If you haven’t yet heard of America’s sweetheart Ronald Gladden, it’s about time you check out Jury Duty on Amazon’s Freevee. The breakout mockumentary-style hit takes place in a staged courtroom environment where everyone involved is an improv actor, except for one man: Ronald. A perhaps unexpected outcome of the show is that, upon seeing Ronald’s true self, audiences have fallen absolutely in love with the dude, so much so that people have been thirsting over the unsuspecting hero online. I addressed this phenomenon with him directly and, he gave what we’ll call a diplomatic answer in very good-guy fashion.
I recently spoke with Ronald Gladden to celebrate the show’s new commentary track that was just added on Freevee. With the intention of making the man blush, I asked if he’s read the thirst tweets, and even went so far as to ask if he’d been on any dates since his rise to fame began. He responded in the most Ronald-y way possible:
So I will say, the reactions that I've got online are so overwhelmingly positive that truly I'm just flattered. I'm truly honored to be getting these responses. That being said, because this was just like a wildfire and because it took off so quickly, I've had so many people reach out to me in such a short amount of time that there are literally thousands of messages that I haven't even gotten to. I cannot possibly get to all those, because when the show aired… I was still working a full time job. I was working 40 hours a week. I've got my puppy to take care of. I was trying to juggle all this as well, so there was literally too much. There is still too much for me to get to. I would have to hire somebody to comb through all of this.
In case you haven’t seen the thirst Tweets in question, here’s what the poor guy is dealing with:
accidentally fell in love with Ronald from jury duty oopsMay 7, 2023
Some folks are just going for it and asking him on a date:
ronald from jury duty if you read this im free on thursday night and would like to hang out. please respond to this and then hang out with me on thursday night when I’m free.May 2, 2023
And of course, he's already breaking hearts:
Just found out Ronald from jury duty has a girlfriend pic.twitter.com/8tpFAcC7iDApril 29, 2023
Sorry folks, but it seems that Ronald is far too busy to humor your attempts to get his attention. After all, since starring in the year’s best feel good TV show, Ronald has been making the rounds in the entertainment industry. He even appeared in a Mint Mobile commercial alongside Ryan Reynolds, joining the ranks of other Mint/Reynolds collaborators like Rick Moranis. He’s also seemingly become pretty good pals with James Marsden, who played an exaggerated version of himself on the fictitious jury to help keep the ruse going.
Marsden was heavily involved, having to stay in character as a pretentious Hollywood elite for hours at a time. Consequently he gave me a ton of great stories from the set, like how a Parks and Rec cast member almost ruined the surprise of the show. If there were a Season 2, Marsden’s presence might give the whole game away, but one Jury Duty writer is throwing around a Succession star as an option to replace him. Although there’s little chance of him returning, he has plenty of solid movies and TV shows, and we know how to watch them.
Ronald Gladden may not be responding to his fans’ thirst, but you can still watch him on Jury Duty with the new option of a commentary track right now! Jury Duty is on Amazon’s Freevee which is, you guessed it, free. You can access it through the Freevee app. Alternatively, if you already have Amazon Prime, all of Freevee’s content will already be available, and we have the lowdown on the Prime subscription and what’s included.
