Reality hoax series Jury Duty has been turning heads since it premiered on Amazon Freevee back in April as part of the 2023 TV schedule. Audiences seem to have become taken with the concept of a fake jury trial, in which one juror is completely unaware of the facade. Interestingly enough, the juror, Ronald Gladden, revealed to CinemaBlend that he was never suspicious about the cameras, even after finding a Craigslist ad about a “documentary.” Questions still lingered about the hiring process, though. And now, casting director Susie Farris is revealing the work the actual actors had to go through, and the process is wild enough to have been a TV show in its own right.
Susie Farris discussed the casting process for the Emmy-nominated Jury Duty while speaking with IndieWire. Given its format, the undertaking didn’t really involve much script-reading since much of the series would involve a lot of improv. In addition, all of this had to be done in the midst of COVID, so auditions had to be done virtually. Yet Farris ultimately thinks the method of work she and her colleagues employed was beneficial:
Don’t get me wrong, I really miss the in-person interaction. There’s really nothing like that. But for this type of thing, [the actors weren’t] having to read lines. They could choose one of the two prompts, and then they had to just be that character and speak for about a minute. That would be a really tough ask, I think, in an in-person audition.
Improvisation is a method of acting that occurs even in some scripted shows from time to time, but it seems to have been crucial for this particular production. With Jury Duty, there's a lot more to balance, and one would imagine that being given a prompt without much rehearsal could've been challenging. But that’s not even the craziest aspect of this ordeal. The casting head honcho went on to describe “the wildest callback” she ever witnessed in her career, and it involved a focus group. (Seriously, you're going to wish this was recorded for a series on its own.)
A group of actors and non-actors would apparently watch a trailer for a movie and, with that, producer Nick Hatton "[acted as] the fantastic focus group leader and led them through, ‘What did you think of the trailer?’ And he came up with some prompts to get conversation flowing.” The casting team watched the process behind a two-way mirror, as the groups would come in and out all day. Susie Farris continued:
We had probably six groups [for] an hour each day. [We wanted] to see how they could maintain a balance of comedic skills but also see them just being a regular person and not being found out.
Ronald Gladden From Jury Duty Reveals The One Instance On The Show That Made Him Mad
That scenario sounds like one that would happen on an episode of Impractical Jokers, because phony focus groups are right up their alley. And what's most interesting about this particular phase is that there was plenty of ignorance amongst those involved. No one participating in the groups knew much, as Susie Farris revealed the actors were unaware of who else was involved. On flip side, the everyday people didn't know actors were among them. In the end, the individuals who were hired were the ones who were able to come “up with creative, funny things that weren’t too outlandish” and didn’t look too famous, except for James Marsden. I feel like this entire process would be too good to not film. It sounds like an emotional roller coaster for those involved, to be quite frank, and I'd pay money to watch it myself.
If there isn’t any footage from Season 1's process in a vault somewhere, maybe the producers can record the casting work for a hypothetical Season 2. Amazon hasn’t announced a second season of Jury Duty yet, though a writer has some ideas. If there is one, clips of the casting process could effectively supplement the main crop of episodes. Surely, paperwork would be required to make this happen, as those who audition would likely need to sign NDAs. I think it'd still be worth pursuing, however. This is one of Freevee's feel-good shows of the year, and it'd be great to see the franchise expand in such a creative way.
Fans can watch the first season of Jury Duty now for free on Amazon Freevee or by using a Prime Video subscription.
