberg (WeCrashed, The Office), Ruben Fleischer (Superstore), Nicholas Hatton (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Who Is America?), Cody Heller (Dummy), Todd Schulman (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Brüno), Gene Stupnitsky (Hello Ladies, The Office), Jake Szymanski (The Package), and Andrew Weinberg (Great Minds with Dan Harmon). Eisenberg and Stupnitsky co-created the series, Heller serves as showrunner, and Szymanski directs.

Source: Deadline