Hey Riddle Riddle - *UNLOCKED* Review Crew #44: Jury Duty w/Ross Kimball!

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

We talk about a show we loved, Jury Duty, with cast member Ross Kimball! There's a lot more where this came from! If you want to help support the show and listen to 100 + more of these eps, you can subscribe at Patreon See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Music Yes, he's back. If you've got money to spend, another show from this street. You'll attend you with friends. I don't know. If it were me, I'd probably throw the towel in, but no. general concept of what they will do. They find a piece of media. They want to review it. Provide it that it ties into the riddle review. So now it's time for a rental reduce radio crew. Welcome everyone to another episode of Review Crew and myself, JPC and Aaron, we are sitting on a jury today debating whether or not we have to decide we are tasked as civilians of the podcast scape. Have you ever done jury duty? Never have never will. We're doing Thomas the Tank Engine again everybody. second month in a row. We are deliberating on whether or not you should be watching the new TV show,

jury duty, and it's a unanimous decision. We all voted fuck yes. So that means the TV show walks. Is that right? Well, walks and in situates that they did something wrong. Like, okay, Simpson walked, right? That's how you use that term. I mean, I consider him running right now.

But he was running back. That's right, that's right. Well, the voice you just heard is the dulcet tones of one of the stars of the show, jury duty, on free V through Amazon and through, I think there's a free V app, right? I got it through Amazon Prime, but I think there's a there's a separate app as well. You can do both. You can do both. Have it your way. I probably shouldn't do both. If you're listening and you've already watched it on one, go ahead and watch it on the other. You never

never plug those numbers in. I've never heard. They need it. They need it. We have Ross Kimball who played the character of Ross King Cade. No, I'm sorry, Ross Kubiak. Ross Kubiak. It's so hard to get, because it's like they basically used your name. And so I want to say Ross Kimball. Okay, so Ross King Cade is no Ross Kubiak. There's no one.

No, it's probably Thomas King Cade's brother. No painter's brother. Exactly, brother is Ross. Where did you pull King Cade from? Was Yeah, exactly. Brother. He has a brother. Where did you pull the kid Cade from? Was that another character? I rode down Kubiak and I, my brain is turning into concared. It will be because I saw Kubiak, but I know Ross is Ross Kimble. And so my brain just, it was like, it's not this, it's not that.

And so it found a middle ground. You gave him the old Ellis Island treatment. Right. Like, like, right. Right. Go ahead and. Ross, thank you so much for being here. Right up Right. Go ahead and. Ross, thank you so much for being here. Right up top.

I just want to say, you might know Ross from a few things. Ross, you've been a guest, I believe, on Doe Boys podcast, on Gilmore guys. You're one of my all time favorite guests on Hello from the Magic Tavern playing Honk, the Assassin. You have your own podcast, Good at Parties, which is a delightful podcast. Big fan of that. You were in movies such as Masterminds, mascots starring another friend of the show, Michael Hitchcock.

And your biggest claim to fame, in my opinion, is when you were in Chicago, you are on what I consider to be the tallest improv team ever assembled, which was diplomat Motto. Oh, now Ross, you are crowning achievement. You are six, seven? I am. Wow.

Yep. Amazing. Tell us Ross about. Thanks for having me. Good to see you guys. Good to see you. We just wanted to confirm our legal team said we had to confirm all this information.

Tell me they didn't cast a Chicago improv team just on height. Did they or is that a choice? That wasn't like a herald team. I think it was more of the thing where it was, you know, we were sitting around the bar and we were like, we should just have a giant team where it's like, we get on stage. Everyone in their minds are going, okay, these guys need to slow down. We haven't even done anything yet. I think we're that big.

I'm assuming Mike Magic was on that team? No, he was not. Why? Wait, wait, wait. I think Diplomat Motel was something else. I think I've done a few shows one-offs with him, of Dan Gordon. Yes.

Diplomat, oh yeah, that's right. They all of them bleed together, you know, this goes. one-offs with him. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. good at suggestion. People would be like basketball. Cleaning the gutters. I can just see all the people of their podcast people. Like this was about jury duty, right? They're really gonna do an hour on diplomat vote. Yes. Which is an actual motel in Chicago. I later found them.

Let's do, so we are gonna talk about jury duty as holistically. We're gonna talk about the entire season just because that would be foolish to not talk to Ross about all the ins and outs. So if you haven't yet seen it, we definitely recommend you go and watch it. We're not just talking about the first episode. We're going to talk about the entire season. So spoiler alert, Ross, before we get into it, maybe just two minutes, three minutes, let's get to know you, where are you from? What's your journey? What's going on? Well, my name is Ross Kimball. I was raised out in the burbs of Chicago, Naperville, if you've heard of it. Nasty Naperville.

Oh, nasty Naperville. And we all call it that. That's where I grew up. And then I've always had a desire just to perform, but I never did that. Performance came in the form of sports growing up and I did that. And I was a huge comedy nerd,

watched everything, like Mester on my friends. Kind of was like, you know, one of the top four funniest people in my friend group. Not, but then you, you know, I went to Chicago, went to Chicago. And I, to be honest with you, I was very shy. I would be in my head a lot with communication. You couldn't pay me to be up on stage in front of people.

But with my friends, I would just let loose and be myself. And my friends suggested that I take an improv class, and it took me two years to sign up for a class at IO. Wow. Wow. And as soon as I took that class, you know, you get your first chuckles, then you get your first big laugh. And we know, you know, we know, we just start chasing that. And so I did that. I was doing that at night. And then during the day, I was a sixth grade

teacher. And, you know, a lot of cool things happened and met my wife, got married, very cool things happened. May I got married, have two kids now. I live out here in LA, and I just keep walking through the doors of opportunity. So, and not in a story, not in a show. Creating your neck downward, right? Absolutely, if it's a house built before 1927. Yes, sure.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's always so wild to you, because you truly don't know. When you go and watch someone on stage You have no idea what they're like or whatever But I remember Ross watching you in shows and to be like yeah, very shy It's just whenever you hear someone tell you that they're shy

It's almost hard to believe because I'm like yeah, well the guy was very funny and like very big So it's like it's hard to it's hard to imagine a person being shy, but no, it's it is for those listening It is more often than listening, it is more often than you think it is that people are like, oh yeah, that's a very different person when I'm on stage. Mm-hmm. So Ross, for me, what was your time? What was your time frame in Chicago, like what years were you doing in Prophther?

Uh, 2008, the 2014. Mm-hmm. Well, I moved there 2014. So it was? We were too sure. eight to two thousand fourteen. Mm-hmm. Well, I moved there to two thousand fourteen. We are two shodowns. Oh, awesome. Oh, man, in the night. There could only be one of us.

We are two seven. I had to wait for you to leave to move. There would have been a showdown. There would have been a showdown for sure. I get that. A lot of people came up to Aaron and said, Ross, good show last night. Aaron had to be like, who is this Ross?

It's a different guy. It's a completely different guy. So Ross, let show last night. Aaron had to be like, who is this Ross? No, it's a different guy. Different guy, it's completely different guy. So Ross, let's start talking about jury duty. Okay. So before we begin, let's just kind of lay out what the show is. So the whole premise of this show, jury duty that we're talking about today, one person thinks that they are just going to be

in a normal documentary about the jury duty process. They're not an actor and literally everything else and everyone else is an actor is a set. There is like a quasi script, Ross is playing one of the characters in this and it's all happening around this person. That's, I mean, that's the show. Yeah, and they found Ronald through a Craigslist list ad.

