From courtrooms to corporate hideouts.
Despite being a huge sensation, casting for Season 2 of the popular prank show Jury Duty wasn’t as difficult as one might think.
“This show was extremely popular and everything was relative, but we don’t live in a monoculture,” executive producer Todd Schulman tells Page Six of how he made “Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat,” now streaming on Prime Video, a success.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, this is a needle in a haystack. There’s only one person who doesn’t watch this show!'” We’d like to solve that problem one day, but we don’t have that problem at the moment, he explains.
Similar to Season 1, when an unsuspecting Ronald Gladden faced a fake jury trial, the latest installment follows Anthony Norman on a corporate trip for his fake hot sauce company, Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce.
Executive producer Anthony King told Page Six that during the casting process, he made sure to ask candidates about their television preferences.
“Maybe I’ll ask, ‘Have you ever seen that show ‘Jury Duty?'” he says.
King said Norman was perfect for the role because he doesn’t watch much television.
“It’s beneficial to us,” he explained, adding that the biggest challenges occur when unsuspecting performers make unpredictable decisions and reformat the show based on those decisions.
“There was a moment[this season]where a character was missing, and he was supposed to be in Step 2, but he ended up liking Step 6,” King said. “And he was like the first time he went and said, ‘I think you should go there and see it!’”
The production had to be adjusted and “skip a lot of steps along the way,” he recalls.
The show also took a different direction in terms of celebrity guests for the new season, which were kept secret until the final episode aired.
In season 1, James Marsden appeared in every episode and was nominated for an Emmy Award for this role.
“Obviously, James Marsden had a huge, incredibly important role in the first season,” Schulman said, adding that casting another celebrity as a regular cast member “would feel a little forced in some ways.”
For a time, he explains, bringing in a celebrity felt plausible to “a well-funded company that was trying to impress you.”
Because the show essentially puts real people in Truman Show-like situations, producers said they were “very conscious” of making the show an “amazing experience.”
“We’re constantly monitoring them and communicating with them. We actually have professional therapists on hand,” King said.
Schulman said that in Anthony’s case, you can watch season 2 and then go back and watch season 1.
“He might say, ‘Oh, okay, that’s the TV show I’m on. You don’t have to worry about whether I’m the butt of the joke.'”
“Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” premieres March 20 on Prime Video, with new episodes airing Fridays.
