Over the course of a year, Richard Gadd bared his soul in “Baby Reindeer” and won every conceivable award imaginable. This after the semi-autobiographical Netflix limited series, which was supposed to be a local U.K. programming play, became a worldwide streaming sensation. The writer and actor could have rested on his laurels. He could have waited to see what offers came in and pick and choose his next project. Instead, he jumped into making “Half Man” for HBO and the BBC. All while “Reindeer” was still exploding around the globe.
READ MORE: “Half Man” Review: Richard Gadd’s ‘Baby Reindeer’ Follow-Up
Set in two different timeframes, the contemporary narrative finds Gadd portraying the rough-and-tumble Ruben Pallister and Jamie Bell as not-so-sheepish novelist Nail Kennedy, two men raised as brothers by their mothers, who were in a romantic relationship at the time. But in the decades since, their lives have taken dramatically different turns. And while the series is polarizing to some, the performances are absolutely impossible to forget.
Gadd wrote all six episodes, produced and ended up starring in the series (never his intention). “Half Man” is also markedly different in tone and subject matter than “Reindeer.” Both are big swings, and when Gadd spoke to The Playlist earlier this week, we had to ask if he was relieved at the critical and audience reception.
“Oh, it does give me relief. It’s funny you say that because relief is one of the big feelings, because I could have done a lot of things after ‘Baby Reindeer,’ and I decided to take all that stock and, I guess, gamble it back in myself in a tight timeframe, and the pressure was phenomenal,” Gadd admits. “I just felt overwhelming pressure. But in those times, all you can do is work harder and harder and just keep going through it. And so yeah, I’m just proudest being a worthy follow-up because I guess it was a big risk doing it so soon after ‘Baby Reindeer.'”
Gadd, who was chatting from Rhode Island where he’s following the Team Scotland’s World Cup run, said he “just had to get back on the horse and do it again” sooner rather than later after making “Reindeer.”
“There was a worry I think I had maybe about basking in it too long or ‘Baby Reindeer’ would come out, and I didn’t want to coast. I just wanted to get back on it. I wanted to keep momentum up,” Gadd says. “I do believe in ring rust to a certain degree, how boxers talk about ring rust: if they’re too long out of the ring, they forget how to fight. And I think the same applies for almost any discipline in work and in life and in any hobby. And I think I never want to spend too much time away from writing because I always want to try and get better, I guess. And the only way I’m going to get better is by doing it and doing it and doing it and keeping on taking risks and testing myself.”
During our conversation, Gadd also reflects on the intense physical transformation he made for the role, how Bell suggested he take Ruben’s role, his inspiration for the decidedly fictional series, his favorite moments in the show (they may surprise you), his love of television and – take note, auteur directors – whether or not he’d act in someone else’s production.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Playlist: I was eventually going to ask you if you’re working on anything new, but you are clearly preoccupied, justifiably, with the World Cup. Are you here for the duration or just to see how long your team goes?
Richard Gadd: Well, I’m going to all the group stage matches. I’ve got Brazil, and I’ve been to Haiti. That was an amazing one-nil victory for the Scots. And then I’m still looking for tickets from Morocco because they’re so hard to come by and the Scotland tickets are in such demand. So looking for Morocco, got tickets sorted for Brazil and I’m going to be in the US on the East Coast for the whole of the World Cup group stage experience.
And this is at Foxborough Stadium, right?
Yes, it’s a great stadium, really great sound traveling and atmosphere. Loved it.
The Playlist: I did not see the game on TV. Was it full of Scottish fans?
Well, I would say there were probably more Scots than people supporting Haiti, but the Haiti fans were brilliant as well, really loud. But it was a good atmosphere. Everyone got on really well, and the Scotland fans and the Haiti fans, they got on really well together. And there was a great atmosphere coming from all sections of the stands and a real feel-good. These are two nations that don’t get to the World Cup often. So, there was a real sense that everyone was extremely happy to be there.
Let’s talk about “Half Man” though. I think I read that you wrote this before “Baby Reindeer”?
So, I wrote a kind of pilot script before “Baby Reindeer” was great lit. And all the way through “Baby Reindeer,” I kept thinking about it and wanting to get back to it, and it just never really left. I kept that, “I wonder what that script, I want to go back to that. I wonder if … ” So I’d done one episode basically, but during “Baby Reindeer,” the show was commissioned. So, BBC and HBO – this is before the show even came out. The pilot script then did the rounds, and they committed to doing it before “Baby Reindeer” had come out. So I really, by the time “Baby Reindeer” had been released into the world, I kind of knew what I was doing next, which was kind of like a crazy feeling.
Knowing that journey, did you know the end of the show when you wrote the pilot? You might not have known how many episodes, but did you know where it was going to go?
I think so. I always try to leave room for space to surprise yourself when you’re writing. I find a mistake that a lot of people make when they write is they have a structure that excites them and they don’t like to veer out of that structure. I think you’ve got to almost hold the script on a leash, but let it go where it wants to go kind of thing. And so I’m not sure I really had a true ending in a lot of ways, but I think I thought the more and more I wrote that these two guys…they can’t live together. So, the inevitability is that they have to die together. And that became very, very apparent as I was working through the series at script stage.
Was it important to you that you didn’t leave it open-ended in the sense that there could be “Half Man” season two? Do you prefer a closed, limited series format?
I felt like with “Baby Reindeer,” it was quite clear. This is a limited series, done. And the more and more I worked through “Half Man,” the more and more I thought, “Oh, this is a limited series as well. And I became very clear on that.” I think when I started it, there was maybe a thought about a season two, but due to the kind of structure of it and the way it leaps around and it captures decades of life between these two brothers, it felt to me like the restlessness and the structure making it that mosaic structure, making it whole, it felt like as a show it should be one season.
