‘Jury Duty’ Star Ronald Gladden Is America’s Greatest Hero—and Biggest Crush

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If Ronald Gladden ran for office tomorrow, I would vote for him. If he asked me on a date, I would insist it happen in a wedding chapel. If he were in grave danger, I would jump into the line of fire for him. I know I’m not alone in this.

Protect this man. Worship this man. Make this man my husband. (A person can wish.)

I think the collective opinion of anyone who has watched Jury Duty, the Freevee series about a regular guy participating in a fake court case after being tricked into thinking he was on a real jury, echoes what the judge tells him before the show’s big reveal: “You, Ronald Gladden, are a hero.”

Over the course of eight episodes, Gladden, who was a solar panel installer in California before becoming the center of the buzziest show on streaming, exhibits qualities that, if you even just blink at the news or spend 4.5 seconds scrolling through social media, you’d think were extinct in this country.

Bizarro twists were hurled at him throughout the show, like a tennis ball-pitching machine on the fritz. Rather than becoming overwhelmed and throwing a tantrum, or even just succumbing to the bruising blows, Ronald showed patience. He projected sincerity, compassion, extreme empathy, and a generosity unlike I’ve seen in a long time. And when it comes to the fake trail he was tasked with adjudicating, he displayed a remarkable sense of civic duty and responsibility.

Ronald Gladden is a hero. And he is, implausibly, the hottest star in America right now. (He’s also a tall, handsome, absolute snack—a big ole patriotic piece of string cheese—but that’s neither here nor there. And yet everywhere.)

Jury Duty is very much in the vein of Nathan Fielder’s recent elaborate mockumentary, The Rehearsal, in which actors also manipulate an unexpecting victim—except, you know, this one is a lot nicer.

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Gladden thought he was signing up for a documentary about what it is like to be a juror today. Instead, the show’s producers and writers staged an astonishing, complicated universe populated by actors portraying everyone from his fellow jurors to the judge, the lawyers, bailiff, and witnesses. (As a fun surprise, James Marsden plays a heightened version of himself, a celebrity annoyed to be given jury duty.)

The team meticulously mapped out a made-up case in which a T-shirt factory employee is accused of arriving to work drunk and peeing and pooping on the inventory, itself presenting one of the most difficult hurdles for Gladden to clear: keeping a straight face, as everyone seriously debates the logistics of poo.

The actors do an award-worthy job of crafting a jurors’ box full of weirdos, who wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of The Office (co-creators Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky wrote for several seasons of the NBC hit). But they also ground their characters just enough that Gladden is compelled to forge genuine connections with them. He counsels them on their personal issues, encourages them when they’re down, and even takes the blame for their giant shits that clog hotel toilets. When he’s named the jury’s foreman, he rises to the occasion as the group’s de facto leader, becoming at once their mentor, social director, and “cool guy you just wanna hang out with.”

It’s that last bit that makes Jury Duty so special. Sure, the series is often hilarious, as the cast dials up their quirks to outrageous levels. But Gladden’s most outsized reaction to all of it is politely struggling to keep a straight face. Because of the strength of Gladden’s character, Jury Duty escapes any risk of seeming mean-spirited, as so many of these kinds of prank productions become. The more things devolve into a kangaroo court, the more human he seems.

It’s no wonder, then, that everyone falls in love with him: the actors on the show, the audience watching, and myself. If I understood what a “fancam” was, I’d try to make one in his honor. If I knew where to find them, I’d watch them all day.

Jury Duty would not work without Gladden. So it’s no surprise to see the level of the fawning over him there is online. Much of it is respectful; a lot of it is understandably thirsty (watch the show and you’ll understand!):

After finishing the series, did I stalk Gladden online to the extent that I found myself combing through his tagged photos until I found one of him in a bathing suit from several years ago, and then send it to all my friends? Yes, but, you see, I am a journalist. An investigation like this is my professional calling.

Besides, I have always maintained: The highest respect you can pay an actor, who impresses you with their performance in a TV show or movie, is to Google their name plus “shirtless” immediately after the credits roll. (He seems to have untagged the photo; it lives on solely as a screenshot in my camera roll.)

The lust for Ronald Gladden aside, it’s been wild to see the popularity of Jury Duty itself grow since its April 7 debut, particularly exploding in the wake of last week’s finale, as if it were a rocket ship built by Elon Musk. Everyone I know is talking and tweeting about it. People who don’t usually care about TV are texting me, “Hey, have you watched this Jury Duty show?” It has been brought to my attention that clips from the series, especially ones featuring Gladden, are all over TikTok—though I am far too geriatric to confirm or deny such an assertion. (I’m over here still trying to figure out how to do the Meghan Trainor “Made You Look” dance.)

This is not supposed to happen with a show that airs on a platform called Freevee, mostly because I still do not know what, exactly, Freevee is—and I’d venture most of you don’t either. But the realization that it was available to watch on Prime Video as well (Amazon owns both platforms) and a curiosity piqued by all the viral memes and videos has built Jury Duty into the kind of phenomenon that the industry rarely sees.

Thinking about the Jury Duty hoopla, I’m reminded of the sudden success of Schitt’s Creek, and even of Ted Lasso. Both were comedies that were small and hard to find. Who knew what PopTV was before Schitt’s, or that Apple even made TV shows before Ted Lasso? They saw massive spikes in popularity as word of mouth grew, eventually becoming bonafide hits because they largely spoke to the current moment. That’s to say that, at a time when people seemed to really need it, they were shows that were very funny, but also very…nice.

The wholesomeness of Jury Duty and the goodness of Gladden are, in many ways, antidotes to the cynicism we all feel right now, especially when it comes to the civic concerns of our nation. It takes a Ronald Gladden to pull us through.

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