James Marsden’s 50th birthday bash took the cake — literally — with a candlelit dessert featuring a throwback photo of the star in his modeling days.

The Emmy-nominated actor and a bunch of other celebs piled into the Sheats-Goldstein Residence in L.A. Monday to celebrate Marsden’s milestone.

Bold-faced names included Tessa Thompson, Woody Harrelson, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Barnes and Aaron Paul. Ronald Gladden, who costarred with Marsden on the popular Amazon Freevee show “Jury Duty,” also made a cameo.

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Based on James Marsden’s history of playing impossibly handsome leading men — and often, would-be leading men — in movies including “27 Dresses,” “Enchanted,” “The Notebook” and the “X-Men” films, a burning ambition to do comedy wouldn’t be the first thing you’d imagine he’s been harboring all this time.

But the laughs have always been the Oklahoma native’s first love. “Before I moved out here (to L.A.), I wanted to be a regular on ‘SNL.’ Not a host — I wanted to actually be one of the cast,” Marsden said during a recent interview in Los Angeles. “I just felt like that played to my strengths. I was never that comfortable playing the super leading man. I was more interested in the character actors, the goofy roles.”

So when David Bernad approached him about a series he was exec-producing that was not only funny but also preposterously off-the-wall original, Marsden was intrigued. Created by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who were writer-producers on “The Office,” Amazon Freevee’s “Jury Duty” shares plenty of DNA with that beloved NBC comedy. Only think of it as the version where everyone at Dundler Mifflin knows what’s being filmed is fake — everyone but, say, Dwight Schrute.

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After breakout star Ronald Gladden and actor James Marsden appeared on the hit Amazon Freevee series, Jury Duty, the two reunited for ET as they revisited their time together on the documentary-style reality series. And Marsden also came with a surprise for Gladden — one that called back to one of their very first interactions about the actor’s co-star, Ben Schwartz.

On the show, Gladden thought he was participating in a documentary about what it is like to be on an American jury, only to learn at the end of his experience the entire thing was fake. Everything from the case, to his fellow jurors and even Marsden, who played a heightened version of himself who found himself stuck in the jury pool.

Very early on in the show, Gladden and Marsden got to talking about his acting career as the two waited to be interviewed as part of the jury selection process. After learning Marsden was in Sonic the Hedgehog, Gladden revealed he was a big fan of Schwartz, who voiced Sonic in the 2020 film adaptation, much to the chagrin of the 49-year-old actor.

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James Marsden opened up about what it was like to play a self-absorbed version of himself in his upcoming project Jury Duty.

If you were unaware, The 49-year-old actor stars in a docu-style comedy about being on jury duty that is coming to Amazon Freevee next month.

Instead of portraying a character, James plays a version of himself who attempts to use his star power to get out of serving on a jury. During a new interview, he explained what it was like to dramatize himself and how he used the casting as a chance to make fun of a certain breed of celebrities.

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Amazon Freevee’s new docu-style comedy series Jury Duty is set to premiere with four episodes on April 7. The 8-episode multi-camera comedy starring James Marsden will drop two new episodes each Friday thereafter until April 21.

Deadline exclusively revealed the top secret project from Amazon Studios was in the works back in September. Watch the trailer above.

Jury Duty chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one particular juror, Ronald Gladden. Gladden is unaware the entire case is fake, everyone except him is an actor, including Marsden, and everything that happens — inside the courtroom and out — is carefully planned.

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