The Big Picture
Word of mouth propelled Prime Video’s Jury Duty to three Emmy nominations, despite a low-key marketing campaign. Showrunner Cody Heller describes the experience of filming the hoax reality series as terrifying and exciting, with a rollercoaster of emotions. The ensemble cast and crew of Jury Duty formed a tight-knit family and focused on creating a hero’s journey with comedic and heartfelt moments.
Despite a low-key marketing campaign, word of mouth undoubtedly helped Prime Video’s Jury Duty spread like wildfire, with the show eventually nabbing three Emmy Award nominations. Recently, Collider’s Christina Radish caught up with the comedy’s showrunner and executive producer, Cody Heller to chat about what it was like filming the hoax reality series.
For those who may have not seen the bingeable eight-episode production, it centers around Ronald Gladden, an unsuspecting man who’s been called for jury duty. What Gladden doesn’t know is that everyone else around him, from the judge to the bailiff and the other jurors, are all hired actors. With each day that passes, the cast and crew of the series create a The Truman Show-like environment with Gladden only finding out the truth during the finale. At times, the anxiety and stress that the creative team were facing was palpable, with some of the situations that Gladden found himself thrown into teetering on the brink of blowing the entire operation. During her chat with Radish, Heller spoke about what it was like rolling with the punches and sorting through the “very high highs and low lows” that came at them every day.
Describing the experience as “terrifying and exciting at the same time,” Heller describes her daily life pulling the strings of Jury Duty as “the most exciting, greatest job, ever.” But, at the same time, she explained that the see-saw and heavier side of the crushing pressure would sometimes cause her to stop and think “‘Oh, my God, all of this hard work is for naught,’” when it appeared that Gladden was getting too close to the truth. This rollercoaster of emotions is what the showrunner describes as “part of what made it so special,” adding, “We all had to come into this thing knowing that it had never been done before and knowing that there was a chance of failure, and all having to put our faith into each other and be in constant communication.”
The Bonds of Jury Duty
Featuring James Marsden playing a fictional version of himself, the series also included an ensemble with names like Kirk Fox (Reservation Dogs), Mekki Leeper (The Sex Lives of College Girls), Edy Modica (High Maintenance), David Brown (The Year Between), Ishmel Sahid (My Adventures with Superman), Maria Russell (Lights Out), Cassandra Blair (Freelancers Anonymous), Pramode Kumar (Birds of Prey), Susan Berger (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Ross Kimball (Masterminds) and Ron Song (From Scratch).
Obvious to anyone who’s seen the series, it’s the group dynamics that really helped Jury Duty become an overnight sensation. Breaking down her thoughts on the tight-knit bond created between the team, Heller said, “The entire cast and crew became an immediate family and we just had to always be so aware of our north star of this being about a hero’s journey for this guy,” adding that the project was in no way “a prank show,” and that while they wanted it to be comedic, “hopefully it also has the heart that we wanted it to have.”
You can catch up on the entire season of the one-of-a-kind Jury Duty now streaming on Prime Video. Check out the trailer below.
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