“Jury Duty” Star Anthony Norman Tells All After “Company Retreat”’s Big Reveal (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat returns for its reunion on Friday, April 10

• Ahead of the chapter closing, Anthony Norman, the man at the center of the show, tells PEOPLE what he’s learned from the experience

• “Most people won’t ever share how they’re feeling, so just move with love and compassion,” he says

Along his way to earning a $150,000 check in Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, Anthony Norman endured watching failed proposals, business deals gone wrong and fabricated footage of grandmas playing electric guitar.

As the “hero” of the Prime Video series, which aired its finale on Friday, April 3, Anthony was the target of an elaborate prank that put his kindness and compassion to the test.

Surrounded by actors at a faux company retreat, Norman — who, unlike everyone else, had no idea what was going on around him — quickly became an unsuspecting leading man.

While the friends he made and colleagues he met on his journey to save a family-owned business were all hired to take on fake personas, Anthony says he still learned a little something from each of them.

“With me, with still trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do in life, they taught me that it’s not the job. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. It’s the people around you,” Anthony tells PEOPLE after the show’s big reveal.

Through eight episodes of Company Retreat — the second iteration in the popular Jury Duty franchise — Anthony thought he was hired onto the Rockin’ Grandma’s hot sauce crew to offer a helping hand during the retreat in Agoura Hills, Calif. He just didn’t expect the chaos that would ensue while there.

All things eventually led up to the show’s eighth episode, in which Anthony does what the folks behind the scenes were hoping he’d do. He refused to let Doug (the Rockin’ Grandma’s CEO played by Jerry Hauck) sign the company away to Triukas, a sketchy investment group that wanted to step in and lay off employees.

It marked an emotional moment where livelihoods were at stake, as Anthony barged in on a meeting and pleaded his case. Ultimately, the “deal” was off and Anthony saved the day.

“I would lean more towards the moral duty,” Anthony says of the moment. “I felt like that was just something that I had to do. Standing up for the people that I love and that I care about is something that I will always do. So more of a moral obligation.”

And that love is real. When Anthony discovers in the show that the people he has met during his brief stint at Rockin’ Grandma’s are actually paid actors, he still gives them hugs and expresses his gratitude. Those connections, Anthony says, are still authentic, even if the people he had them with weren’t exactly who they presented as.

“Those connections were definitely real,” he says. “I don’t think there was really ever a moment of hesitation. Up until this day, they’re all there for me, open lines of communication, anything I need, they’re there.”

“I didn’t really feel like I had to relearn them,” Anthony adds of his new pals. “The only thing I really had to relearn were their names. Their characters are just one side of them.”

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For example, Anthony really hit it off with the CEO’s eccentric son Dougie Jr., played by actor Alex Bonifer. During episode 8, Bonifer called him a “brother for life,” even though their close connection was built partly on the character Bonifer played.

“[The character is] a little bit more childish or immature, if you will, so I just picture him going back to him and his younger days just being silly and stuff,” Anthony says. “I think all of them are genuinely still the same person. I just got to see the goofy sides of them.”

After the show wrapped, Anthony has still kept up with his castmates. While “it’s hard to really get together” since he resides in Nashville, he connects with them virtually and communicates with “everybody.”

Now settling down from the whirlwind of Jury Duty, Anthony is also still taking on jobs here and there. As he tells PEOPLE, he does whatever “could fit in my schedule.” Sometimes he “might show up and do the job for one day, sometimes it might be a week.”

“Right now I’m just serving at events, weddings, different stuff like that,” he says. “There’s certain apps out there where you can go out there and just pick up a shift.”

Before Company Retreat wraps with a two-episode drop on Friday, April 10, Anthony shares some advice for the next guy who finds himself at the center of one of these shows: “Move with care and compassion. Don’t judge anybody. You don’t know what they’ve been through. You don’t know how they’re feeling. And most people won’t ever share how they’re feeling, so just move with love and compassion.”

Company Retreat is now streaming on Prime Video. James Marsden, who appeared in the first season of Jury Duty, will host two special episodes for Company Retreat, on Prime Video April 10. One will mark a reunion episode, and the other will feature Anthony meeting Ronald Gladden, the subject of the show’s first season.

Read the original article on People