In the making of the series Jury Duty and its sequel Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, there is a lot that can go wrong. If a member of the cast says the wrong thing at the wrong moment or something happens that isn't supposed to, there is the possibility that the unknowing central figure of the show might figure out that everything happening around them is a lie and everything falls apart. To the credit of everyone who works on the show, most of that is controlled… but there was one thing that the production can't really prevent: the actors being recognized from their other work.
Some of the performers cast to play the employees of Rockin' Grandma's Hot Sauce on Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat (the first five episodes now streaming) are up-and-comers who will count the show as the first standout title on their resume, but Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur – who plays receptionist PJ Green – told us about a worrying situation that developed during production. He has a filmography that includes episodes of TV shows including The Good Place, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Home Economics, but a conflict emerged thanks to a national commercial he shot for the insurance company GEICO. Cued by co-star Rachel Kaly, Saint-Fleur to us,
Very, very huge commercial that was running and grateful – Oh, god is good. But it was running like crazy, and it was running on all the sports shows. Is that what you call them? All the sports shows. And Anthony [Norman] is a huge baseball fan, so before we get to the retreat, it was like he had that weekend to just watch baseball or whatever. And we were nervous and we came up with contingency plans to be like, 'How do we explain this? How do we make it make sense and I can also still be here in this world?'
It's not hard to comprehend why this was an issue. If Anthony Norman – the show's "hero" – saw that his co-worker PJ was in a commercial, there would be some major questions. And even if there was an answer prepared, there was a risk that it would plant a seed of suspicion that would take down the whole operation.
Article continues belowWhile Anthony apparently never saw the commercial or never noticed his co-worker's performance, Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur was very aware of the extreme risk thanks to conversations on set. He continued,
So we had a bunch of backups in store. But yeah, it was just the timing of it was wild because I would come into the office and before Anthony gets there and all the crew was like, 'I saw you like 15 times last night,' like, 'Ooh, I hope Anthony didn't watch that game.' It was wild.
The production of Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat avoided that particular landmine, but there was plenty of other craziness on set – as viewers will find continuing to watch the critically lauded new season. The first five episodes of the run are now available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription, with the final three set to stream this coming Friday, April 3.
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