‘Jury Duty’ Star Ronald Gladden Says “It Took Months” to Fully Understand the Difference Between the Joke and Reality

The Jury Duty joke may be over, but Ronald Gladden, aka juror No. 6, wasn’t quick to wrap his head around everything that happened.

The rising star recently told People magazine that although things have “gone back to normal,” it took a while for him to fully understand the entire premise of the show.

“I’m not kidding, months and months down the road after this, I was still getting hit with things like, ‘Oh wow, was that staged, was that fake, was that an actor?’” he said. “It took months for me to come to the realization that this actually happened and to accept it.”

The eight-episode series follows a mock jury selection and trial but with a catch: Everyone, except Gladden, knows the entire case, the trial is fake and that it has been strategically planned. The jury, all made up of actors, including James Marsden, who plays an entitled version of himself, took on elaborate roles to make Gladden believe it really was a televised trial.

Since Gladden was the only cast member who wasn’t in on the whole prank, showrunner Cody Heller told the magazine that his mental health was always at the forefront when filming.

“His mental health obviously always came first, and we never wanted to do anything to traumatize him or do anything to make him feel bad in any way,” she said, explaining that the cast and crew were careful to not push boundaries too far. “But the whole point of the show was to celebrate this guy being a hero, which I mean, who knew that we could wind up with literally the kindest man in the world?”

Jury Duty is currently streaming on Amazon’s Freevee.