So the producers of the show said, hey, we're making a documentary about the jury duty system in America. It pays this much if you get picked, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and let us know. And so 4,000 people applied. Damn. Wow.

4,000 people said I want to be part of this. They picked the perfect person. They picked the perfect person. Yeah. Isn't it so crazy? Found our unicorn. We found Ronald. Can you tell us about, first and foremost,

the audition process, how you came to be involved? What was going on there? I almost got a role on a TV show that the director of jury duty was directing and so through that he It's like a classic Hollywood thing where he's like, hey, you didn't get it. We really like you I'm so sad you weren't in this thing Long story short that show didn't go He got shut down before it even shot the pilot. So I was like, okay, great.

He said, wait six months. I have something for you in six months. And of course, you hear that and go, all right, yeah, that was very nice of you to say and you just keep moving on. Six months later, he emails me. He's like, hey, are you around? Can you put yourself on tape for something?

I go, yeah, sure. So the audition process for all of us that got the show was three separate characters, 60 seconds each. And it was, it was pretty much a slip of paper, not a slip of paper, an email that said, Okay, you're so and so, and you're talking about this, and you have 60 seconds. Don't go over 60 seconds. Because apparently there was seeing a lot of people for this. Oh, yeah. And and so far this sounds like the SNL editions that I have. Well, it was funny.

I've had a few opportunities, very cool opportunities to audition for curb career enthusiasm. And I think you don't have a script and you get, you're given a slip of paper saying, I think you don't have a script and you get you're given a slip of paper saying you are handing out bread at the table and And someone doesn't like what you've done vague you walk in And Larry David is in the room and they don't tell you that in the audition So you walk in and there's not telling you that

He's sitting in the other seat. There's two seats and he's just sitting there and he goes, Hey, how you doing? Ross, yeah, yeah, take a seat. Okay, yeah, whenever you're ready. And you know, you have Jeff Garland hanging out there and he just have a panel. It feels like American Idol anyway. So it felt like that. So 60 seconds, you do your thing and you send it in.

You don't think about it. A few weeks later, they're like, okay, great. Just do this one character, you're a coach. They're kind of funneling it down. And they're like, okay, we can see you as a coach. You're a coach and you're so madly in love with your wife and you can't be away from her. 60 seconds.

And so you kind of have to create this world. Weeks later, they say, okay, great, this is gonna be the callback and the callback is a focus group. You're gonna actually go to a focus group building in LA. And there are gonna be people there who are actually there for the focus group. They're getting paid 25 bucks to watch the trailer of a movie

or eat a wopper or whatever a wopper. I've never said it like that before. That's what they say. That's the name of it, baby. That never promotes. Oh yeah, that name of it comes out of the day. You can take that out. That's what they say. I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never , I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never , I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never,

I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm never, I'm You just like sign in and you wait to be called in. So we go in and there's a waiting room and I didn't know there's two panel glass. So all the producers and directors are waiting behind this glass and you're in the waiting

room and you're given the slip of paper. So my slip of paper, my slip of paper said, you are a high school teacher, you are fascinated and obsessed with magic. And puzzle. What a gift. Magic and puzzles. And you love your wife. That's it. Enjoy.

So I'm sitting there. And this will be a lot longer. And it's just crazy how all this happens. But sitting there and then you have to mingle with people in the waiting room and a mingling a mingling. And of course, they set you up with, especially for me, I saw this. They have like a deck of cards, a scarf. They have like all the stuff just laying out on the table, right?

Just casually a scarf tied together and free dubs. Right. Just like a bun. Yeah, there was like a bunny in the corner. Just naturally let it happen. Just natural. Just like yeah, there was like a bunny in the corner Just naturally let it happen just natural If we're if magic organically happens. Yeah, so that was that was the thing and I didn't have the heart to tell Jake or any Jake Somanseg our director or anybody being like I don't know magic. I don't I can hardly shuffle cards I don't know

So anyway, we're in the waiting room and they're behind the two-pink glass and they're watching and everyone is wild. Everyone is just acting up. In the sense where I'm like, okay, everyone's doing too much. These actors are doing too much, but also these could be real people. I'll stay in my lane, I hear for a job. just keep doing my thing. So I pick up the deck of cards and I'm talking to this lady who is talking about her pool to a point where she is really obsessed with her pool, but at the same time her pool is getting taken away from her, where I think it was an above ground pool, she was very confusing. So we were talking and I pick up the deck of cards and I just start shuffling.

I just start shuffling while I'm talking to her and immediately an assistant comes in and goes, okay, we'll see you in the main room now. They knew like they were watching me shuffle and they're like, oh, this guy's gonna do two cards. So we can take it into the room. We can take it into the room. Tee-ee. They're behind the glasses like the pool ladies kill of it. I don't know what to do. I mean, she's talking about the pool

Exclusively the other guy's being way too subtle. Couldn't he say like when I met my wife I said abracadate me like To date me So we're taking into the room. There's a big screen TV and and I didn't know at the time But the executive producer is running the focus group and he's asking the question We watch what we watch we watch the trailer for the new West Side Story the Steven Spielberg West Side Story You know a minute and a half you watch it it turns off and then he just opens it up How do people feel about this and you have to remember some of us are here for the job We're actors giving a slip of paper and other people are just here for the 25 bucks

They live in LA and they're here for a good time. Yeah. I got the pool lady with my likes. Several moments reminding me of my pool. Was it pushing to my pool? Is there a pool in this movie? So, she doesn't really talk that much, but everyone has like hard opinions to the point where I said, okay, everyone in this room is an actor.

And they get to, they get to, Ron, Ron Song, who plays Ken. And he, he like talks very slow and he has gumball machines. He only has two gumball machines in LA, but he, he talks so slow where I am so mad. I am so mad during this. And he knows this. I told him when we met for the first time I go where I am so mad. I am so mad During this and he knows this I told him when we met for the first time I go I'm so glad you got this, but I need to be honest to you went during the audition you Ticked me off how slow in the show he talks slow. He talks four times slower in the audition Amazing and in the show when he talks slow, it's very funny.

It is like the timing of it is as a chef's kit. When he's describing that game that he seems seemingly making up, it's so fun. Yeah. We'll get to that, but essentially it was made up. That is not even like a thing. It was making up the rules. I see one of them. Anyway, it's crazy.

It's crazy. So we get to the point and they get to me and I was like, oh, this reminds me of this. I would see this. I mean, I wouldn't see this unless my wife would want to see it. And like, I play like that angle. And then the guy next to me takes a phone call on his phone. He goes, hey, hello. Yeah, I know.

I can't, I can't go in for the job interview. I'm at this thing right now. Can you push it? Can I, can you see me at 2pm? Okay. Well, this is, I mean, it's Papa John. so it can't be that important. Can it be 2pm? And he hangs up and I turn to him and I'm like what are you doing dude? You're going to get too hard. You blew it. You didn't get the job. James Marston. Fast forward. Fast forward. I booked

the gig. I need all the cast. I go up to the executive producer who was running the audition who's British and he, which is an important, I just like to add that. I go up to him and I go Nick. I go Nick. That guy next to me in the audition that took the phone call. I mean, he blew that, right? I mean, he was like, what, what did you give him to act like that? He goes, mate, mate. That was his guy for living in LA. He was not a part of the audition. I'll say if you're taking a, if you're taking a call from Papa John's, you're definitely there for $25.

