Mitchell Robertson is sitting on the floor of a casting director’s office somewhere in greater Los Angeles. In town for an Emmy event for “Half Man,” the Brit is doing the smart thing. He’s taking meetings, as he should. The Richard Gadd limited series is his breakout role. And with time cut short, he’s jumped on this Zoom interview, smartly multitasking during his Hollywood visit.
READ MORE: Richard Gadd Gambled On Himself With “Half Man” After “Baby Reindeer” And It Paid Off [Interview]
Appearing in the first three episodes of the BBC and HBO co-production, Robertson portrays the young adult version of Niall, a fledgling writer attending university in the late 1980s. He’s been raised alongside Ruben (played by Stuart Campbell), who is the polar opposite of Niall in both demeanor and, well, morality. Unfortunately, thanks to their mothers’ romantic relationship, they are effectively step-brothers whose lives have become dangerously intertwined. They simply cannot escape each other. The series eventually takes a time jump, and Jamie Bell takes over Niall’s role while Gadd transforms himself into Ruben. But it’s Robertson and Campbell’s performances that have to make you keep watching, and both demonstrate enough onscreen charisma to do so in spades.
During our conversation, Robertson discusses how he saw Niall as in “awe” of Ruben, his thoughts on the affection or sexual tension some saw in the series, how it was best that neither he nor Campbell knew what happened in the last episode, his connections to Bell, Gadd and much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Playlist: How did this project come your way? Was it just a traditional audition?
Mitchell Robertson: Yeah, it was the kind of traditional way that I got sent to self-tape, and then I went in for a recall, and then I did some chemistry auditions. In terms of what I thought about it, I was blown away by it. I was kind of in awe of it a little bit in terms of how good I thought it was, and I really loved the character, and I loved the conflict of it, the relationship that the two have, the conflict that the character had in himself. I thought it was funny. I thought it was scary. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was brutal. I just was really drawn in by it.
When they gave you the sides, how much did they actually tell you of the entire series? Was it just a limited thing? Did they give you any background at all when you came in to actually audition?
So, I had all of episode one and I had the fall of episode two.
O.K., that’s a lot.
They had also sent a little bit of a breakdown of where the show was maybe going to go. I think Richard had a bit of an idea, but it was still working some bits out. So, it was just a bit of a blueprint for where it might go, but it was enough for me to go into the audition with a sense of the character.
Did you know you were playing a younger version of Jamie?
No, I didn’t know that it was Jamie until I think the last audition, because I think it had been announced. But for the initial auditions, I had no idea. Just the final chemistry audition with Stuart. I knew that Jamie was playing the old version.
Did Richard tell you anything about Niall that wasn’t on the page? That helped with your performance?
I mean, I’ve got to say Richard was great in that sense. He really allowed myself and the director to work out those kinds of specifics about the character. He would maybe sometimes on the set inform us of what he had in mind for maybe what the character, a little bit of his background, or maybe the inner workings of what he thought. But to be honest, it was all there on the page. What I mean is the page was enough to inform a performance. What was on the script was enough to allow me to either fill in the blanks or find what I had to from it. So, he was there to really guide us through it, and he was really there to guide us through the performance, particularly with how he envisioned the scene to go. But in terms of building a character, that was a process that I did with [director] Alexandra Brodski.
How important was it though for you to connect with Jamie in terms of keeping anything consistent between the characters or was it not?
He had access to what we were shooting. He was getting sent some of the assemblies, some of the kind of things that were made. And so, to be honest, all the credit for the consistency of the character is with Jamie. I really can’t take any credit for that. That was a case of him watching what we were making and then learning the mannerisms, I guess, that I was doing for the character. It was really important that we spoke before the show, which we did do. We had a conversation before the show, to establish a bit of an understanding that we have for the character, obviously his version of Niall, because it is years later, will be slightly different from the version that I play just because people change. But in terms of watching it and making sure that you still saw the same character, even though it was two different actors, that’s all Jamie’s work.
In that context though, was there any sort of baseline that you wanted to establish for him in any way? Were there any rules you kept thinking about how you portrayed him no matter what the context of the scene?
No, not really. I remember us having a conversation about how it points to Niall being in awe of Ruben, or how it points to Niall’s thing is that he doesn’t feel safe and that he is always searching for danger. But with that, we didn’t go too much into detail, truly, which is interesting. I think when you watch the performances, it looks like we maybe did. But yeah, no, we didn’t have super in- depth conversations about anything really.
In the first few episodes, there is sort of underlying tension that Niall might have had a crush on his stepbrother or not. Was that in the script? Or did it just come through in the edit?
In the script?
It seems like there’s a little sexual tension between them that is more than just…If you were seeing them talking, you might not even assume they were stepbrothers or brothers or at all. There’s just a weird tension there. And I’ve heard this from other viewers.
