“Our lead actor doesn’t know he’s on a TV show!” The return of an incredible TV hoax | television

If there was ever a TV show that you thought should be left behind for one season, it would be Jury Duty.

The Amazon series became a slow, word-of-mouth hit until 2023 for pulling off a frankly unbelievable stunt: it succeeded in convincing one man, Ronald Gladden, that he was participating in a documentary set in a Los Angeles courtroom, when in reality, everything about the operation was shown and he was the only participant who wasn’t an actor.

Despite constant escalation from the actors (including actor James Marsden, who played a smug parody of himself tied up in jury service) and the ever-present risk of Gladden bringing down the entire production and bringing it down, the filmmakers somehow manage to keep up the ruse long enough for the “jury” to pass the verdict.

Not only was 30-year-old Gladden a little upset when the deception was revealed; The resulting comedy also manages to be warm, sweet, and genuinely funny. The jury even won a Peabody Award for proving that reality TV can “bring out the best” in people.

So when Season 2 was announced, the response — even from fans — was filled with trepidation. Jury Duty was a critical and commercial success, making the trick extremely difficult to reenact. Even if it were possible, you certainly can’t hope to find second A solid gold gem like Ronald Gladden?

Even the filmmakers had their doubts, director Jake Szymanski says over Zoom. “We didn’t know if it would be possible to do it again… It’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of risk.” But, somehow, they made it work.

Presents jury duty: company review It follows 25-year-old Anthony Norman from Nashville, a temp worker hired (like an executioner) via Craigslist to support a family-owned hot sauce company at its annual retreat.

When his boss suddenly flies off, Norman is thrown into a difficult situation, where he is tasked with being the “Fun Captain” to his new and eccentric co-workers. And if that wasn’t enough, the company’s founder is preparing to step down; Norman finds himself responsible not only for the smooth running of the retreat, but also for saving the business – all the while believing he is participating in a documentary about the company at a transitional moment in its history.

Executive producer David Bernad says the seed for season two was a “David versus Goliath story,” which pits a humble hero against big corporate interests. “The ambition was not to try to beat, match or outdo jury duty – it was to create something that was unique and worked on its own.”

But Company Retreat doesn’t just repeat the success of Jury Duty; It raises the stakes with a more elaborate trick, a larger location, more cameras, and filming for a longer period – which means a higher risk of being found out. There’s also another famous cameo, brilliantly staged to be believable.

“Season 2 is much more ambitious in terms of storytelling,” agrees Bernad. In Season 1, Gladden is dropped into the middle of 12 Angry Men; The confined setting and murky workings of the legal system in general were on the production side as well. “This time, we don’t have the conceit of a jury trial, where the audience knows the beats… This is a completely created story,” Bernad says.

The hurdles were also greater for the production, as 48 cameras were used to film on a 300,000 square foot set, 10 times the size of the courtroom. Entire structures had to be built to hide the cameras and house the crew of 80 people. The props team even had to develop a line of hot sauces.

While Gladden’s fellow jurors had no prior connections, Norman was joining close-knit co-workers with decades of shared history and jokes. All of this knowledge had to be developed and adhered to by the actors to ensure they delivered consistent narratives.

Szymanski says the preparation went far beyond what appears in the final cut, down to details like where the characters went to college and whether they lived in houses with backyards. “If you’re real people who’ve known each other for over a decade, and suddenly you don’t know something basic about each other, it can shatter your whole world.”

Even the celebrities had to fit the production requirements of their role, not the other way around, “to make it feel real,” Szymanski says. “There is nothing casual about the show at all.”

As a result, Company Retreat often plays the role of a scripted comedy set in the workplace, poking fun at its absurdities while also celebrating the real relationships forged there. You can forget that Norman isn’t in on the joke until you see him trying to stifle laughter at what he thinks is a non-sequitur or outburst from one of his strange colleagues.

In fact, some of them were wearing headphones and receiving lines or notes from the control room – and all of them relied on improvisation to keep Norman on track. If he turned left when the producers expected him to turn right, or decided to eat lunch outside instead of inside, it could ruin the scene or the pace of the planned story, Szymanski explains. “This is going to be an eight-episode TV show; we still have to get to those moments. How do we do that best when the lead actor doesn’t know they’re in a TV show?”

The answer was months of writing, world-building, and rehearsals before filming began, preparing for every possible scenario. “It’s a bit like building a Jenga tower,” says executive producer Nicholas Hutton. Every step risks exposing the “hero,” as Norman and Executioner are identified behind the scenes. “You can’t get another take, you can’t reset it, you can’t pause…and if anything goes wrong, you could end up without a TV show, which is a terrifying prospect.”

The first season came dangerously close to collapsing when the supposed sheriff called one of the jurors by her real name instead of her character’s name, in Gladden’s presence, requiring the cover-up to be quickly improvised. There was another similar heart-wrenching moment on the final day of filming for Season 2, just hours before the big reveal. “You can see how close we came to ruining the whole thing… I think we were lucky, both seasons,” Hutton groans at the memory.

For viewers, Bernad suggests that the element of risk only adds to the excitement of the stunt. “The hope, as audiences watch this season, is that the ending is unpredictable… Do we get through it? How do we get through it? That’s part of the fun.”

But for the team tasked with delivering it, the pressure is enormous. “There’s nothing like the pressure of doing jury duty: there’s so much that’s unknown, so much that’s unpredictable,” says Bernad, who is also an executive producer on The White Lotus. He says that in this show, there is no possibility of everything falling apart on the last day of shooting. The jury’s duty is, “The deeper you get into the production, the higher the stakes.”

Although success can never be guaranteed, the odds increase with the right choice of the hero, who is not only the heart of the show, but the reason it exists. “They’re number one on the recall list, but they don’t fully realize it,” Hatton says.

More than 10,000 people responded to the production’s post on Craigslist last year, advertising a two-week pop-up gig. Applicants were screened for personality traits such as kindness, empathy, compassion, a sense of humor and “some degree of charisma,” Hatton says.

There were also practical concerns, such as whether the hero had likely watched the first season or was at risk of recognizing any of the actors. But for Szymanski, the more important factor was whether they were likely to appreciate participating in the show once the dance was done.

“For me, that’s the only thing that makes it worthwhile… It has to be positive and motivating, not only for the audience, but also for the person experiencing it,” he says. “Otherwise it’s not worth the risk.”

The cash prize ($150,000 in Season 2) will likely help soften the blow. Szymanski says there is “absolutely” professional aftercare given to the hero after the reveal; The documentary conceit also allowed Norman to be supported through filming, without giving away the game.

But Szymanski adds that it was sometimes difficult for the actors, as real relationships with him were being built under false pretenses. (James Marsden spoke of his relief at finally being able to reveal to Gladden, after the end of the first season, that he was not in fact a self-involved moron.)

“What I tell them — and this is true — is that we have to look at this as if we were throwing Anthony a big surprise party,” Szymanski says. “You have to lie, and keep some secrets, but if we do it right… he’s excited, he loves it, and he feels like it’s all worth it.”