It's not like he was fighting back from, yeah, he was fighting back from the Papa John's people. I'm like, hey, can you be here at one? No, I can't, how about two? Do you know what the, the bummer of it is? You imagine out accenturing, like being more eccentric than the magic guy? That's brutal. That's my nightmare. That's my nightmare. I did, maybe if that's casting in Chicago,

you're like, I can pretty much tell who the actor is and who the actor is it. But if it's casting in LA, you're like, well, everybody hears the same level. So. I did one focus group in Las Vegas with Tim Lyons, who you know Ross. Oh, perfect.

We were out there for Brett's bachelor party. So we did a focus group just because we thought it would be funny. And I have to say like the people who were involved, we watched the guy Joel McAill, he had like a sitcom about working in like basically like a Patagonia RBI kind of store, which Ross I want to talk about. Oh yeah.

Yes. But everyone there was like couldn't stop talking about Big Bang Theory. Like we went around the room and they asked our favorite sitcom and they also at Big Bang Theory. And they would like stop comments about this show to talk about their favorite moments on Big Bang Theory to where it seemed like, who are these people?

Where did they come from? How are they so popular? You look like the cast of the Big Bang Theory and very obvious like facial hair, Dave. Yeah, very quickly our great outdoors. That's what it was. That's what it was. Thank you. Very quickly I do want to mention Ross, you are, you have a moment in my life that stands

out as one of the best things that's ever happened to me, which is, I think before you moved to LA, you offered me, I think we can say this on air. You offered me your... Oh, hold on. Maybe not. I offered you a discount. You offered me a discount. Can we talk about that?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I say what store? Sure. Okay. You were working at Patagonia, which I noticed all throughout your rigidity, you were working at pedagodia, which I noticed all throughout your arjury duty, you were wearing nothing but pedagodia, but you offered me your discount, and I ran wild with it.

I bought it. Yeah, it was friends of, friends of family, man. It was the most amazing discount I've ever received, and I bought, I must have bought 12 items, which the pedagodia is not cheap, but it was cheap. Friends and family. Friends and family. So you always get out to me. Anytime I wear any of those shirts, I'm like, fucking Ross, absolutely hooked me up more than anyone's maybe hooked me up before.

I can't think of a better brand to get out of a discount too. Yes, exactly. It's all flannel. It's all flat. But yeah, watching jury do it anytime you run, they showed like you're clothing, it was like, oh, there's Patagonia, I'm like, that's outstanding. So I did that for two reasons I just thought it'd be funny if this guy was like a schoolteacher but he was wearing like expensive outdoor gear for no reason and then I did it I wanted I wanted Ronald to to say something I want because it's you know you

read Patagonia on my chest almost every day I wanted wanted them to say like, man, you wear a lot of Patagonia, but I was going to, I was going to stop wearing it as soon as he mentioned it, but I think so many things were being thrown at him. Yeah. Yeah. That. And so you had a, you had to come up with your own little side stories all the time. You know, the script was, it was just beats. There was never lines. It was, James goes up to Ronald this way or while this is happening. This is happening over here. So You know script the beats were happening, but you had to stay character over here There's there's one of my I'm talking out of turn here But one of my favorite moments was Kirk Fox and I play McCready and Todd David Brown who plays Todd chance Mr

Chance himself the chair pants. We were in the corner while you was being played. So that was, that was 45 minutes, that game was 45 minutes long. So while that was being played, we were in the corner and Todd was explaining how both of his parents died at the same time. And it was just through like conversation and improv, it was a dream. It was such a dream because we just got to be in this world. And through conversation and asking questions, we finally figured out

that Todd's parents were crossing the street at the same time due to miscommunication and two buses going the exact opposite directions hit them at the same time. And Todd was there. Can Ronald hear any of this? No, no, no. Yeah, it's us. Yeah. What, one of my favorite things about the show is that in your, you're kind of talking about it with the, the conversation about how the guy's parents died and everything was what I loved in the show is that there was these constant, um, I guess you would call my

confessionals to the camera with, with Ronald absent. We're, we Ronald absent. Where the first couple of times it happened, I'm like, why are we seeing moments without Ronald because the whole mechanism of the show is that Ronald's the only one not in on it. But then I realized it was due to character development for us to get to know the characters. And for you all, I'm sure to improvise and get a better grip and handle on it.

So I came to really love those, whereas this is just gravy, this is all cherry on top just to get to know, to get to see them fleshing out their characters in real time. I thought it was really beautiful. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's online, it's kind of divisive.

Some people didn't like that, and other people said this made this show a lot more enjoyable to watch. Some people that don't like it, it, the Joe Shmo, they say, well, Joe Shmo show, which is essentially the same thing. It was like big brother except one person's not in on it. And they would break character though. Like Kristen Wigg actually and David Horn's be from Always Sunny, that was their breakout. And they'd have these professionals as themselves out of their characters being like, I can't believe you can't catch on.

Yeah. What we did was we stayed in characters the whole time just so it's more enjoyable to watch. In my opinion, it's more enjoyable to watch because it's like you're watching a show. Agreed with the show. I think there are. Yeah, there are two things that I love about that choice.

One is it gave the whole thing a narrative feel where I could like connect with these characters as characters and it made the whole thing feel like I'm actually watching like a semi-scripted show. The second thing is and I think this is the most wonderful part about this show. It truly does make like Ronald seem like a good guy and normal and it's not at no point does it feel like it's making fun of him or like putting him in a situation to belittle him or putting him in a situation that like You know is made to make him look like he is stupid and even all the confessionals of him

Whatever they picked whatever selections they picked make him seem like he's like, you know He cares about the case. He cares about how people are doing He's like asking like genuine heartfelt earnest questions. The whole thing was wonderful in that regard. Like it made him seem so great and it didn't make it seem like anyone was making fun of him. Yeah, absolutely. That was the goal. We wanted to show a hero's journey. We didn't want you to go in thinking that it's a prank show, even though it's easy to because you've never seen anything like this. So you automatically assume, oh that it's a prank show, even though it's easy to because you've never seen anything like this.

So you automatically assume, oh, there's a prank show. This guy said, no, all this crazy stuff is going to happen. We just created a crazy world around a normal heart felt person. So in all of that, I was just so impressed. Like every day since I wasn't staying at the hotel, and we can talk about that later. In the morning, we would have meetings, and the producers would check in with people from the hotel. They'd have morning meetings with them just to be a facetime. And they'd be like, hey, this happened last night and

we heard, I heard via the director about the bugs life movie and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy is oh my gosh, we can't hurt this guy. We can't hurt this guy. We're protecting it all costs. I have a question. I have a question. When he said that. Oh, no, yeah, go ahead. My question about the hotel thing is,

at one point in the season, they're all in jury duty, they get sequestered. And so they split them into two groups, the jury into two groups. Some people have to go stay at this hotel, some people don't. And you were one of the people

that didn't have to stay at that hotel. Was that a decision that was made ahead of time? Or did they do, you know, were you a week in and they were like, okay, now we're going to split the group. It was scripted like that. It was scripted like that. Just I think that was more of a production choice. The people that had, you know, the people that had families,

it was all the young, all the young hot people got to stay in hotel. Yeah. Well, again, I have another question about that too, because now this is something I didn't wanna do, like I didn't do a ton of reading cause I don't really do that when I like watch TV shows, but this show fascinated me and so I did do some reading,

but I read that Kirk Fox, who is Pat McCurdy on the show. He also, of the, when I was watching the show, there were a few people, you of course, because I have seen you in Chicago, but there were a few people that I immediately recognized. He was one of them because I'd seen them on Parks and Recreation.

