Dear Gossips,

As mentioned earlier this week, Jury Duty is now available to stream on Amazon Prime in Canada. Sarah wrote about Jury Duty a month ago when the final episodes were released and I was all hyped to watch it based on her piece… only to find out that Canada did not yet have the rights.

Sarah called Jury Duty the “first must-watch show” of 2023 – and she was right. Over the last month, more and more people are watching, including in Canada, and more and more people are obsessed. So much so that Variety reported last week that Amazon will submit the series for Emmys consideration in multiple categories including acting, writing, directing, and best comedy.

The big question mark though, as Variety notes, is whether or not Jury Duty’s main character, Ronald Gladden, will be eligible for consideration for lead actor because, well, he’s not technically an actor. The conceit of the show is that Ronald was the only person involved in the trial who did not know what was happening. He was there because he thought it was real, so technically he’s not acting. He’s not even playing a version of him – he is just himself, and he is awesome. But he is the star of the show.

While it remains to be seen whether or not Ronald will be a contender, there’s no doubt about James Marsden who did a Q&A at SAG-AFTRA the other day in support of the Jury Duty campaign. Many have called James’s performance the best of his career. Jury Duty James is just James, but hyper exaggerated, like typical Hollywood narcissist. And remember, this is improv, he is really going for it, and he is f-cking hilarious. James Marsden has been underrated forever. I have underrated James Marsden. The industry has probably underrated James Marsden. But I love what he told NPR earlier this month about his career.

“I always look at my career, and I feel I've been on this 30-year, very slow-burn trajectory up. I don't want to have this dynamic spike into superstardom and then crash the next week. It's been a nice, slow, 2% grade upward trajectory over 30 years. It's been really nice, and I just want that to continue.”

A nice, slow, 2% grade upward trajectory! Only a guy who contentedly describes his career this way could play the raging famewhore he plays in Jury Duty.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

James Marsden Gossip

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