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Meet TV’s most unlikely star: Ronald Gladden, a regular Joe who never had Hollywood ambitions.
Gladden, 30, isn’t an actor, but he’s been catapulted into the spotlight since the premiere of the Freevee hit “Jury Duty.”
The mockumentary-type comedy built a steady social media buzz since its April premiere — and recently earned several Emmy nominations, including “Best Comedy” and “Best Supporting Actor — Comedy” for co-star James Marsden.
Part sitcom, “Jury Duty” is a “Truman Show”-esque faux documentary following the proceedings of a trial by jury over the course of a month.
The catch?
It’s a fictional trial and everyone is an actor — except for Gladden, a solar contractor from San Diego who found the gig on Craigslist and thought he was participating in a real trial that was being filmed for a local documentary.
Marsden plays a conceited blowhard version of himself.
“There was always a camera on me,” Gladden told The Post. “But the reason that didn’t make me suspicious was because James [Marsden] was always next to me. So, I was like, ‘You’ve got a Hollywood superstar here. Of course there’s going to be a camera on me!’
“I thought it was a small local production. I didn’t think a lot of people were going to see this.”
Although Amazon Freevee is opaque about its viewership numbers, clips of the show have gone viral with millions of TikTok views.
It also has many celeb fans – including “Barbie” stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling (the latter of whom voiced his worry about whether Gladden “is okay”).
As it turns out, Gladden wasn’t okay when he first learned that his entire reality for a month had been fake.
“It’s really hard to pinpoint the exact feelings,” Gladden said. “It took days for the realization to even hit me. The day of the reveal, it was sensory overload. They threw so much at me, there was no way I could process it.
“I just took everything in, and it took that entire weekend to realize what had happened,” he said. “James [Marsden] was actually the one who helped me start working through those emotions, because I remember messaging him the weekend after and telling him ‘This is what I’m feeling, are there still cameras following me?’ Just being the wonderful human being that he is, James called me right up. We talked on the phone for like 45 minutes, and he helped me work through what I was feeling.”
Gladden’s fame has grown exponentially as the show gained traction among viewers and on social media.
“There were weeks’ worth of boring footage, nothing you’d want to watch,” said Gladden. “And I remember telling the director, ‘If I was ever in something that a lot of people saw, I would want it to be a comedy. So, if you guys could make this funny, that would be great.’ The fact that they were able to do that just makes this even better for me.”
Marsden, 49, said that he had misgivings about doing the show once he thought it through.
“What I wasn’t prepared for was Ronald, the wild card element of the whole thing,” Marsden told The Post.
“He came in, and all of these realizations started to wash over me. I was like ‘Of course, he doesn’t know that this is all fake!’ An hour in that kind of situation feels like an eternity, and we’re having to create this facade for him for three-and a half weeks! I started panicking, like, ‘I don’t know if this is a good thing to be doing, I don’t know who this guy is.’ [After the show]. I was texting him like, ‘How are you feeling?’ I don’t know that [this situation] has even happened to anybody before.
“So, we stayed in touch,” he said. “I hope that helped. He was such a sport.”
Gladden said that he is not ruling out a career in Hollywood.
“After having this one of a kind experience, I’m open to something like that again,” he said.
“I’m not closing any doors if opportunity arises.”
This interview was done prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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