Years after she released her series Dummy on the now-defunct Quibi, Cody Heller decided to go into her next project without expectations. In doing so, shes had her mind blown by the positive reaction she saw online as people received her latest work, Jury Duty.
Starring James Marsden, the documentary-style comedy takes one unsuspecting civilian and puts them through a series of pranks. The catch? He doesnt know everything is fake. The entire case is fake the judge, courtroom, bailiffs, and all of his peers are all paid actors and everything this team of jurors experienced is carefully orchestrated by Heller and her team of writers.
Its a months long process from development and pre-production that sets the stage for the series, which would go on to become a success for Amazons free streaming platform, Freevee. (Freevee declined to provide specific ratings numbers but directed Variety to a JustWatch report that showed Jury Duty as the No. 1 streamed TV show for the week of April 17-23, beating Netflixs Beef and The Diplomat.)
First, Heller needed a main character an unwittingly honest protagonist who could be funny enough to enjoy the chaos unfolding around him (and possibly even take part in it at points) and could also be nice enough that he made audiences admire him. The showrunner wanted a heros journey and Heller took certain steps to ensure that the experience wasnt something that traumatizes or embarrasses or shames him. Thats where Heller attributes a large part of the shows magic in her hero, Ronald Gladden.
It really is about finding an amazing person. Alexis Sampietro, the producer who found him, is unbelievably talented and just found the perfect person. He just went above and beyond our wildest hopes, Heller said of Gladden.
Heller adds: There are so many things that the internet and TikTok have really clung onto and been this moment. Honestly, so many of them are things that were not scripted whatsoever. The Bugs Life thing, that was not scripted at all. We actually thought that he was going to be kind of freaked out by Todd (played by David Brown) and then just seeing him take him under his wing like that? The makeover was completely initiated by Ronald. Literally not scripted at all.
Courtesy of Amazon Freevee
In walking this acrobat-like tightrope of trying to keep their jokes clean and also pulling the strings to keep their very large production under wraps, some of the planned pranks didnt make it to light. But there were moments that Heller worried couldve potentially gone too far including a wild soaking scene in which James Marsden agrees to jump on a hotel bed in order to simulate a sex scene between Jeannie (Edy Modica) and Noah (Mekki Leeper).
When I pitched it, I dont think anyone had heard of soaking and I was like No, Im telling you its a real thing,' said Heller. I have been trying to get soaking into something I want to say like 10 years now. I dont remember how I originally found out about soaking but I just found it to be so interesting and hilarious. That was an example of something where originally in the room I was like, Wouldnt it be funny to get this guy to jump on the bed? But then it did become a thing about consent and I was like wait a second because that would have been a hidden camera thing.
So, she came up with a plan to protect themselves from any foul play potentially happening.
I dont feel comfortable allowing this guy to be participating in what he thinks is a sexual act and then film so even if he had offered to, we were going to have Edy who plays Jeannie say, actually, I really want Marsden instead. So we were never going to allow him to actually do that, Heller continued.
The scene almost didnt make it onto the show as Heller considered the fact that the main character wasnt a part of the scene. But, as viewers saw, she had a change of heart.
Ronald doesnt always have to be there as long as this spirit of He is the star of a sitcom that he doesnt realize is going on around him [is there]. So other scenes can can exist, she said.
Courtesy of Amazon Freevee
Despite coming up with a well of original content, its not lost on Heller that she isnt the first creator to come up with this type of show design. Since the show began airing, shes earned a few comparisons to Paul Wernick and Rhett Reeses 2003 reality series, Joe Schmo, which ran for three seasons on the Spike Network. Heller admittedly really liked the series when it was first around. But, when she signed onto Jury Duty, she aimed to etch her own space in the genre that stood on its own. In doing so, she made several changes to the format.
I think the key difference for me was, I wasnt interested in seeing the behind the scenes during the actual show. This was before I even came on as showrunner, this was already built into the premise of the show that Lee [Eisenberg], David [Bernad], and Todd Schulman had come up with, which was, it is like as if Jim from The Office was a real person and didnt know, said Heller. I wanted to avoid scenes of actors being like, Oh, do you think he knows? or producers coming in. I liked having a little bit of it in Episode 8 to just show a taste of how this was made. But for me, I really thought, wouldnt it be cool if youre watching it and the whole thing is just youre in the show?
She adds: Its really interesting because this is so different. For all of those type of shows, its really about a couple hours at most, where theyre believing this false reality. This was three and a half weeks of having to maintain this fake reality for this person. So a lot of the things that we a lot of what we had to do was what we called the reality bank. So making deposit deposits into the reality bank, which would mean five hours of absolutely nothing interesting happening. Just people in court talking regular, boring court stuff. And the more money we put into the reality bank, the more we could take withdrawals and be like, OK, now, a crazy thing is gonna happen today. Because we had built up this reality bank, it helps to make it feel real, and I do think a second season would be possible.
Amazon Freevee has not yet announced whether the series would be renewed. Though, Heller already has a few plans. Obviously, it would have to be a whole different universe, she says.
You couldnt just do jury duty again, because then people would be like, Wait a second. But I do think that its possible. I do think theres a million different worlds that this kind of thing could exist in.
Jury Duty is currently available for streaming on Freevee.