“Jury Duty” became an Emmy-nominated hit for Amazon Freevee back in 2023 when it placed unsuspecting main character Ronald Gladden into the middle of a pretend court case. Three years later, Prime Video is doing it again to Anthony Norman — only this time, their lead has found himself on a fake “Company Retreat.”
As the second batch of Season 2 episodes drop on Friday, improv comedian Alex Bonifer, who plays Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce heir Dougie Jr., told TheWrap the entire cast of actors was paranoid the prank was actually being pulled on them.
“So we get to the production office first day, we have our meet and greet. There’s already cameras rolling. They told us, after the first season, they didn’t really know what it was and that there would be such a hunger for how it was made, so we’re rolling on BTS this whole time: ‘Don’t mind the cameras, but we’re going to be rolling for everything,’” he shared. “At one point, I think every single person in the cast had asked another person, ‘Is this about me? Is this the season where they flip it on its head and now it’s an unsuspecting actor who thinks he’s part of it?’”
Instead, it’s 25-year-old temp worker Anthony at the center of the elaborate hoax — just don’t call him a mark.
“It’s super important for us that we refer to Anthony as our hero. Going in, there’s a level of deceit to this, and I knew from the first season how well taken care of Ronald was, he was never the butt of the joke,” Bonifer explained. “That was honestly a big motivator, among many others. But for me to take this job, or me to be okay with what we were doing throughout the rehearsal process — from Day 1, everyone on the production side made that very clear: he is our hero, we are treating him as a hero.”
Similar to how Season 1 featured some familiar faces in James Marsden, Lisa Gilroy, Mekki Leeper and Kirk Fox, you may recognize Bonifer from “Kevin Can F**k Himself,” “Superstore” or even as member of The Groundlings.
“I knew when I got the breakdown that it was the second installment of ‘Jury Duty.’ We did not know, however, that it was going to be a retreat. In fact, we were told that it was going to be a restaurant,” he said of the audition process. “My dad made me take my first improv class, and I fell in love with it and I haven’t stopped doing it since. It’s been like the one constant in my life. So when the first season came out, I could not have been a bigger fan. Then when the audition came through, it was the most excited I’ve ever been for an opportunity like this.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever do anything in my career and probably even in my life as unique and as cool as this project. Nothing has come close and, honestly, I don’t think it will,” Bonifer further noted. “Walking into this experience, the reality hits you that we could fail, and failure means there is no show. Failure means none of this ever exists to anyone outside of us and we don’t get to show our talents. There’s a fun pressure to that, having to rise to that occasion — for literally every single person. From a top-level producer, to a PA or a transpo driver, any single person associated with this production had the ability to make a mistake and everything crumbles and we fail. So having every single person on this project just dialed in, locked in, it was awesome.”
See how “Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” plays out, Fridays on Prime Video through April 3.
