Fresh Air with Terry Gross

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. My guest today, Emmy Award-winning actor, writer and comedian Richard Gadd, writes complex stories about the parts of being human most of us hide. His Netflix series "Baby Reindeer" became an instant phenomenon in 2024. It's an unsettling story of a struggling comedian who is being stalked by a woman while grappling with the sexual abuse he endured from an older man early in his career. The series became one of the most-watched Netflix shows ever, winning six Emmys, and made Gadd almost overnight one of the most scrutinized writers in television. Well, now he's back with "Half Man," a six-part HBO limited series set in 1980s Scotland. It's about two boys who become brothers after their mothers fall in love. One is volatile, just out of juvenile detention. The other is quiet, sensitive and afraid. Over 30 years, the show traces what happens to them and to each other. Critics have already been calling "Half Man" a show about toxic masculinity, and Gadd has pushed back on that. He says it's more about repression and what happens to boys who learn early that the parts of themselves they need most are the parts they often feel forced to bury.

Richard Gadd, welcome to FRESH AIR.

RICHARD GADD: Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. I appreciate that.

MOSLEY: Well, you know, I am sure that people are going to want to slot this series next to kind of this manosphere conversation, and you have pushed back on that pretty firmly. And I just want to know more about that, what - about really the themes that you're trying to explore.

GADD: Well, it's interesting because the manosphere kind of was a word that I came across about three months ago, and I actually wrote the script back in 2019. I wrote a kind of pilot script kind of exploring, I guess, men, male violence. But I didn't really set out with any sociopolitical aim. I never really do in my work. I always just try and capture something that I believe to be hopefully interesting and human all at once. And so it's about expression. It's about vulnerability. It's about the difficulty of male relationships and the dangers of repression.

MOSLEY: Yeah. You know, the two characters, Niall and Ruben, to me, I felt like they both kind of represent two sides of how to be a man. They're, like, on two sides of the spectrum. Is that how you saw them, and what did you need to imagine into existence to write them?

GADD: Well, I thought the most interesting thing is you do take two archetypes of - I don't like these words because these words are subjective. But if you take an alpha male and a beta male, even though I think everyone's idea of an alpha and a beta is very different, you know, person to person, if you take the stereotypical alpha and beta and you put them in a two-shot opposite each other - you know, one's kind of muscly and, you know, terrifying-looking, and the other is kind of well dressed up and timid - and you start to kind of deconstruct that from there. I thought that was an interesting starting point. But I like to think as the show progresses, the boxes in which we meet them in become a bit more blurred and a bit more complicated.

MOSLEY: I actually want to play a clip that gives us a deeper lens into the two of them. So in this scene that I'm going to play, young Niall, who is played by Mitchell Robertson, and young Ruben, who is played by Stuart Campbell - they are together in the room that they share together. And by this point, they have earned each other's trust. Ruben has beat up Niall's bully. Niall has helped Ruben pass an exam he needs to stay in school. And he's also - Ruben has also brought a girl over to help Niall lose his virginity. And in this scene, they're lying on the bedroom floor, talking about their mothers who are a couple. And then Ruben hands Niall a present, a boxing glove. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HALF MAN")

STUART CAMPBELL: (As Ruben) Can I ask you something?

MITCHELL ROBERTSON: (As Niall) Sure.

CAMPBELL: (As Ruben) Are our mums, you know?

ROBERTSON: (As Niall) Yeah. Afraid so. Does it bother you or something?

CAMPBELL: (As Ruben) No. No, not really, as long as they're happy, I guess. I don't know. They don't seem all that happy.

ROBERTSON: (As Niall) There's a lot you don't know about.

CAMPBELL: (As Ruben) Here. Got you something. Not going to train you. Just in case something happens to me, I need to know you'll look after yourself.

ROBERTSON: (As Niall) Why do you care?

CAMPBELL: (As Ruben) We're family now. That's the most important thing. My brother from another lover.

MOSLEY: Richard, that gift, a single boxing glove - Ruben is genuinely trying to give Niall something he thinks will help him, but what he is offering is kind of the only language he has, which is violence, a boxing glove. Tell me about that scene. What were you trying to do in that moment?

