Richard Gadd wanted to mine toxic masculinity in 'Half Man.' The result is a brutal brotherhood
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Plucked from a previous life as a working actor, Richard Gadd experienced a disorienting whirlwind less than two years ago.“Baby Reindeer,” his painfully personal 2024 Netflix show, based on the sexual assault he survived, instantly opened the floodgates of fame for him.“The show came out on Thursday, and by Sunday, I could barely walk anywhere without being recognized, without being stopped,” Gadd says while visiting The Times’ offices earlier this month.
“That’s an adjustment because I always thought if anything like that ever happened, it would be a bit more of a gradual process.But it was overnight, so I didn’t have time to adjust.”Now the winner of three Emmy Awards and a slew of other accolades for that series, which he starred in, wrote and served as showrunner, Gadd, 36, has already helmed a new emotionally ferocious show.Probing the tropes of rigid masculinity, “Half Man,” premiering Thursday on HBO, chronicles the destructive bond between two men over several decades.
Niall and Ruben — whose respective mothers are romantic partners — call themselves brothers but they couldn’t be more dissimilar.Bullied at school, meek Niall (played by Mitchell Robertson in his youth and Jamie Bell in adulthood) lost his father as a young boy.He dreams of being a writer.
Meanwhile, the insolent and hyper-confident Ruben (Stuart Campbell as a teen and Gadd as a grown-up) has been in trouble with the law from a tender age.Facing any conflict, he resorts to brutal violence.
When Ruben takes Niall under his wing, the two become inseparable.But as the years and resentments pile on, their cancerous brotherhood threatens to obliterate them both.“Richard’s writing is really unique and really singular,” Bell says on a video call from England, where he’s currently shooting the “Peaky Blinders” sequel series and is sporting a shorter haircut.
“He identi...