Ronald Gladden Is Now *Officially* A Part Of An Emmy-Nominated Television Series
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If you haven't already, the next show you simply must add to your watchlist is Freevee's Jury Duty. The Amazon series follows a group of actors pranking an innocent San Diego-based man, Ronald Gladden, while he thinks he's filming a documentary. Instead, he is thrown into one of the most ridiculous scenarios of all time: serving as a fake juror on a fake trial. Everyone around him is an actor, playing a part, while Ronald is just Ronald. And he had no idea what was really going on.
In addition to completely blowing up on TikTok (#JuryDuty currently has 354 million views on the app, and #RonaldGladden has more than 28 million), the show includes some prominent figures you may recognize, such as actor James Marsden, who plays himself (albeit an over-the-top, egotistical actor version), and The Sex Life of College Girls' Mekki Leeper, who plays Noah, the rideshare driver who worries his girlfriend is cheating on him.
The series was such a hit, it landed three Emmy nominations for comedy series, supporting actor (which is technically James Marsden's well-deserved nom), and writing. Many were surprised by this feat, and Variety referred to it as the "most delightful things to happen at the Emmys in a long time." Ronald himself posted the news on his Instagram, writing "I'm a part of a tv show that's nominated for an Emmy because I answered a Craigslist ad 🤯."
So, given his whirlwind and completely unique rise to fame, where is Ronald now? Women's Health has all the deets.
Ronald ended up on the show thanks to a Craigslist ad.
In an interview with Barstool's KFC Radio, Ronald explained that the show was a "win-win-win" for him. When he originally found the ad looking for someone to help with a documentary about jury duty, he'd been job hunting for a few weeks. (His contract job was about to end.)
"The advertisement was saying 'we're gonna pay you money for a couple weeks [of work].' The work was to participate on a jury duty," he told KFC Radio. "In my eyes, they were going to pay me for this experience I had never had, I was going to get to participate in something I had never done before, plus I was going to get to be in a documentary."
He got called to actual jury duty.
In May, a few weeks after the show wrapped, Ronald was actually summoned to jury duty. The star posted the news on his Instagram stories, per the Los Angeles Times. It's unclear if Gladden has actually had his summons yet, but hopefully it's less of a headache than his fictional experience.
Ronald has a pet corgi.
In case you didn't already know, Ronald is a very normal guy. He has a pet corgi, Meatball, that he posts a lot about on his Instagram.
It seems Ronald may have gotten Meatball after he finished filming Jury Duty, as he first posted about him in August 2022 (Jury Duty began production in 2021).
How old is Ronald?
Everyone's favorite juror is 30 years old.
How tall is Ronald?
This man is very, very tall. He is 6'6, according to his interview with GQ.
Does he have a girlfriend?
Although Ronald had a girlfriend while Jury Duty was filming and immediately after, per TV Guide, it's unclear if they are still together. During the KFC Radio podcast, he didn't answer whether or not he was single directly.
"I've been asked this question many times," Ronald told KFC Radio. "I'd love to answer as many questions as I can, but what's the world without enigma."
He was actually a huge James Marsden fan.
In the first episode of Jury Duty, Ronald meets Marsden before any of the other actors. He later told GQ he was "not proud" of how long it took him to recognize Marsden, because he was actually a huge fan of his.
"In my mind I was like, well, if I have any chance of making any sort of connection with this guy, I just have to treat him like a regular person,” he told GQ.
Ronald goes on to explain that he was disappointed that Marsden was arrogant throughout shooting, but was "so relieved" to learn that wasn't his true personality. After the show ended, Marsden even called Ronald to talk through how the show affected him, per TV Guide.
"[James Marsden] reassured me there were no cameras following me around and he really helped me start working through those emotions," Ronald told GQ.
Ronald grew very close with some of the other Jury Duty cast and crew members throughout shooting, too, per GQ.
Ronald was paranoid after leaving the Jury Duty set.
Although he was walked through how the prank was pulled off in the final episode, Ronald still felt suspicious that he was being filmed after he left the Jury Duty set. Following his release from being "sequestered" with the rest of the fake jury, Ronald wanted to spend a lot of time outside of his home, so he went out to eat with his girlfriend a lot, but it was hard to remember he wasn't being watched anymore.
"I just kept making this weird eye contact with people and then they would instantly divert their gaze, and it kept happening everywhere I went," Ronald told TV Guide. "So then [I'd] catch myself looking over my shoulder and I was just feeling paranoid, because I just thought that they were still filming me. Ultimately I was just kind of freaking out in the sense that I thought, I'm still being followed."
Luckily, those feelings wore off pretty quickly and Ronald is only feeling excited about how much audiences enjoyed Jury Duty.
He's on Instagram.
Ronald said that "nothing really changed until a couple of days ago" when his Instagram account started blowing up with followers (which now clocks in at around 252k). "If you look at my social media, you’ll see that I was never really on there to begin with," Ronald told Variety. "I can see how it’s beneficial, definitely, especially now in the position I’m in. But a lot of it is detrimental to people’s mental health. I’ve never had a Twitter, I’ve never had a TikTok, and so I just stay off of those things."
How much did he get paid for Jury Duty?
In the final episode of Jury Duty, Ronald is walked through the entire prank and given $100,000. However, he explained that the money wouldn't really go that far.
"I’m gonna pay a third of that to taxes instantly," he told Variety. And then we’re talking student loans. Surviving down here, I’ve got this little Corgi puppy now as well, too. So it’s really not gonna go that far."
What is Ronald's job?
He currently works at Home Depot as a project manager, per his LinkedIn profile.
"Even to this day, I haven't really changed my daily life because I didn't even know [Jury Duty] was even going to be anything, so I've kept my day job," Ronald told KFC Radio.
Ronald also said on the KFC Radio podcast that he had no aspirations to be an actor or even on camera, and pursued the Jury Duty gig as more of a "bucket list" activity. However, now, he isn't opposed to doing another "acting" gig in the future, per GQ.
"I don’t know where my life is gonna go," Ronald told GQ. "I’m not opposed to pursuing opportunities that come from this. I just never would’ve imagined that it would’ve gotten the attention it did."
He still confuses some of the actors' names.
Understandably, after spending almost a month with the fake jurors, Ronald told Variety that he still mixes their real names up with their fake names.
"Todd is not Todd to me anymore, that’s David. But when I say David, nobody knows what I’m talking about. Reverting back and forth has been extremely confusing lately," Ronald explained of his co-star.
You can stream Jury Duty on Amazon Freevee.
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