I also heard that at one point Ronald had talked about how he loved Parks and Recreation, and that Kirk Fox's role got changed a little bit because they didn't want him to make that connection. Is, can you talk about any of that? Yes, so that was day two. We got some questions. And we're ordering lunch, we're ordering lunch,

and we're just kind of getting to know each other, which is tough because we rehearsed the whole first season in one week without Ronald. So we went to the warehouse, we went to Margaritaville. Like we had to, like we had to hit the beats and it's like, hey, just get familiar with all this stuff. So and we had to pretend that we didn't know each other. So that was a whole thing. When we got really tight out that first week. So anyway, we're, we're older and lunch, second day, Ronald is in charge, we're like going over the meals and stuff like that and TV shows get

brought up. Oh, what are you watching? What's your favorite TV show? And Kirk and I are out at the end, just because we needed him to sit in certain areas so he can have relationships. Yeah. So he's sitting with the girls all the way at the other end and he goes, man, all time, or parks and rec. And I look, I'm like this.

And I look over at Kirk and he's like, he's so slink. He starts slinking in his chair. we had a system, only one person had at your piece in. That was Maria or Enez and she had at your piece in. So the directors who were in, we had three, three courtrooms and one of them was used for the courtroom. One of them was used for deliberation.

One of the middle was control center. So there's 20 screens. There's people on mics being like, okay, do this, do this, controlling everything. So anyway, Maria would like hand us notes. Being like, okay, do this, or hey, can you move your head back a little bit because the camera can't see, things like that. Yeah. So Kirk and I, we started using this shorthand and he wrote, that. Yeah. So Kirk and I, we started using this shorthand and he wrote, he wrote, we're done as soon as he said that. All time, Markson, Rick, he wrote, we're done and he's slid up. And I look at him, I go, no, we'll see. We'll see. I think, I think we might have to change some things and he's, and he, he, he named like, oh, so what are your favorite characters,

Ronald? And he goes, oh, you know, like the classic Leslie Nob, you know, Ron Swanson, like Suzy Joe is awesome and not too Kirk, Kirk, Kirk, Kirk, he plays Suzy Joe. So the whole time, what they had to do is switch it up. So in line, they always made sure that Kirk's back of his head was towards Ronald. They sat him way far away from Ronald.

They did a lot of things and you can tell Kirk grew out as beard. He's always wearing sunglasses. So we kept Ronald busy so much and James kept busy. We just kept him busy so much that he couldn't catch anything because we were throwing so much at him. After I heard that, I was like looking at the, the, the, the, not confessional, but when all 12 of you are like in the room together and sitting on the chairs and the rows, and like he's always on the same level as him, but to the complete side,

like he's always sitting on the end and Ronald's always in the middle. I'm like, wow, it is very much staged so that he would never crane his head over to the right and like look at him in the face. It's so wild. If you watch it, if you watch it again, which I suggest you do because there's so many jokes

and you miss a lot of things the first time through, but James always leans a little forward and Kirk is always back a little bit. So even when Ronald would turn, he would just see James. It was, I will say personally, like the first first or second episode, I kept looking at Kirk that that guy, being like, he looks familiar.

And I'm not, I've only watched Parks and Rec all the way through once, so I don't remember a lot of the stuff, but I'm just being like, he looks vaguely familiar, and then I looked up on IMDB and I was like, always in reservation dogs, which is phenomenal show. And I was like, oh, that's a risk of him. So I think sometimes people were like, how do you not recognize?

And I'm like, I knew the guy from one of my fair shows and I still couldn't, there's just a sense was like, oh, that's a risk room. So I think sometimes people were like, how do you not recognize? And I'm like, I knew the guy from one of my first shows and I still couldn't, there's just a sense of like, he looks familiar and even with the judge, I was like, the judge clearly has legal expertise, but I'm like, he looks familiar and I looked it up and it's Icon John's dad and I was like, oh, holy shit, it's Icon Baronhold's dad, like, yeah, yeah. It's a Nepo daddy.

Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nepo-deady. Yeah, yes. Yeah. I have a question. Oh, Aaron, I didn't mean to jump on you. You can ask it right after this. All the lawyers are real lawyers. Okay. And also actors.

So that's why it was so professional. So Aaron, I'm sorry to jump on you. Oh no, there's something that I love about the show that I feel like you did particularly well, which is like pacing how big you got comedy-wise. I feel like you conducted it really well of the pacing between hard jokes and just being a person and existing in a space. How much of that was prep work? What did you read in the room to know when it was time for like hard jokes

first, just like existing? I knew, I knew it would be tipped off if everyone was funny. It's like if you walked in the room and everyone's funny, he'd be like, hold on, how come everyone's professionally funny? What is it? Weapon, everyone was timing.

Why is everyone like, yes, ending each other to the point where it's like this is enjoyable to listen to That's never a normal conversation, you know It's always clunky or it's always you know someone says the wrong thing or it's silent sometimes so for me Who who I just loved is having a good time and I love riffing but the same time I knew that my role in my lane Which is very tough for me. I appreciate you seeing that, was I needed to be almost Ronald's anchor, because when crazy things were happening,

he would look to me, and we don't see it a lot in the show, but he would turn around in the box and be like, what is it, this crazy? Are you saying this? Yeah, I'm like, yeah. And the other thing is, you just don't, if no one else is questioning, you don't question it because you don't wanna be that person.

So for me, I knew I would have my moments, but I knew that my lane was, okay, I need to be coach. The whole time he thinks I'm in charge until he's called four person and he did not wanna be four person. And the whole like setup of I kinda help the guy who falls off, Tim, he falls off the thing. And then we set it up where the judge says,

well, you know, someone stepped in and helped him, that was you, and he was like, no, that wasn't me, I wasn't being interviewed, I didn't help at all. But he would always look to me, Ronald would always look to me being like, okay, so what do we do? And I was always talking about my wife, and I knew I'd have moments for hard jokes

in those one-on-ones with him. When we were sat down, I knew that I could talk about my wife. I knew I could make that stupid, like, canoe, rudder joke, where it's like, I can't really know. What's the face, the defendant? He's on a canoe with a rudder right now, and he's had a tort coral. He's got a corral, and he doesn't even know. And it's so down, like, canoes don't have rudders.

So, but the other thing is, like Ronald quotes that. I saw him a few weeks ago and Ronald's like, dude, I still quote that canoe rudder thing all the time. So, like I realized how funny that was when you said that. I go, oh yeah, I know. So it was just finding your lane and there were people, I mean, of course, you have all these crazy characters. So I knew I needed to be as real as possible and I'll have my moments and the

payoff in the end would and my storyline, I knew I the payoff would be later. I knew I was a holdout. So I knew I had to be this voice of reason up until the end for him to kind of flip and be like, hold on, wait, why are you thinking this way? You're not, this isn't you. Yeah. So when we have that moment outside, you can be, you know, that, that father figure to me. And you were paired with him for a lot of talking heads. Like, I feel like they knew that you two, you were a good anchor for him. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there was a lot of things that were, were cut out just about just normal, normal

stuff. And, and hopefully, maybe someday we'll see the stuff where there's hours and hours of just boring things. And then also just real stupid stuff that I hope the world sees one day. But can you talk about that too? Because like obviously we watch the show, there's eight episodes.

