Directed by Clint Eastwood, ‘Juror #2’ follows the story of a man who discovers that he is serving on the jury for a case that he has a shocking connection with. The protagonist is Nicholas Hoult’s Justin Kemp, who is called for jury duty on the case of a woman who was killed a year ago, and the accused is her boyfriend. Justin knows nothing about the case, but the moment the details are laid out in front of him on the first day of the trial, he realizes that the boyfriend is innocent and he, himself, is the killer. The question now is: should Justin confess, or should he let justice take its course and let an innocent man take the fall? The film touches upon very human elements through a character that comes across as someone that you could live right next door to. Interestingly, the idea for the movie came from a real situation.
Juror #2 Draws Inspiration From Experiences in a Real Courtroom
‘Juror #2’ is an entirely fictional story conceived by the creative imagination of Jonathan Abrams. The writer revealed that he got the idea for it in a real courthouse. Explaining the origins of the film, he spoke of his close friend, who now serves as a judge in California and worked as a prosecutor before it. About a decade ago, he was on a case where it looked like he had lost the case for sure. The only way he thought he could salvage the situation was by giving a compelling closing argument, and for that, he called Abrams. The lawyers asked his friend to write something so powerful that it could move the jury. He didn’t mind Abrams factoring in stuff that would only seem to work in movies because, at that point, he didn’t have much to lose. Abrams worked his magic, and shockingly, the closing argument turned things around and won the case.
The win had such an impression on Abrams’ friend that he asked the writer to sit in on trials with him. One day, the writer attended the preliminary examination of the jury pool, where he found people trying to come up with excuses to get themselves out of jury duty. The judge, however, wasn’t having any of that. This led Abrams to think about the best possible thing that one could say in a situation that would absolutely make the judge let them go, and an interesting thought came to his mind. What if a person said that they couldn’t serve on the jury because they were the ones who committed the crime? That was the hook of the story, and the part about people making excuses found its way into the movie.
Once he knew what the story was about, Abrams started working on it. He talked with his lawyer friends to keep it as legally authentic as possible. When the movie went into production, director Clint Eastwood also sought advice from the judges and lawyers working in the courthouse where the film was shot. Abrams revealed that ‘Juror #2’ is influenced by ‘12 Angry Men,’ but it is Eastwood’s ‘Mystic River’ that he looked toward while setting the standard for the story’s tone and ending. Luckily, he got Eastwood himself to direct the film, and the writer was happier for it.
The Writer and Director Wanted Justin and James to be Flawed But Relatable
While penning the story, Jonathan Abrams knew that he didn’t want the protagonist to be someone that the audience roots against. He wanted Justin Kemp to be just another ordinary man whom the audience could relate to. He wasn’t to be some bad guy who wanted an innocent person to go to prison to save himself. In the beginning, at least, the audience had to see Justin as a normal guy who is caught up in an extraordinary situation and understand why he made certain decisions. The humanity of the character was the core of the story, and Clint Eastwood agreed with it. When the latter read the script, he liked the fact that the story was more about the person than about the crime. As his body of work has proven, the actor-director likes to take a minimal approach, where the focus is entirely on the characters. He desired the same with Justin.
Abrams revealed that Eastwood even asked him to do away with the superficial things and lean in on Justin’s dilemma and his desire to save himself, but he also did not want an innocent person to pay for his crimes. In the same vein, they wanted James Sythe to be a seemingly bad guy with whom the viewers could empathize despite his turbulent past. He provided the contrast of an innocent bad guy to Justin’s guilty good guy, making the storyline more engaging. The director believed that the audience should be able to put themselves in Justin’s shoes while also understanding James’ predicament, which gives more depth to the very real moral quandary that the story and characters of ‘Juror #2,’ even though fictional, present to the viewers.
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