Jury Duty staged a fake trial around one real juror who never knew

Jury Duty is an eight-episode docu-style comedy built around one true believer. Ronald Gladden, a 30-year-old solar contractor, answered a Craigslist ad recruiting jurors for a documentary and spent a three-week trial convinced he was serving real jury duty in Los Angeles. In fact the case was fake and everyone around him — eleven fellow jurors, the judge, the lawyers, even the bailiff — was an actor.

Casting was the engine of the idea. A generic notice seeking U.S. citizens eligible for jury duty drew about 5,000 replies, and casting director Susie Farris saw close to 1,000 people. Each role was drawn partly from the actor who played it so nobody would break character over the seventeen-day shoot in a real courthouse; producers cast Gladden separately, looking for someone adventurous but not desperate, and interviewed him against a fake focus group to test how he riffed with actors.

The creators borrowed the hero's journey from The Joe Schmo Show and the ensemble warmth of The Office, with one rule: never punch down. James Marsden joined only after being convinced the show was not mean-spirited, then played a narcissistic version of himself who slowly annoys the jury. In the finale Gladden learned the truth, met the cast, and received $100,000.

The first four episodes premiered April 7, 2023, with two more released each Friday until the April 21 finale on Freevee in the U.S., UK and Germany. The show earned four 75th Primetime Emmy nominations including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor for Marsden, and Gladden became a TikTok favourite — the payoff the producers aimed for by making the real person the show's hero.