And really the eighth episode is more like a reveal. It's like here's how we did it, type of stuff. But you must have, you spent what, three or four weeks doing this? So there must have been so much just like other stuff that you did, it's all that we didn't get to see. Was there a plan with like, where does, do like the boring court stuff and like the kind of everyday

interactions versus where we like interject, like plot and jokes. Cause I was gonna say, if it was all jokes all the time, it would be pretty hard to be like, this is so funny, what's going on here, you know? Yeah, and that's a great question. What we did was we had to fill up the reality bank. Whenever anything crazy would happen, we would fill up the reality bank by just saying,

okay, we're gonna have three hours of boring court now to get back to our reality. That's so smart. After, I mean, if you watch the episode, the chair pants episode again, you see people breaking, you see, you see some people breaking, and you see me, it's a quick turn where Ronald's like watching, or kind of leaning into watch Todd take his chair pants off.

Excuse me. And you see me, I'm looking away like this. And it almost looks like I'm trying not to break. And I'm not laughing at all, I'm waiting for him to turn around and say, what's going on? Or even worse, I know what's happening. So I'm trying not to make eye contact with him. And that day after we had the meeting afterwards, and Jake and the producers said, okay,, tomorrow we're just going to have six hours of boring court. Nothing, no plot line, no point like just nothing.

We're just going to do it. I will say the one thing that they didn't show that I wish they did. And you know, they're 28 minutes so that we can't show everything. Yeah. That day that we messed up the lunch order, we messed up that lunch order at least four times. And I was getting so frustrated with us. We messed up that lunch order at least four times and was getting so frustrated with us. Oh, no. Oh my God. Yeah, something like that. You're like, what's the worst part? It's like the worst part was not all the crazy shit happening.

It was just like the messed up lunch order. That would be that would be Interminable. That shot that shot of me like smushed my face. That was a day where it was two days on a row of just listening to a fake trial. So I have to pretend to pay attention to something that doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Oh my God. At some point you can't, it's no longer acting.

Like you probably are legit like, not bored, but like legit, like tired or exhausted or like really sort of like biting your time. Okay, Ross, I do have to know, obviously you're an improviser, and there were some other improvisers that did the show, but not everyone who did this show was an improviser. And I think improvisers get a lot of training

and experience with not breaking to be able to handle very silly things, especially I think I can show. I never got that training, I think you can show you. I never got that training. I think you can do today. Aaron may have missed that day of class. Let me back, please. Aaron has what we call Jimmy Fallonitis.

Yeah, Aaron had Jimmy Fallon for six levels of IO. So she did really good to. He just slapping his desk, Aaron. You're gonna break this desk, Aaron. You slap me. You do notice, you do notice throughout the show, there are some very funny moments that happen and you do notice some people like breaking, they leave

those cuts in. I think that they're very funny when you see people just big smiles turning away. The chairpants was one of them. Did you have any moments in the show where you couldn't hold it in or was something that was happening that was so funny that you just had to like, you had to laugh at it? that was happening that was so funny that you just had to like you had to laugh at it. I have to be completely honest. I couldn't look at Barb. Any time Barb would say something or she knew that too.

She knew that so she would look at me after she would say something. And I just feel like a week and a half in I I said, you can't look at me like that. She's like, like, what? I'm like, come on. She was the one who kept falling asleep. She was the one who kept falling asleep in the trial. That's barred, so good. I think that would have done me in.

I do think that pretty much anything that Ron said, who is Ken in the show, the I think I was dying laughing at every time he talked because he was speaking so slow and everyone was just like leaning good to like hear him out. That I think I could not have taken. I couldn't be around him talking to someone else. I would have had to leave. I would have had to like walk away from that conversation.

He, so he was another one that would look at me. He would say something so slow. And a lot of times he would repeat what was just said, not in just interviews, but even in the room, he would say it slower in a different way. So if the guy is coming, he's like, all right, what are we getting for lunch? I think I'm gonna get that, you know, that prosciutto baguette.

And, you know, Ken would be like, I think for me, I'm gonna probably the longbred with maybe maybe meat. Slice from Italy and Ronald would be like, okay, yeah, that sounds good, man. So patient. There's another bit in the show, which I think this is maybe my favorite moment of the show. And it comes early in the show, which in my mind, I was like, that was the moment where I, if I had been involved in it, I would have been like, something is going on here

that I don't understand. It's when the alternate juror gets injured. But before he gets injured, he says to just Ronald, and it's very clearly he hasn't given a lot of, I'm sorry, he's a juror, he's not the alternate, he says to just Ronald, and it's very clear that he hasn't given a lot of, I'm sorry, he's a juror, he's not the alternate, he is a juror, but he gets injured nestilyve. He says, I'm gonna go rub one out, I think, or something like that to Ronald, and Ronald is like, yeah, man, better do it now, well, you got the time.

Why you got the time? He says that to him, and he leaves, and then he gets injured, and then there's a shot of all of you together and everyone has a crane, an origami crane that he gave them and a meaningful story that he gave him except Ronald. And I'm dying at that part and I'm like, this is the part where I would be so concerned and so worried that he is going to be like,

what the fuck is happening here? I tell you what, I think he told people back at the hotel that it was like this is just wild like I'm and he and this is just Ronald Gladden. His heart he said I'm so mad that I didn't get to to talk to him because it seems like a really nice guy. But he was embarrassed if you watch it again he's really embarrassed that he didn't get a kid to talk to him. We all had stories and that was the moment.

You know you meet these people for the first time, and I can put an improv background, and there's a few other people to improv backgrounds, and then there are other people. There's like two or three that when we started the rehearsals, they're like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, there's not a script, and I don't know if I can just riff, and I got a little apprehensive about that, because this is a job. You know, if you get caught, like, I have to look for another job.

You know, like, okay, all right, well we can do this. I'm being encouraging, I'm like, just stay in the moment, you're gonna be great, you're gonna be great. That crane scene, that's, I was so proud of us. Just everyone committing, everyone had a little story, known as winking, it was awesome. Just how committed we were in that because it just showed

two things. Number one, like, great cast, this cast is amazing. Yes. And then number two, you never question anything when stuff like that happens in real life. You're just like, oh, okay, it's never like, oh, where are the cameras? It's, it's, it was wild.

And the people that the producers that were asking questions, they've worked at the Borat for a long time, like they're in that space. So they, they were great about just keeping it real. Which is why they wanted you to love your wife. Yeah. It is a borat.

It's officially a borat. It's been off then. I'm not really. There is about 35 minutes of me saying my wife, like Borat and they're like Ross, you can't. Ross, please. Less, less, less. But it's funny. No. Go ahead. And then I was like,. Less, less, less. But it's funny, no?

Go go ahead. And then I was like, is that can be my catch phrase? It's funny, no? That's not funny. That can't be a thing either. Something else. Go ahead, please. I just wanted to say one more thing about that crane moment.