GADD: Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head there with this kind of offering. I think Ruben reacts to the world in violence. It's all he understands. It's his safety net against the kind of terrors of life. And I think he knows fine well due to his nature that there might be a world where he's not always there. And so he wants to toughen Niall up and, you know, make sure he's there. I mean, family means everything to Ruben. You know, as the story unfolds, we'll understand why. But family means everything to him. So, you know, he - they're in this kind of very hybrid household, this kind of weirdly dysfunctional kind of way of coming together. And he wants Niall to not only learn to fend for himself because I think at this point, he's genuinely really fond of Niall and loves him and sees him as family, but he also wants there to be a masculine presence within the family household when he goes. And so I think in a weird way, it is Ruben's love language, giving him a pair of boxing gloves.

MOSLEY: Can you describe the characters of Nialls (ph) and Ruben and how their relationship progresses?

GADD: Niall and Ruben, they form a kind of really close bond, like, a really, you know, layered and complicated bond that they just can't shake. And no matter what happens in their life, no matter all the good and bad experiences they go through, they seem unable to shake having each other in their lives. I think as they move through lives and as they change - and the characters go through all kinds of different changes throughout the series - one thing that they cannot escape is that feeling they had for each other when they were in their youth, which is this very confusing, very complicated love that they seem incapable of expressing. And the series kind of mutates through that and takes you through that feeling of can't live with someone, can't live without them that forms the very basis of their relationship.

MOSLEY: The intimacy between Niall and Ruben is so charged it almost reads to me as sexual. And I've been wondering, is that on me? Are we just so not used to seeing real intimacy between men that we automatically code it that way? You know what I'm saying? And I was wondering if you were thinking about that as you wrote them and how men can't show affection.

GADD: I certainly - I always get worried about spelling things out too clearly because, I think, I like all of my work to be open for interpretation. But I certainly wanted there to be a charged, almost unexplainable energy between them. Like, I think there's feelings that they have for one another that they cannot express or even pin down insides of themselves. And I think that there is a - they're - they certainly work away on subliminals that even they aren't aware of. And I think that only grows during the course of the season. They are inextricably bound, and I think they have complicated feelings that are almost impossible to grapple down. I - you see it in a lot of men. You know, like, their - like, sometimes, like, close male relationships can be so close they sort of teeter in a boundaryless place. You know, even between alpha males, they're kind of - they're boundaryless, but there's, like, a physical closeness that they need to have with one another.

MOSLEY: You wrote this, and you also star in it. And you put on something like 50 pounds of muscle to play the adult Ruben. Is that right?

GADD: I think it might have been more than 50 pounds. I work on the old kilograms. We're on a different system, aren't we? But yeah, I was so skinny in "Baby Reindeer," and I lost a lot of weight to be Donny Dunn and be thin and be frail in my body and feel that vulnerability was such a commitment. And then, you know, this was, like, the opposite way - just, like, ballooning up and ballooning up. And yeah, I just really wanted it (ph) believable. I knew that people who had seen "Baby Reindeer," you know, like, they had to go on a journey in buying that the guy in the comedy suit was the guy on the motorcycle in the leather jacket and the tank top. And I felt the only way people were going to see me as a strutting example of bravado and masculinity would be to change kind of everything about myself or what - who they understood me to be. And so I knew I needed to physically transform. It was almost vital to the show.

MOSLEY: You know, you had me also thinking about maybe what's been intoxicating about the performance of masculinity for you.

GADD: Well, I guess I never really performed it before I did Ruben, if that makes sense. But it was interesting just going round life kind of as a big person and just how people sort of treat you differently and all that kind of stuff. And, well, you just - I feel like people are kind of nervous or especially - I think it was like I gave off an intimidating vibe, even though I was just an actor with a beard and a mad haircut and a big sort of body.

I always remember going down - I think at my biggest, I was on a flight, and I walked down, like, the middle aisle and there were, like, seats on the right and left. And I just remember people kind of just putting their heads down as I passed. I think people are attuned to think, oh, that's danger. You know, that guy looks - he looks a bit mad and he's massive, and so I'm going to - I'm not going to provoke him. But I guess that was the visuals that I wanted from Ruben. So I guess in that respect, it worked.

