“It’s just not worth it”: James Marsden Went Off-Script To Protect His Co-star in Jury Duty After Realizing He Crossed a Line

One of the talented performers in the business, James Marsden, made an obnoxious fictitious appearance as himself in Amazon Freevee’s mockumentary Jury Duty and received a lot of accolades for it.

In an interview, the actor—who has been in films like The Notebook, Hairspray, X-Men, and others—said he would rather play characters that people would consider buffoons than James Bond. The audience and the other co-stars of the mockumentary strongly valued James Marsden’s act of going a little off-script for a co-star. Now let’s learn more.

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James Marsden says he was excited by the concept of Jury Duty 

In an interview with The Guardian, the actor James Marsden said that the unscripted show is like comedy gold, adding

“I was excited by the concept. I wanted to step into that world. It was important to me that this wasn’t a prank show. We were creating a hero’s journey where, hopefully, by the end, you have this Twelve Angry Men moment where we’re hoisting him on our shoulders.”

The actor praised his fellow cast members who, he explained, managed to pull the show off without breaking their characters on-screen. James Marsden picked his pointers from Jack Lime from Anchorman 2. He said,

“What I learned from Will Ferrell and those guys is how unselfish they were. The good improv artists are the ones who set their friends up. It’s not about being the funniest person in the room.”

James Marsden is not trained in improv comedy but he was up for the challenge because he wanted to try it out.

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James Marsden broke his character to protect Ronald Gladden

Jury Duty featured Ronald Gladden, who is the only common person unaware of participating in a fake trial among actors. The actor said in an interview with Variety that he only had three days to prep for the show and he was terrified but he just had to kind of roll with it.

In one scene, the actor said he knew that he had gone too far when he showed up at a party and destroyed a birthday cake in anger. He explained further,

“But as soon as I flipped the cake, I saw out of the corner of my eye Ronald kind of hang his head. And I was like, I can’t do this to this guy. No TV and no laughs are worth messing with somebody’s human experience like this. It’s just not worth it.”

James Marsden left the scene only to return to make people laugh with a replacement cake which has inscribed ‘it’s a girl’ on it stating that it was the only available cake.

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James Marsden describes Jury Duty as a ‘four-week long improv show’

In an interview with THR, the actor shared that Jury Duty is unlike anything the audience has seen before, noting that the comedy is a live theatre, high-wire act that felt like a four-week-long improv show.

He shared,

“I love Christopher Guest’s This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman. That kind of improvisational comedy where you have an outline, but a creative license to go in and play opposite people who can speak the same language. I was always looking for an opportunity like that.”

He lastly added that it was fun to play against the backdrop of one of the greatest equalizing experiences they have as Americans.