I feel like once every like five to 10 years, something will happen in a comedy that will like make my hall of fame of comedy moments. And that I think is the moment from Jerry Doody. And it was particularly your section like when the baton got passed to you. Just rhythmically, you just made all of the funniest choices. And we were crying, like beside ourselves,

crying, laughing in our house. And it's just, I think it's hard to do a moment that's that joyous and that committed in any comedy. And that's the moment that absolutely blew committed in any comedy and that's the moment that absolutely blew me away. I appreciate that Aaron. Thank you so much for saying that. I made a choice that I was going to be like normal in like real world stuff and like find with the cameras around me except when we were interviewed. That's when I became a little tense and I just made that choice. Or I'm like, I'm just gonna do this. And so my rhythm is a little off on purpose. And I don't know if you can catch it,

but I force myself to say crane head. Because that's like, it makes no sense. Yeah. It's not like a George Sanders book. Yeah. You sounded like nervous to speak. And it's just rhythmically self-missile. It's just perfect, it's perfect.

A few things. One, I think, even if I was unbiased, I think my favorite moment of the series is when you stand up and you say you have 30 kids. 36 kids. 36 kids. 36 kids. It turns out to be your students, I'm sure you guess. And then the other thing I will mention is that idea of, at any time, this house of

cards could come crumbling down. I think it's what for me as a viewer was so beautiful about it and it's also maybe why I think improv, people go watch improv a lot of times, is because you know they're making it up on stage and so it is this thing of like, there's almost this giddy-ness of like, are they gonna fucking eat shit on stage

or are they gonna fly? And so when you see people navigating that of like, oh, this could go very poorly or this could be an incredible one night only thing, I think that's a joy of this show as well. So it speaks to that sort of the idea of why we enjoy watching improv or don't enjoy watching it, but I think this easily could have been

like a Terry Gilliam movie, which is a famously a director who eight of his movies have been shel a Terry Gilliam movie, which is famously a director who eight of his movies have been shelved because of natural disasters or people die, whatever it might be. But there is that thing of like, there's those moments of like, I think like Rashida as the bailiff, is that the term? Yes, bailiff like calling someone their actual name. Like just these moments, I think that adds so much joy as an audience member to be like, at any moment, the gig could be up.

And like you said, it all falls apart. And who knows if the footage would still be released or if you'd retry, but I think it's just such a fascinating experiment to kind of see that play out in real time. Yeah. Oh, please. Oh, good. I was going to say, can you speak to go ahead?

After you, I was going to say, I was going to say, thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. Can you speak? So speaking of people, speaking of some of the cast, maybe not having improv experience, can you speak to the sort of cast as like the star, not the star of the show, but the literal Hollywood star of the show who's playing himself, quote unquote, is James Marston.

And almost a sort of David Schwimmer on curb or Daniel Radcliffe in extras, like which is one of my favorite things actors do is like play at Asselvr's of themselves or heightened version of themselves. Can you speak to his level of confidence with improv? Was there any sort of workshop that he did? Was he, how was that working with him?

I'm not sure. I won't say this. When he walks into a room, you go, yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah, I get it. That's why you're famous. This is why you're doing a lot of things. Charismatic, great looking, comfortable on his own skin. I don't know his background.

I do know just from the interviews that have seen him and that he, big fan of improv, big fan of making things up on the fly and just flying with no net. He was great. He was great. He was very, very intune and to a point where he was concerned about really making sure that we're doing right to Ronald. You know, you don't want to put him in and seeing that, that just made me respect James a lot more. I had respect for him before,

but then just seeing his heart behind this and making sure like we want to do the right by him. That made me, that made me really appreciate James. Yeah. Hearing him be the one that cared so much about Ronald in that way on a personal level while also being the one person on the show who is like making the guy think that Ronald took the big shit and he's just like, he's just kind of like fucking with Ronald a lot. But it's like, it's so, it makes it so much better knowing that he was like,

it was important to him that knowing that he was like, it was important to him that Ronald didn't look like a fool so that he could like make himself look like a fucking asshole. Like he fell in that sword for comedy so that it wasn't about making fun of her. I love that. Yeah, it was, again, he, James even says this in interviews where it's a, it's a high-wire act.

You know, we're all working together. And I have to just echo this that the whole, it was a team, it was a high-wire act. You know, we're all working together. And I have to just echo this, that it was a team effort. It was unbelievable just how we came together, camera, production, everyone in charge, and the whole cast. No one got sick, no one was late. It was just unbelievable, unbelievable.

I do have to ask, because you've talked about this a little bit, It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. I do have to ask, because this is, and you've talked about this a little bit, but Ronald is Ronald, James is James. I think that you're the only other one that got to keep your name. Was there like a conscious decision about that? Or?

I don't know, Judge Allen. Allen, I guess people. Oh, Allen, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that just fits for judge Alan. I don't think there was. I asked production asked the producers and and Jake are our director and he's like, no, Ross works like Cubiak, Ross Cubiak works. I don't know. I don't know if that was a thing where I was the last person

chosen or Ross works or I'm so thankful that I got to see my name though. Did they ever watch a shot of Ross and Kate or was that ever? I offer that and they're like, that is stupid. What those things? It's so funny. It's so funny that like, Susan became Barbara, like Kirk became Pat. These are changes, but you can see these people is like just being keeping their eye on you, but it's as an actor, I'm stepping into your shoes,

I would feel so relieved if they're like, yeah, you can actually just be John and that's fine, and then you don't have to think about, you're doing this improv thing anyway, it's gonna be hard anyway, you don't also have to balance a fake name on top of that. Yeah, it was, I'm thankful for it, it was great. It was great.

What were some of your favorite like close calls or saves that you saw done even if they were really little I'll tell you a few big ones that that we were we were all Sweat and about so the warehouse scene that was We were in there for a long time. We were in there for a long time And I remember being in there for a long time. We were in there for a long time. And I remember being in there for a long time, pretending to look around for things. It's a t-shirt factory in LA. Yeah. And it works.

And somehow it got miscommunicated to the whole group when the owner of the t-shirt factory who's not an actor, he actually owns the place. And he was telling us what we can do, what we can't do. You're looking for these things. Okay, you're investigating don't touch anything and it slipped out He said and don't go upstairs. Just stay down down here and we needed Ronald to go upstairs and Ronald We found out very very soon After that is a rule follower and so no

And you know the Jorf shirt has to happen up there. The mannequins has that like the hardest way up there. So we have to have them go up these stairs. And I remember for close to like 20, 25 minutes, ish was explaining to him, no, we can go up here. And Ronald was like, no, we can't. We were told we can't. And so all of us, I had to go over, like I was told by Maria to be the tell Ronald, like, oh, I already went up that you should check it out. It's pretty interesting.

And so through that, like we actually eventually count them up there. Because some other people came up to him and said, oh, no, that's why. So that was a close call. Because that, I mean, Margaritaville, that bit doesn't happen if he doesn't go up there. So what was another one that was close? I think, oh, and then the Margaritaville thing, I will also say, then you don't get to see my switch which is detective crash more from I think you should leave. Oh, yeah, yeah, which if I read it to a Margaritaville, I'd be like shut it down. That's detective crash more for sure.

That's Santa Claus. This isn't real. Biff Swift is his real name, which is wild. That's a great name. And when we rehearsed, the week that we didn't have Ronald, he was at the table and I said, hey, and I didn't even do this at James Morrison. I go, I go, I go, I go, I go, the Biff Swift and I go, man, I really appreciate your work.

