Jury Duty's two everydudes on getting unwittingly tossed into the spotlight

Anthony Norman and Ronald Gladden discuss being the good guys in Prime Video's hidden-camera experiment.

By Hunter Ingram  |  April 10, 2026 | 12:00pm
Anthony Norman and Ronald Gladden (Photo: Prime)
TV Features Jury Duty
Jury Duty's two everydudes on getting unwittingly tossed into the spotlight

Only two people in the world know what it’s like to be the heroic moral center of Prime Video’s hidden-camera comedy experiment Jury Duty—and they’ve finally met. In a special episode that drops April 10 titled “The Meeting,” Ronald Gladden, the unsuspecting star of the Emmy-nominated first season of Jury Duty, arrives at a Los Angeles diner to meet with Anthony Norman, the similarly everyman lead of this year’s Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. Neither Gladden nor Norman knew they were meeting the other, but they immediately recognized the familiar face from watching each other’s seasons of  TV. And yet, despite knowing better than anyone that cameras could be lurking anywhere, the two didn’t suspect their first meeting was being filmed. 

Gladden, the first “hero” when Jury Duty debuted in 2023, was too excited to worry about falling prey again. “I should have seen it coming,” he tells The A.V. Club in a joint interview with Norman. “Everything in me should have seen it coming, but these people are professionals working at the highest level. They have perfected the art of this. I wasn’t even expecting to see Anthony there. So as soon as I opened the door and saw him, it was just this genuine feeling of, ‘Oh, this is somebody that I actually really want to talk to and get to know.’ Everything else just kind of went to the wayside.”

“The Meeting” releases alongside a reunion episode featuring the Company Retreat cast that’s hosted by Gladden’s famous season-one co-star and executive producer, James Marsden, who digs into how the elaborate mockumentary/hoax/hidden-camera show managed to work a second time. In the series, the central heroes are dropped into otherwise mundane scenarios, like Gladden’s summons to jury duty and Norman’s temp job working the annual company retreat for the Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce. What they don’t know is that all the people around them are actors, playing out a meticulously planned and increasingly unhinged story.

Having both experienced this elaborate but good-natured experiment separately, there is a certain poignancy to watching Gladden and Norman get duped together and having someone to step behind the curtain with when all is revealed. However, this second dose of deception likely won’t quiet any internal questioning they have about whether cameras are rolling out of sight every time something goes awry in real life. “At this point, yeah, I’m always thinking twice,” Norman says, drawing a laugh from Gladden.

For Norman, the surreal novelty of being the heart of a TV series hasn’t yet worn off. But in Gladden, he has found a confidante to share some of the emotions—good and bad—that would otherwise be lost on most. At the end of the special, the two share phone numbers, and they haven’t hesitated in using them. “He’s really been there for me anytime I need anything, or have questions about life or the business,” Norman says during our interview. “He’s had no hesitation to help.”

“Honestly, I’m happy to do it,” Gladden responds. “My introduction to this world was just being thrown in, and it was kind of like a sink-or-swim moment. James Marsden, not to mention all the other actors as well, were very helpful in supporting me, answering my questions and being there for me. So to pay it forward is the least that I could do.”

Before realizing they had fallen for another con, Norman asks Gladden about how he navigated the aftermath of the series, which aims to highlight the best of their character and tolerance in the face of outlandish situations. He wonders if they will be expected to be the “good guys” in everything they do now that an entire TV series was built around them doing the right thing. Even now, they’re still asking themselves that question.

“We’re both just human, and at the end of the day, it’s not like we don’t experience anger and frustration,” Gladden says. “We definitely feel these things, but it’s not about not being human. It’s really just about just trying to be better, be more patient, take a deep breath, give somebody the benefit of the doubt, don’t be so quick to jump to anger. I think that’s really all it is, and those are small steps that you take each day.”

For his part, Norman is trying to enjoy this moment without letting the weight of expectation get too heavy. “I think a better way that I’ve learned to phrase it is that there’s a pressure just to continue to be me,” he says. “You have all these opportunities in front of you, your life is probably gonna change, and at some point, you are gonna change at least a little bit. So I just focus on continuing to be myself and not let the world around me change me.”

One thing has changed, though. Gladden, who was working construction before the series, and Norman, who was still doing temp jobs waiting for the series to debut, have found an unexpected new family in the actors, crew, and creators behind the series. It’s not lost on them that without this show, they would have never met—let alone been able to debate the virtues of befriending an exaggerated version of James Marsden versus trying on Sia’s wigs. “Just coming out of this a better person, and keeping my heart and who I am, was important,” Norman says. “But the relationships I built are what I will be taking with me from this.”   

Hunter Ingram is a contributor to The A.V. Club.   

 
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