Carefully staged world of Jury Duty Presents Corporate Retreat was close to getting busted when Eminem’s music came into play. The unsuspecting star looks back at the moment that nearly exposed the show’s machinations.
The show follows an unaware participant placed inside a fully scripted environment. A cross between The Truman Show and You Got Pranked, it found its audience on Amazon Prime Video. The audience is eager to see how one real person reacts when nothing around them is real.
This time, that person was Anthony Norman. His calm, trusting demeanour helped him get through the show and won over the viewers.
Moment of truth
Recently, in an recent interview, Anthony revealed the moment when the truth almost burst the studio’s pretence bubble. Unsurprisingly, Eminem is involved in the story.
Anthony said that the closest he came to questioning the situation was during the talent show preparations:
“There was a moment where one of the producers, Alexis, came out. I was working with Jimmy on the talent show, and he was remixing an Eminem song. Then she came out, and she was like, ‘We’re a low-budget documentary. We can’t do that’. And I was like, okay, whatever. Then, like two days later, Sia comes out and has this big performance. And I’m just like…[hands rubbing temples]”.
When the producer said the show could not afford the music, Norman accepted it and moved on. However, a few days later, Sia appeared on set and gave a full performance at the same talent show. Suddenly, the earlier budget excuses made little sense, and the explanations producers were coming up with felt like they were in the uncanny valley.
Right man for the job
Of course, the Corporate Retreat producers did a good job by choosing the star who was both patient and willing to go along with things. And yet, isn’t it symbolic that it was Eminem’s situation that was the most revealing of the fake nature of the show?
Slim Shady himself made his name by calling things out and not being afraid to speak truth out loud. Apparently, his music has this power in the most peculiar settings.