You have no idea how much I appreciate work. He goes, oh, I appreciate them. I appreciate it. So are you a part of this? I go, yes go yes I am but it's not about me right now So anyway, so with margarita, I know we're jumping all over the place margarita, though they hired 200 extras to fill in margarita, though so all those are all those are extras and As we were walking in I had to remind myself that everyone's an actor. And as we were walking past tables,

I could tell people were glancing up and just staring at us and kind of like track us a little bit. And they were told to speak, you know, a little softly. Yeah. And yeah, it was wild. It was wild. So not everyone that was close. Trying to think a phone went off once during, during

the court, and no one's supposed to have a phone and a phone went off really quick. And I, for, for three days, I was so mad at Barb because I thought she had her phone in her bag. Actually, we found out, we eventually found an ad on, I want to like call out names or anything, but, but Nikki but Nikki bail of Nikki has her phone She's a lot of have her phone and I think it was on yeah, the volume was up So it just won yeah, but I thought was barbed for three days and I was so What else I'm trying to think of a smaller calls. I'll go for it John I just wanted to say I mean because I because we are coming up to the end

But I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about this because every other character on the show, they had like a plot line, they had like a little, you know, they're feeding their information, but I feel like your character, you were the one that got like the heartstrings pulling because you had this like the whole thing with your wife, and this is this whole thing, it's right with spoilers,

anyway, but then you have your party scene where your wife comes and you have to admit to everyone that you were actually separated and you've been like, you've been kind of like lying to them. I just wanna ask you about that experience because it's like, and also knowing, you have one take at this.

Like you only have the one shot, you know? Yeah, yeah, it was exciting. It was exciting, I knew I could do it. It was coming, that would be the one shot. You know? Yeah, yeah. What was that exciting? It was exciting. I knew I could do it. He was calling me out of the world. I'm not calling him to my life. I'm calling Murray. I was calling Murray. And I was calling out who's a Chicago improviser,

a good friend of mine. She played my wife. I didn't know that she was hired for the spot until I looked at her and she got mourning. I was like, oh, I turned to Jake the director. I go, this is gonna be good. This is gonna be, we're in good hands. We're gonna knock it out of the director. I go, this is gonna be good. This is gonna be, we're in good hands.

We're gonna knock it out of the park. He's great. I think they hired her on purpose because in earlier the confessions that I have, when I say, when Jack Wee is up there and we cut back to me being like, oh, she reminds me of my wife, not in a sexual way, but just more of this house.

Yeah. Which doesn't make sense at all. Yeah. I think the wording of it. And just how she's tall and blonde or whatever. And so they, I think they hired Colleen because she has dark hair and she's shorter. And so just, yeah. It's more of like, I'm in love with Jack, Kate, Jack, we, you know, so anyway. But that was, that was a day.

Jay, I remember James and I both, I think he feels the same way where this is gonna, this is like a big emotional day for Ronald because he sees James flip the cake, you know, and Ronald ticked off, ticked off. Like he is running through all these emotions with James. Like it's like a roller coaster. And for me, I knew that I had to just bring it emotionally for him, because we didn't know this at the time, but Ronald gets sensitive about relationship stuff. And so when I had that moment, I come back and we're talking, I was very anxious about that day. I don't know. At the time, I'll be honest at the time, I was like, I wish I was funnier in the show,

but now realizing I have to, my lane was the heart, cause we had to build up to the end. It's like, I was, it's like a good improv. Cause you're a great improviser, it's like good improv where it's like, it can't all be costellos. If it's all costellos or all Homer Simpson's, like the shows don't work, right? So it's that idea of like playing what's needed

and I think you nailed it. But I appreciate the emotional reality of the situation with the stakes. If we're all costellos, I mean, that's a felt show. Now that's a cheat show. Now that's a cheat show. That's an exhaustive pie. The seizure does listen to the show. So, I mean, I'm to cheat. I know that's a cheat joke. That's an insult. I see your does listen to the show.

So, I mean, I feel like a Chicago improv can be a little bit different because I have some of the hardest I've ever left on stage is from people like doing some very things that are like very genuinely sad. I gotta say, when I watch that moment, because I know the meta commentary here is that it's fake, right? Like, we know that you're not actually being like left by your wife here.

I was dying laughing because I was like, this is so, it's so brutal. Like, it's so brutal that everyone has like stay and stew in this moment and the embarrassment and all of it. It just like, it made the whole experience of the show. Like, it was one of those like, t tether to reality moments where you're like, this isn't funny. Like, why would I be watching this?

You know, I love that part. I appreciate that. We cut it out. But the next day when we're in the in the dream box, I leaned down and I say, Hey, man, I'm sorry. You had to see that. That's just not me. And that's not how I want to live my life.

And I'm sorry. You sorry you had to see that. That's just not me and that's not how I want to live my life. And I'm sorry, you just even had to see that. So I just, this is just a piece off from just, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And he goes, oh, dude, we don't have to talk about that. We don't have to talk about that. And I go, no, it's like I don't usually throw a baseball like that. And I'm just, I'm sorry.

And because we're playing catch. And so I threw him off with the hole. And he goes, oh, oh, yeah, oh no, that's not, that's not what you do, man, yes. That was, I always say I kept that in because that kind of does make him seem like such a nice guy. If you like. Oh, yeah.

You see it on his face, he was like, hey, a lot of times he'd be like, hey, man, we can't talk right now. You're just going to tell you, I just gonna tell you something. And so he would let me talk. Ross, I gotta ask, my wife, Jamis said, I would be remiss if I didn't ask, because she's loved the show and very invested in the fictional characters paired with a real person.

What is your, not to be intrusive, as you can't talk about, you can't talk about it, but what is your relationship with the cast and Ronald post show in terms of friendship, closeness, all that jazz? We're in a text thread. I Ronald and I, we talk at least once a week. That's incredible.

And that never happens with the cast. Yeah. You're usually just hanging out with a few weeks and it's like, all right, we'll see you and I'll follow you on social media. But I consider every one of my castmates, hanging out with a few weeks and it's like, all right, we'll see you and I'll follow you on social media, but we I consider every one of my castmates every every crew member every producer jakes a man scare director. They're my war buddies. Yeah, they we we pull that off

So so the relationships close and very special that's that's So the relationships close and very special. That's very special. I think Casey, you have a follow up to that question because I think Casey wanted to ask something too. We said, Casey, can I ask a question? No. Just super quick, Ross, like they showed it in the final episode.

They showed kind of the process of Ronald adjusting to the fact that you guys had different identities and personalities, even if they weren't that far from reality. Can you just tell us a little bit more about how long did that take him and what ways did he express like trouble adjusting to these different changes or anything? I can't speak to afterwards like in his private life, but in interviews he said, he'll be in the shower, and then I'll be sitting down doing like a memory

will pop up on his head about jury duty, and he'll go, wait, that was fake. That's so funny. But I will say during the reveal, when the reveal happened, we had a big meeting that morning about, hey, we don't know how this person is gonna react when we we pull the curtain up and say, hey, everything and everyone you've interacted with for the past three weeks, not real.

Especially if they've had, like, trust issues or something, that could be pretty bad. Right. Right. And to that, to find Ronald, it was, like, months of interviews and, like, some tests and psychological tests So they they they knew what they were doing with that. Yeah, but anyway, he was up there and they said and you know Judge all says actually this is my first case and this is not a real case and everyone you see and everyone you're Rector with as an actor but but he turns and his genuine reaction is what you see

But yeah that breathy what and just looking around He looks at us in the box then looks at that both lawyers And you see me and I wave because I can just tell him his eyes where he's like it's unbelievable It's not that he's scared and I just wave and he goes are you kidding me? So all of you and we all go up and hug and Kirk is the first one Kirk Fox is the first one to give him a hug And I seem lean into his ear, Perrono and Zira and whisper something.

