Richard Gadd on ‘Half Man’: ‘I never set out to answer questions’
Emmy-winning Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd opens up about Half Man, the six-part drama exploring repression, violence and toxic male relationships, and reveals how a single image inspired the series
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Richard Gadd talks about how his six-part miniseries ‘Half Man’, came to be, the themes of male repression and violence it explores, and the challenges he faced writing it
Published - July 21, 2026 05:59 pm IST
A scene from ‘Half Man’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Richard Gadd’s Half Man, a follow-up to the raw and real Baby Reindeer, for which he won three Emmy Awards, is equal parts difficult to watch and impossible to look away from. The six-part British series tells of the toxic relationship between two men, Niall and Ruben, played with fierce fragility by Jamie Bell and Gadd.
Told over 30 years, with Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell playing the younger versions of Niall and Ruben, the series explores complex issues of male violence, addiction and co-dependence.
Speaking from London over a video call, Gadd talks about how Half Man came to be. “It was around 2019. There were conversations around male repression and violence and something sparked in me. I remember I was on the tube. I came up with this idea of two men in a barn, with nothing explained or contextualised. One of them is topless, the other is not. One is clearly bigger, burlier and tougher, and they have this conversation. Then you cut back to their lives, and you see them soak up all the prejudices, shame and societal injustices that make them who they are.”
That image was all the 37-year-old Scottish writer and comic needed. “I never set out to answer questions, to explore themes, in an ‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this’, or ‘I’m going to say this about this.’ All I need is that kick forwards to do something — two broken men in the present, and the two young adults in the past, who show you the context for why these adults are behaving in the way that they are. That was all I needed to see the project through.”
While the series is mostly told from Niall’s perspective, Ruben is a presence throughout. That is why, Gadd says, it is hard to say whose story it is. “Niall sees Ruben as this godlike presence. Ruben’s got the idolatry, the main character syndrome, which is a common phrase these days,” Gadd says with a laugh.
The story, Gadd says, is about two brothers, who though not related by blood, have a toxic pull between them. “Things are never straightforward, never black and white. Ruben and Niall have an unexplainable bond. The fact that it’s not clear whose story it is shows the tussle they have in trying to be one up on each other. I can never say it is this or that person’s story. It’s both of their stories, and in a lot of ways, neither of their stories.”
Though people have asked him what the Half Man in the title stands for, Gadd says he does not like to say what things mean. “I know why it’s called Half Man. A lot of people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I think it’s called Half Man because of this or that’. I quite like that people take different things from the title. I don’t want to be prescriptive and say this is what I meant. People can take several things from the title.”
Richard Gadd in a scene from ‘Half Man’ | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Ruben even says it at one point in the series, Gadd says. “Niall and Ruben also have things that the other lacks. Celeste (played by Philippine Velge) has a line where she says one of them needs a head, the other needs a body. Together they are whole and empty apart. I’m proud of the title. Funny little fact: for a long period of time, I couldn’t quite land on what was right. Half Man came to me quite late in the day, and the second it dropped into me, I thought, ‘this feels right to me now’.”
Writing Half Man, Gadd says, was not easy. “The time pressure was tricky. All I remember is the project was a big, weighty thing. You’re coming up against pressure, expectation and some real stiff deadlines. I felt I worked day and night in order to get Half Man as good as I possibly could.”
The structure of Half Man created particular challenges, says Gadd. “Once I decided on these leaps forward in time, with each episode set a few years apart, it became difficult. I realised that having to return to each episode and recontextualise what the characters had been going through in the intervening years was tough. Exposition is dull and you have to find interesting ways to fill in the gaps between the episodes.”