MOSLEY: You being recognized, it's a fairly new experience for you since "Baby Reindeer." I mean, it was really almost like - especially here in the States - for you an overnight thing.

GADD: Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, it's calmed down a lot. Either that or I've got used to it. But I remember in the height of "Baby Reindeer," it was really quite something. I couldn't adjust to it. And even if nothing happened, you would wander around kind of like, what's coming next and, you know, who's going to come up to me? And invariably, you always hear, you know, people talking and whispering, and that would always make me worried. I'm so used to this now it doesn't bother me.

But, you know, "Baby Reindeer" was crazy. It came out on a Thursday - April 11, I think it was - two years ago. And I think by Sunday, it just felt like everyone in the world was stopping me, coming up to me, speaking to me, 'cause there was hysteria around "Baby Reindeer." It was the zeitgeist. It was the hottest thing on the planet. It was crazy.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, I am talking with Emmy Award-winning actor Richard Gadd about his new HBO series "Half Man," which he wrote and stars in. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ISOTOPE 217'S "AUDIO BOXING")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I am talking with Richard Gadd, Emmy-winning actor, writer and comedian and creator of "Baby Reindeer." He has a new HBO series called "Half Man" about two boys who become brothers when their mothers fall in love and the tangled bond they carry for the next three decades. Gadd's 2024 series "Baby Reindeer" was a semi-autobiographical story of a struggling comedian, his female stalker and the sexual abuse he survived early in his career. It became one of the most-watched shows in Netflix history.

OK. Richard, I want to go back to 10 years ago, on a stage in Scotland, your one-man show called "Monkey See Monkey Do." And in the show, you talk candidly about a very devastating thing that happened to you - that you were raped. And in this clip I'm going to play, you describe one of the three mistakes you made after this thing happened to you. And I just want to note that it's kind of a bit of comedy and a bit of seriousness all in one. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GADD: Mistake No. 1 - wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I mean, I was practically asking for it.

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: Am I right, ladies?

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: I'm joking, right?

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: Mistake No. 1. Mistake No. 1 tied me into this idea that I was no longer a man anymore. This idea that I'd been feminized. It's funny. Out of all the things that bothered me - and trust me, there was a lot that bothered me. There was a lot that bothered me. The one thing that bothered me most, and it seems ridiculous in retrospect - the one thing that bothered me the most, the one thing that bothered my monkey the most - this idea that I was no longer a man. This idea that I'd been feminized. And six years on, what is masculinity? What does that really mean? It's just a word. It's just a box for people to put things in. It doesn't exist. And I let it bother me for six years.

And if masculinity does exist, then masculinity is the problem with everything. It's the problem on my side in terms of not speaking out, but it's the problem on the other side, as well, in terms of doing something like this in the first place. A lack of power in a man's head driving him towards primal, sexual monkey dominance. Masculinity creates wars. Femininity doesn't create wars. What women do we know who created wars, invaded other countries? Well, Thatcher and Argentina.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: Richard, first off, I watched that clip with my brother and my cousins, and they were all really moved about it, and it just started a conversation. And what I wanted to talk with you about is this idea of being a victim of sexual violence somehow disqualifying you from manhood. I think it's a common experience. I think it's a common experience to feel shame and to repress and not want to tell. And so I think it's pretty remarkable that not only did you speak about it, you spoke about it on stage. You wrote a one-man show wrapped around it. I want to know that moment of you saying, the only way out of this for me is to talk about it. Because so many men and people in general will go to their grave with it because they don't want that on them. They don't want to be associated with maybe the worst thing that has happened to them.

GADD: Yeah. It was a case of kind of do or die, almost. I know that sounds extreme, but it's the truth. I couldn't keep it in anymore. Yeah, I had - I was done thinking about it. I think I believed, maybe naively, that I could think my way out of it, that I could sort of land on a thought or a sense of clarity on it on my own. But I would just be synoptically firing the kind of doubts and thoughts around my head, to the point where it actually got greater and greater and greater. And it just got to a point where I just felt like I was done. And I think I told my mom first, maybe one of my friends. And it was, like, always painful. I always remember, like, the adrenaline was kind of unbelievable. But then you would always feel like a weight had been lifted, you know?

