Amazon Freevee
Director Jake Szymanski came up at Funny or Die and Saturday Night Live, but nothing he had ever done in the comedy world could have prepared him to pull off what was essentially a real-life version of The Truman Show, with jokes, on Jury Duty.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, the director breaks down what went into making the comedy-reality show’s unsuspecting star Ronald Gladden think he was in a documentary about jury duty when he was actually surrounded by actors and improv comedians for three weeks straight. Szymanski reveals how they cast Ronald, the secret maneuvers behind the show’s hilarious Margaritaville episode, and the huge sigh of relief he let out when they finally let the cat out of the bag.
It’s been about two months since the finale of Jury Duty went up on Amazon Freevee and Szymanski is still trying to figure out the best way to describe it. “I’ve heard it called The Rehearsal meets Ted Lasso, which made me chuckle,” he says.