that landed him his first Emmy nomination. He’s relieved that most people—and Emmy voters, clearly—seem to know he was taking on a role, despite the character’s having his name and backstory.
Many of the show’s most ridiculous situations are thanks to Marsden, who enters the story as a Hollywood star who very much wants to use his fame to get out of jury duty, and then later spends much of his time name-dropping the new film he’s going out for, throwing a few celebrity tantrums along the way.
But the outward appearance—and the character’s natural charm—is where the parallels to real-life Marsden end. He imbued the character with many of the flaws you’d expect in a Hollywood celebrity: an inflated ego, an obliviousness to the real world, and a strong streak of self-entitlement. “The guy’s just, like, a bit tone-deaf and kind of a dummy. He’s had other people think for him his whole career,” says Marsden.
The humor would have to come from the ridiculousness of Marsden’s character and the situations happening around Gladden. This would require Marsden and the rest of the cast to improvise in every scene, based on whatever Gladden did in the moment. The writers forhad created scripts—several versions of scripts, actually—that served as an outline for Marsden, who would then have to improv in the moment.