And Rana recoils back and he goes, what, how come I didn't see it? And Kirk whispered in his ear, I'm Sue's Joe. And he goes, oh my gosh, you are, I'm gonna see it. And back up, that was cut. And then, I go up to him and I give him a hug and he goes, okay, okay. And you know, he's drinking a whole fire hose. So he's like, okay, so that wasn't your wife.

I go, no, and he goes, are you married? I go, oh yeah. And he goes, okay. And then we just, we just peel back the curtain and we get him into the control room and everyone's in there clapping for him. He's like, wait, what's happening? We show them everything. We show them everything. We had an ice cream truck pull up. It was all, it just felt like a reunion where it's yeah. Okay, now I need to get to know you. He still calls us. Well, he calls me Ross just because that was my name, but he sometimes accidentally calls us, our character, the other name. Yeah. Yeah. So he and he like Margaritaville and all that stuff to him, like the warehouse and

he was like, how did you and so he still has all these questions and he even says this in interview interviews now. I think it was excess Hollywood, but he goes, I wouldn't trade this for anything. These people are my friends, I have an experience, I get to, you know, he was like, I have James Marsden in my phone, I mean, he's just right. Yeah.

I feel like that's like, that's best possible, like, reaction slash, you know, conclusion to that is that he doesn't feel like super betrayed, but he has, but, and then I have to ask too, because I want to know, obviously, if people are listening to this, they have it,

or seen the show, it's still worth watching by the way, but we know you should have already watched it, but in the course of this thing, at the end of it, he is getting like $100,000, right? They announced that there's a prize for this, like a reward for him doing this. Was everyone aware of the cash price the whole time or was that something that was like,

sprung on you last minute? Revealed day, revealed a morning meeting. And they're like, okay, and then it was almost set a little quick. And it's like, and then we'll tell them they won't have $100,000. And we're like, wait, what? It would be funny if that's something

that the judge improvised and then everyone's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that might color some of the other, like, interactions in a weird way, but I'm also like, thank God they did that too. Thank God he got something out of it. So it wasn't just like, hey, by the way, none of this was real. We wasted four weeks of your life. You thought you've been some friendships, but it's like, hey, this might help soften it a little bit. There's some cash. There's some cash is that I've cheated with this, too. The producers did a great job of not telling us that because it would have, and honestly, it would have muddied some water in our performance and how we interact with them. And the reveal was just so, so joyful. I was getting giddy like knowing knowing knowing this is going to happen.

There were like counselors in the wings though in case always smart. He needed his space. If in case he needed just to be outside and just to take it all in, all of that was taking some consideration. It was very professional. That's so cool. Yeah, you know, it is those like they show you the behind the scenes kind of in the last episode, but it is cool to like know that they were like, honestly, they could have probably hit that in the last episode as well, because I'm sure that there were people watching like very anxiously being like, oh my god, like, what if, what if, what if, but it's like, no, it makes sense to have these considerations for doing something like that. And I tell people that too,

when whenever it gets brought up or I sometimes see it online, or they're like, I'm not in a prank shows. I'm not, oh, they're acting so mean, but they haven't watched it yet. Mm-hmm. I always tell people what we did was we took Ronald through the hero's journey. He doesn't like talking in public. We made him four person. You know, he, he is away from his girlfriend.

He's going to help someone who is away from his girlfriend. You know, he, he's next to a weirdo, like how does he react to this guy? Does he have empathy? Does he have compassion? So all around, I'm just glad that the world got to meet Ronald Gladden. What's your favorite moment of his? Like having watched the show or experiencing in real life, what moment made you like happy that they chose him?

experiencing in real life, what moment made you like happy that they chose him? Once I started hearing the stories back from the hotel and David told me this, he said he is very kind and he doesn't talk bad about anybody when the cameras are off. He doesn't say, oh man, Ken's so-and-so or Ross's so-and-so or so or like promote is but it couldn't be me. It's obvious. Damn, this guy can't even do it when the mic is off. He's, we have to, but we do have to cut that chuck. We have to cut that chuck because. That's when I knew, that's when I knew we had our guy because I was always at the end.

We threw him down like where the party animals were., were like to Sandra and as all this stuff. And I was just down here and he would float by us every once in a while and he would check in and I was like, okay, he's a nice enough guy. But once I started hearing the stories about how he was when he wasn't around anybody and the cameras were off, that's when I realized that we had someone really special. Yeah. Yeah. There's really, yeah, I really like to go back to when the game is invented. I really love that moment where he's like,

oh, I owe you X amount of money. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. And he's like, no, that's how much this, I can't believe that happened, but I owe you this much. He's like, please, we never played. This never happened. It was just cool to see him be so graceful and very,

it was cool to see the humanity seep through. And then the floodg gates open is really cool. You don't see it, but because it was cut early, but Ken offers Ronald, his gumball machines as collateral. Like you can have. It was so sweet. But we gave them space. Like they were there for close to an hour, just playing this game and, you know,

we got to the point. And and, you know, we got to the point and then, you know, the last role, Ronald, just, it's just something random happens and Ken has to justify. It was like a perfect and probably exercise where it's, why is this the ultimate role? Well, because you see it's touching here and then it's going across and then see if I put my hand right here, it covers it up, but then when it's away from it, it's still on the line. It makes no, like, makes no sense, but Ronald has to go with it.

It was perfect. The best part about that interaction is, because Ronald was so nice and he kept refusing him, kept clearing it and it made Ken able to hit it even harder when he was like, okay, yes, but I will pay you the $6,000. Oh, whatever, it's just like, oh no, it's so, it's so, it's so, oh god, outrageous.

Like I said, I would have had to walk away at every one of those interactions. I would not be able to be around. I'm afraid I'd get to feel so funny. Well Ross, we should say, and this is something we talked to Ross about beforehand and he agreed to it. For the last little bit here,

we're just gonna throw prompts at you as you agreed to and you're gonna improvise for 60 seconds. So like I might say, I might say butcher obsessed with birds and then you're going to do like a bit of an audition. Is that right? Sure. And that's fun for you. Uh, Ross, please tell everyone listening where they can find you anything you want to promote, anything you want to plug, anything upcoming. Yeah, jury duty on free. I am as on prime. So good. I pop in there every once in a while. You can find me at the Ross Kimball KIMBALL on Instagram, Twitter, may not be there for

a little bit, but usually Instagram. And yeah, LinkedIn, I'm at Ross Kimball, check me out. It's popping. I almost hope it's almost like, what's the like Nathan for you? Where it's like every season, I'm like, how is he still finding people who don't know who he is? I almost hope this cast does another,

season would be the wrong turn maybe, but another experiment or project was someone new, but it's scenario even. Yes, I hope things like this, because I'm such a fan of improv and immersive theater and all that, I really hope in reality TV, I really hope that this excites everyone enough to keep doing more projects like this. It's really a phenomenal show and wonderful job. Ross and thanks for coming on.

Yeah. I appreciate, thanks for having me. It was great meeting you guys. Great talking about it. Yeah. Hell yeah. Aaron, do you want to send us a word? I don't know what I, I forget what I say at the end of these. It's going to be a planet.

Just low fade at the end of the day. That's what I'm saying. I don't want you. That's what people love at the end of a podcast. What do you think just the audio fades out? Yeah, the audio is still fading right now. Yeah, the module just made over. It's still fading right now.