James Marsden actually put a lot of thought into playing James Marsden on Jury Duty

One of the great comedy character creations of the year is pretentious dirtbag actor James Marsden, played by Westworld’s James Marsden on Freevee’s Jury Duty. Other than series star/victim/subject Ronald Gladden, the only real person in a courthouse full of actors, Marsden is the big wild card of the show, with the character being an outrageous exaggeration of the self-obsessed actor type who is also totally game to do weird things and somehow finds the time to develop into an actual friend for Gladden—meaning he can only ever be so weird, lest Gladden start to put it together and realize that he’s living in a cartoon world created for his benefit.

And, unsurprisingly, Marsden (the real Marsden) said in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike that keeping track of all of that was kind of complicated. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Marsden said that he made an effort to make sure that his “character” wasn’t “always a bad guy” by adding “a little layer of pathetic to him.” His strategy was to try and follow each big moment—like when he “leaks” his location to the paparazzi in an attempt to get sent home or when he ruins one of the other juror’s birthday party—with some “normal James Marsden,” where he’s just friendly and chatting and “not just talking about my Hollywood projects.”

But one of the zaniest things in the whole series is a sequence that Ronald Gladden isn’t even around for, when jurors Jeannie and Noah come up with a way to have sex without actually doing it called “soaking.” To describe it is a spoiler, but it mostly amounts to two people on a bed while a third person jumps on the bed to rock them around, and when Ronald turns down the opportunity to be their third, Marsden eagerly takes his place. The sequence was filmed by the three actors in the room, supposedly for Gladden’s benefit on the off-chance that he decided to try and listen in or sneak a peek (not the sort of thing Gladden would do), and Marsden told EW that filming it was the most fun he’s ever had in an acting role.

Later in the interview, Marsden says that being on Jury Duty was the closest he’s ever come to method acting, and he says when they wrapped for the day and Gladden wasn’t around, he was “too happy” to go back to being himself. Clearly, then, he relished the opportunities during the show to go totally unhinged.