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The season ends with Gladden being given $100,000 and a tour of how the whole experiment was orchestrated.
Were there other tweaks you were considering for the show besides jury duty?Todd Schulman:Yes.
I dont want to share what they were, because you would think Im a sadist.
But we did toss around a few other possibilities before landing on a jury.
What made Ronald the perfect hero?
When we saw Ronalds tape, we couldnt believe it.
Hes such a nice guy.
Hes funny, hes charming, hes witty.
Thats what we had hoped for.
He exceeded our expectations in every single moment of the show.
How many people did you consider before choosing him?TS:We got thousands of submissions.
There was a pretty clear consensus that he was our guy.
We didnt anticipate that would be the case.
However, people are people, and you never know how someones going to react to something that shocking.
The crew developed genuine relationships with this person.
My favorite moment was when Ronald showed Todd the movieA Bugs Lifebecause he thought Todd could relate to it.
How did that happen?
Thats Ronald being someone who is just a nice guy.
It was one of the DVDs there, and they ended up getting into this conversation about it.
You just see how nice and kind and giving and generous Ronald is.
As a viewer, it just restores your hope in humanity a little bit.
That is so heartwarming.
When I look back on it, I cant believe we actually pulled it off.
How did James Marsden get involved?
Thats a big ask, and you need a pretty special person to do that.
We had a meeting with James, and he was just game.
it’s crucial that you make it feel as real as possible.
James Marsden is sitting in the jury-selection process that took two days.
Hes just sitting on a bench waiting with other people and occasionally talking to Ronald.
But if you talk to Ronald too much, then Ronald might get suspicious.
Its just a very boring, different bang out of acting.
He had to stay in it without doing a lot.
It does feel like its a format that you could repeat.
That would be probably a good idea.
So thank you for that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