Totally. And I see how people can see that. It wasn’t in the script. It wasn’t something that I particularly remember playing. I don’t remember ever leading with that. The only scene where I think I remember us having a conversation about it would’ve been the scene where Ruben brings Mona into the room in episode one. And of course, there’s also the scene where Niall wakes up, and he’s had a wet dream. Particularly the scene that we have with Mona in episode one for Niall, with his focus so much more on Ruben than it is on Mona. And I think that I remember having a conversation that part of that maybe could be to do with a crush. Maybe part of that could also be that he wants to please Ruben in other platonic ways. The truth is, I’m as intrigued as everyone else. I’m as curious about it as everyone else.
In most movies or television shows, you would go to the writer and ask. Did Richard not want to give answers? Did he just want you all to figure it out?
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t remember ever asking him too much about that specific of it. I guess what was important was knowing that whatever I was playing, whatever scene I was in, that in some ways you’re playing that Niall has a secret and he wants to hide that from Ruben. Niall wants Ruben’s approval. Niall wants Ruben to like him. Niall wants to be safe when he is around Ruben. I guess it was like playing all of this as if Niall’s in awe of Ruben. And yeah, I don’t know. It’s interesting because I see it. I see it as well. I see how that comes across, but I truly don’t remember it being at the forefront of the conversation. I think the relationship as well that they have with each other is so complicated and so nuanced and has so many layers that I think there were so many different things coming out, and maybe that idea of Niall having a crush on Ruben was one of them.
Before production started, was there one particular scene you were most focused on?
I think the one that felt the biggest would be the Mona scene where it really brings more in the window and episode one. That was the one that probably I had to maybe give most thought to just because it felt like such a big scene for the character, but such a big scene for me as an actor as well to perform. I really wanted to do it, though. I really wanted to do that scene and even though it was going to be tricky, I wanted that challenge. And the truth is that we went to shoot it, it was scarier on the page than it was to shoot. That’s probably a testament as well to all the crew and the intimacy coordinators and everyone else. But that was the scene that I think gave me the most things to think about probably.
Did you and Stuard feel like you needed to do any bonding beforehand? Was that important for the role?
So the truth is we really clicked as soon as we met, and we had two weeks before we started shooting to do camera tests, costume tests. Do a little bit of rehearsal with the script, talk about the script. So, over those two weeks, our relationship kind of just blossomed anyway, and we got closer. So I think subconsciously we were kind of bonding, but it wasn’t anything that we kind of set out to do. I think sometimes when you make something, what I’ve kind of learned with “Half Man” is sometimes some things just have a little bit of magic. And I think obviously with the casting team, we did a chemistry audition, and the casting team saw that chemistry with Richard and Alex and everyone else. So I think a lot of that work also of the chemistry goes to them for just seeing it, because sometimes two people just have it. That kind of magic that maybe sometimes you can’t quite put your finger on, that everything just seemed to kind of flow in some sort of a way where Stuart and I had that chemistry where the things that we were talking about previously could come across without having to necessarily talk about it. I think a lot of time when you’re making stuff, it is subconscious and it’s already there. We’d like to go back to your earlier question. I think there were so many things that maybe we didn’t have to speak with Richard about because it was already there.
Did they give you the whole series? Did you know how it was going to end while you were making it?
So, I had no idea. And I think, to be honest, it was better that way. I think it’s good when you’re doing something like this to have…I mean, I can see the other end of it as well, why it would be good to know where it ends, but I think I just wanted to play the truth of what was happening to my character at that time. So I didn’t know four, five, or six. We were really in the dark. And again, I don’t think anyone ever said, “Keep them away from these episodes.” It’s just something that subconsciously happened that everyone kind of knew that we didn’t want to know about what happened. We didn’t go looking to see what happened to the older versions of our characters. It was kind of unspoken.
I also just wanted to clarify: did they block this out? Did you and Stuart shoot first and then Richard and Jamie went? There was no shooting at the same time because of locations and everything?
No shooting at the same time. Block one, episode one, two, three, and then block two, four, five, and six. And obviously episodes shot out of order and stuff, but yeah, it was split up.
Also, was Richard on set, or did he stay away since he was playing Ruben?
No, he was on set. Richard’s super hands-on with everything, which is great because he is super passionate and he’s such a great storyteller, so he was there every day to guide that for us as the showrunner and as the writer as well.
Now that the show’s come out, is the reaction to the show what you thought it would be?
Yeah, I think so. I don’t know. I guess I’m a little bit taken aback just because it’s new to me. It’s new, the kind of level of attention online. But the responses that I’ve seen have been really great. I’m really glad that people have taken to it and that people care about the characters. It’s been nice to see. It’s been nice to have worked on something that you’re passionate about, and then other people are passionate about it. I guess, maybe I’m a little bit surprised at just how much people care about the characters because you never know when you’re making something. And so it’s surprising, I guess, in some ways just how much people, the passion that they have for it.
“Half Man” is available on HBO Max
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