“Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” just pulled off yet another elaborate prank on the franchise’s second unsuspecting hero, with everything culminating in Friday’s season finale.
Season 2 saw 25-year-old temp worker Anthony get close to the fake employees of Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce, unaware that everyone involved was an actor. One of those actors was Alex Bonifer, who got particularly close to the season’s main character as company heir Dougie Jr. — so when exactly did the IRL improv comedian start feeling guilty for tricking his new friend?
“It was early on. We all obviously know we’re actors and we were constantly reminded that he is a hero: He’s not a mark and we’re not punching down at him ever; we are sending him on a hero’s journey,” Bonifer told TheWrap ahead of the season premiere. “When the failed proposal happens … That was one moment. But what a good human he is and, unbeknownst to him, he is doing basically a service to society. We need more of his type of spirit out there in the world.”
“I knew that his life was going to change some way — how big or how small remains to be determined — but I knew it would change,” he shared. “Obviously, getting to the finish line, he got a nice reward, so those were motivators going through.”
But how was Prime Video so confident that Anthony hadn’t heard of “Jury Duty” Season 1 beforehand? “The vetting process. Without giving away too much of it, they were really confident based on some intricate questions and questionnaires that he hadn’t seen it.”
Bonifer also detailed the show’s unique rehearsal process, revealing he found out just how crucial his role was to the overarching plot rather last-minute.
“I can’t remember if it was one of our final rehearsals before Anthony arrived or right before we went in, but Jake Szymanski, our director, pulled me aside right before and was like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but you’re kind of the James Marsden of our season,” he recalled. “I knew that Dougie Jr. was going to be taking over the company and I knew that that plot would figure pretty prominently into the story that we were telling, so I didn’t go in with the mindset of trying to force a friendship with Anthony. I really did want things to evolve organically.”
“I just saw him in Nashville a month ago, we’ve been texting and talking this whole time since we wrapped. We’ve become really, really close friends,” Bonifer further noted. “I saw a person in Anthony who was just a genuinely good human and we — Dougie aside — we had a lot in common.”
Plus, the entire cast was allowed to bring their real-life personalities into their characters, considering they were embodying them 24/7.
“I played sports in college, [Anthony] is an athlete as well. Dougie was not a sports guy even a little bit, but I slightly modified his interests to be a little bit more in line with my interests in that regard,” Bonifer explained. “We played basketball sometimes, so I made Dougie a little bit more athletic than I had initially intended. I think I understood the significance of what our potential friendship and closeness could look like.”
“Another thing Jake told us on Day 1, in referencing the first season, was that those characters were 90% themselves. That’s the way that we were able to get through this, and I would say that’s true for everybody in this cast and why we were able to develop such real, genuine relationships,” the comedian added. “The thing that people don’t see is that when the crew would wrap for the day, we were still there. They would encourage us to do things after hours: We would do sound baths, we made candles one night, we did a painting class, we would play chess; so I couldn’t drop the character.”
“Anthony and I and Warren Burke, who played Steve, the three of us actually got really close, mostly because of those after-hour hangs,” he concluded. “The only way to get through it is to bring a lot of yourself to the role, but those were also the scariest moments. Your guard is presumably down, we’ve done our work for the day. But those were the moments where I actually had to lock in so much more: One slip of the tongue from anybody sends this whole house of cards crumbling down.”
“Jury Duty” Seasons 1-2 are now available to stream on Prime Video.
