Jury Duty: How Casting Director Assembled the Courtroom for Series

May 01, 2023

When Jury Duty executive vp David Bernad approached casting director Susie Farris to find the jurors for his Freevee mockumentary series, he knew exactly how to pitch the project. "He said, ‘It's what you do best: putting together an ensemble comedy,’ " recalls Farris of the first phone call with the producer, who added that he wasn't looking "for names." But when she asked about the script, the response caught her off guard — there wasn't one.

That's because the largely improvised Jury Duty follows an entirely fake civil case in which everyone in the courtroom — the judge, the bailiff, the attorneys, the jurors, the plaintiff and the defendant — are all actors. All but one person, that is: Ronald Gladden, a Los Angeles-based everyman who believed from the beginning of jury selection to the trial's conclusion that all of it was absolutely real.

Farris wasn't involved in the casting of Gladden for the Lee Eisenberg- and Gene Stupnitsky-created comedy series, nor did she have a hand in the hiring of its one A-list star: James Marsden, who plays a heightened version of himself begrudgingly fulfilling his civic duty as part of the jury. (The final episode reveals not just how the ruse was pulled off, but also how Gladden was selected from a pool of would-be jurors who applied to appear in a documentary series about the court system.)

"We put out a breakdown that was very generic," says Farris, noting that one requirement was that each potential juror had to be an American citizen over age 18 — just as in real life. That, naturally, didn't narrow the talent pool, and the show's writers were planning specific beats and storylines without fleshing out who their characters would be.

In her search, Farris had to find actors who felt "like real people, not beautiful Los Angeles [actors] doing a TV show." Another key requirement: They couldn't be recognizable to Gladden (referred to behind the scenes as "the Hero"), lest the entire premise and production fall apart. "We were really looking for people who could come up with inventive things to talk about while staying grounded," says Farris, "and probably not too far from who they were [in real life], as they were going to have to live in these characters for three weeks."

The actors who landed roles as jurors and alternates were a mix of people both familiar and new to Farris. "The great thing was that people I’ve hired [in small parts] who I know can do bigger stuff, who were not getting lead roles on shows," she says. "It was so refreshing, and it reminded me of when I first started casting when it wasn't all about the name game — you cast the best actor because they were right for the part. That doesn't happen so much [anymore], so this was really, really fun."

Once the jury was assembled, Farris then had to find the courtroom professionals. That included Trisha LaFache, who plays the plaintiff's lawyer, and Evan Williams, the opposing council. "I’ve known Trisha since the beginning of my career, and I had no idea that she had an impressive legal background and law career in New York," admits Farris, who also cast former lawyer Alan Barinholtz — father of actors Ike and Jon Barinholtz — as the trial judge. "It was important that they did have [legal] experience," Farris adds. "So much was improvised, and they needed to provide a lot of the foundation for what they were saying."

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

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