James Marsden has been the heartthrob and even the president (in Hulu’s currently airing Dan Fogelman political thriller Paradise), but Jury Duty marked the first time the Emmy nominee played an exaggerated, asshole version of himself — something he said he felt bad about, especially given unsuspecting leading man (and victim) Ronald Gladden’s lack of awareness about it.
Appearing on a new episode of Dax Shepard‘s Armchair Expert podcast today, Marsden unpacked the behind-the-scenes stakes of the “risky high-wire act” Freevee show that captivated comedy fans based on its prank-adjacent premise: One man is duped into believing he is a member of a jury in a real court case, when, in actuality, he is surrounded by increasingly bizarre characters and scenarios.
Over the course of filming for three weeks, Marsden said he and his fellow actors became “actual friends [with Gladden] during it because he was such a good guy and fun to be around.
There were moments we were like, ‘Sh–, I don’t know if I can do this bit to him today ’cause he’s gonna go like, that’s an asshole thing for you to do here.'” The 27 Dresses star said it was implied by the series’ producers that their aim was to get Gladden to act “bad,” but Marsden wasn’t willing to be “punching below the belt” given the lack of a “level playing field” for the show’s sole non-performer. “I remember having this conversation with one of the producers who had also worked on Borat, all of Sacha [Baron Cohen]’s stuff, 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.
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