Entertainment
How ‘Jury Duty’ pulled it off its wild prank show — again
From the court room to the corporate retreat.
Despite being a viral sensation, casting for Season 2 of the hit prank show “Jury Duty” wasn’t as difficult as one may think.
“The show was very popular, all things relative, but we don’t live in a monoculture,” executive producer Todd Schulman tells Page Six of how they pulled off “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat,” which is now streaming on Prime Video.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, this is a needle in a haystack. The one guy who hasn’t seen the show!’ I’d love to have that problem at some point, but we don’t have that problem right now,” he explains.
Similar to Season 1, which followed unsuspecting Ronald Gladden on fake court case with a jury of actors, the latest installment sends Anthony Norman, on a company retreat for fake hot sauce company Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce.
Executive producer Anthony King tells Page Six that during their casting process, they definitely asked candidates about their TV preferences.
“Maybe we ask, ‘Have you seen that show ‘Jury Duty?’” he says.
Norman, according to King, was great for the role because he doesn’t watch a ton of TV.
“That works to our benefit,” he explains, adding that the biggest challenge comes when their unsuspecting cast member makes decision they’re unable to anticipate and reformatting the show based off those decisions.
“There’s a moment [this season] where a character goes missing, and he just got to like, step six when we were supposed to be on step two,” King tells us. “And he was like the first one to go, ‘I think we should go there and look!’”
Production had to adjust and “skip a bunch of steps along the way,” he recalls.
The show also took a different direction as far as the new season’s celebrity guest, which has remained under wraps until their one-episode arc airs.
In Season 1, James Marsden appeared in every episode and earned an Emmy nomination for the role.
“Obviously James Marsden was a huge and an incredible part of the first season,” Schulman says, adding that casting another celebrity as a recurring cast member would “feel a little forced in some ways.”
Pulling a celeb in briefly felt plausible for a “well-capitalized company that was trying to impress you,” he explains.
Because the show is essentially putting a real person into a “Truman Show” situation, the producers tell us they were “very cognizant” of making it a “great experience.”
“We are constantly monitoring how they’re doing, and checking in with them. We do actually have professional therapists on standby,” King says.
Schulman notes that in Anthony’s case, he could also go back and watch Season 1 after his time on the second season.
“He could go, like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s the television show I’m on. I don’t have to be worried that I’m the butt of the joke.’”
“Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” premieres March 20 on Prime Video with new episodes airing Fridays.
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