The Big Picture
- Ronald Gladden was the standout star of the Emmy-nominated series Jury Duty, earning viewers’ admiration and renewing their belief in humanity.
- The production team, led by showrunner Cody Heller, chose Gladden from 2,500 applicants, and he exceeded their expectations at every turn.
- The show aimed to give Gladden a positive experience, and his kind and understanding nature shone through in unscripted moments, like when he gave a touching gift and makeover to a fellow character.
When it comes to the main reason why Amazon Prime Video’s Emmy-nominated comedy series Jury Duty worked, no one can deny that it came down to Ronald Gladden. The man at the center of the series, who didn’t even know it, was undoubtedly the best part of the production. While everyone surrounding him was a hired actor who was in the loop with what was going on, Gladden remained completely in the dark in the best way possible. Giving viewers a renewed belief in humanity — if even just for the show’s eight-episode run — the hero and star worked his way into the hearts of audiences everywhere. But, how did the production team find such a wonderful person to be at the center of the action? After all, not everyone would take the fall for James Marsden’s toilet-clogging moment or see the real heart behind David Brown’s socially awkward Todd Gregory. In a recent interview with Collider’s Christina Radish, showrunner and executive producer, Cody Heller, shared exactly how the casting team chose Gladden.
“Alexis Sampietro is the incredible producer who found Ronald… and all the credit goes to her and her partner in this, Jordan Cohen,” Heller said, giving credit where credit is due when it comes to the people behind discovering America’s kindest man. The showrunner revealed that Sampietro and Cohen shuffled through 2,500 applicants before landing on Gladden. “Not only did he meet our expectations, but at every turn, he just exceeded them in ways that we could never have anticipated, and it was amazing to witness.” Noting that the idea was to never “put this guy through anything traumatic or bad, at all,” Heller said that the production team “wanted to give this guy a hero’s journey, and we wanted him to have a good experience,” adding that they “were always aware of there being no wrong answers” when it came to what Gladden would say or how he would respond to any of the over-the-top situations thrown his way.
While there may have been “no wrong answers,” anyone who’s seen the show can attest to Gladden being a one-of-a-kind human being who chose kindness and understanding over alienation time and time again. “Some of my favorite moments of the show are things that were not scripted, at all,” Heller says, citing the touching moment in which Gladden gave the movie A Bug’s Life to the misunderstood inventor Todd and also gave him a makeover that helped boost Todd’s confidence.
A Family Affair
Easily standing out from other productions she’s been a part of in the past, (Heller was a writer on Wilfred and the co-creator of Hulu’s Deadbeat), she referred to her time on Jury Duty as “a truly collaborative experience, where we all were making this thing together and the hierarchy didn’t really exist like a normal show.” Diving into that “family” feeling, Heller says, allowed both the production team and the cast to go into it with the mentality of, “‘Let’s try to make this insane thing that’s never been done before. Let’s see if we can do it.’”
All eight episodes of Jury Duty are now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Check out the trailer below.
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