Actors - including James Marsden (playing himself) - improvised as caricatures of fellow jurors, a judge and other courtroom personalities, while Gladden spent the entire series believing the entire ruse was real.
Sources report that the second season of Jury Duty will ditch the witness stand in favor of a corporate retreat. Filming took place in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills.
Season one showrunner Cody Heller previously said she was “terrified” by the challenge of pulling off the candid camera feat. “There was something about that fear of failure that ignited something in myself,” she said. But in the end, the success came from the cast. “Ronald Gladden restored my faith in humanity,” she said.
Marsden echoed Heller’s description of high stakes when describing his own experience on set. “This is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before,” he added. “You get one take. If he sees a hidden camera, or someone calls somebody by the wrong name, the whole thing is upended. That was really exciting to me, just from the perspective of [wondering], ‘Can we pull this off?’”
Gladden eventually embraced the hidden camera revelation, signing with Gersh as well as his own deal with Amazon, developing and starring in a variety of content. He and Marsden, along with several other actors from the series, remain friends.
