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Richard Gadd, the writer and star of last year’s smash-hit Netflix drama Baby Reindeer, said recently that the massive success of the show has made his life “intolerable” at times.
Based on Gadd’s real-life experiences, Baby Reindeer followed a struggling comedian entangled in a disturbing and obsessive relationship with his female stalker. As the show went viral on Netflix just over a year ago, some fans identified Fiona Harvey as the real woman behind Gadd’s stalker, Martha (portrayed in the series by Jessica Gunning). Harvey responded to the show by filing a $170 million lawsuit against Netflix for defamation.
“There have been a lot of challenging moments,” Gadd told the Guardian in a recent interview. “The show has reached such an extreme pitch — there have been times when I’ve felt like the pressure was intolerable. It’s been a hurricane. I don’t think I’m at the point of reflection yet. I need some real time off to figure out how to get my feet back on ground, because I feel very squeezed.”
Asked what kind of impact the show had on his life, Gadd responded: “It came out on a Thursday, and by Sunday people were knocking on my door asking for autographs.”
He said that before the show’s success, he was an “arthouse comedian, performing to five people every night, so it was a huge adjustment. I’m still getting used to it. Going to the supermarket comes with a million caveats now.”
Despite Baby Reindeer being partly about trying to find fame, Gadd insists that he “never wanted it,” adding: “I just liked the idea that, one day, I would make a piece of art that was culturally important, because then maybe I would learn to like myself. The biggest emotion that comes with fame is a sort of paranoia in public.”
Gadd’s experience has clearly not been an easy one, and it demonstrates how the boundaries between art and real life can blur, resulting in intense scrutiny that can be difficult to manage — even while the work itself achieves critical acclaim and commercial success.
For his work on Baby Reindeer, Gadd won a U.K. BAFTA award on Sunday night for Best Writer: Drama, while Gunning won the Best Supporting Actress category.
As he continues to adjust to life around his new-found fame, Gadd is working on a new BBC drama series called Half Man, which is set to premiere in the U.K. (BBC) and the U.S. (HBO) sometime in 2026.