And then, I suppose, meanwhile, I was going up to the Edinburgh Fringe and all of this stuff. And I was putting on wigs and wearing daft teeth and doing anti-jokes and doing these kind of really madcap jokes that were wacky humor. And, but meanwhile, I was sort of dying inside. And it was just this juxtaposition. You almost can't write it. You almost - this is what "Baby Reindeer" is all about, the kind of sad clam thing. But it was like that to the extreme. It was I was sort of - you know, I was going through all that, trying to come to terms with all that while simultaneously going onstage and trying to make people laugh in the most kind of wacky way.

MOSLEY: Yeah. I mean, I'm really sitting with this because in your case, OK, here you are performing this pain night after night. And then you put it on screen for millions to see in "Baby Reindeer." Has it really been healing to talk about this really bad thing that happened to you not just once but, like, over and over and over?

GADD: Well, I think it's time to leave it behind now, you know? "Baby Reindeer" was kind of like, well, there's nothing - I mean, it's - what was it, 82 countries in the world it was No. 1 in or something like that? I think over, you know, 250 million people have watched it. I mean, talk about catharsis and coming to terms with something. I mean, it's so odd to look back at me, you know, all those years ago, over a decade ago, and sort of thinking no one can know, no one can know. And now it's almost like (laughter), you know, 250 million people know. And it does lead to a sort of sense of acceptance.

MOSLEY: I watched "Baby Reindeer" three times. I really, really - I was really moved by it. And there's something very specific I was moved by, and I want to play a clip to kind of get to it. So in this clip, it's from the first episode of "Baby Reindeer." And this is the very first time Donny, which is a fictionalized version of yourself, played by you, meets Martha, the woman who will go on to stalk you for years. And she walks into the pub where you work, she's overweight, she looks upset. And your character tries to be kind to her. You give her a cup of tea on the house. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BABY REINDEER")

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) I felt sorry for her.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOORS SLAMMING)

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) That's the first feeling I felt. It's a patronizing, arrogant feeling, feeling sorry for someone you've only just laid eyes on, but I did. I felt sorry for her.

(As Donny Dunn) Fiver, please, mate.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Cheers, mate. Thank you.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) Thanks. Can I get you something?

JESSICA GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) No, thanks.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) Are you sure? Cup of tea?

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) No, thanks.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) You have to buy something.

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) Can't afford something.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) Right, not even a cup of tea?

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) No.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) All right, well, how about I give you a cup of tea on the house? So what do you do?

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) I'm a lawyer.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn, laughter) How'd you get into that, then?

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) Well, I trained in criminal law. Moved to England, retrained, opened up my own practice, won several awards. Now I'll lead an advisory to the government.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) You own a law firm?

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) Amongst other things. A flat in Pimlico overlooking a private garden, one in Bexleyheath, two in Belsize Park. God doesn't like a bragger, but when you're the go-to for the biggest political minds in the game, you've earned a brag or two.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn, laughter).

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) No, no. I'm not going to say who. So don't even go there. Fine. David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alex Salmond. But you didn't hear that from me.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) Wow. You must have amazing dinner parties.

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott, laughter).

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) She had this incredible laugh, this giddy, slightly disconcerting laugh. Her name was...

GUNNING: (As Martha Scott) Martha.

GADD: (As Donny Dunn) But all I could think was, if all of this is true, then why can't you afford a cup of tea?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS THE DRUG")

ROXY MUSIC: (Singing) Oh.

MOSLEY: That's a clip from the first episode of the Netflix series "Baby Reindeer," created by my guest today, Richard Gadd. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU'S "MARTHA MY DEAR")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Emmy-winning actor, writer and comedian Richard Gadd. His new HBO limited series "Half Man," which he wrote and stars in, is the story of two boys who become brothers when their mothers fall in love, and follows their bond from 1980s Glasgow into the present day. Gadd first broke through with his one-man show "Monkey See Monkey Do", which won the top prize at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016 and chronicled the sexual abuse he survived early in his career. He went on to create the 2024 Netflix phenomenon "Baby Reindeer," a semiautobiographical series about a struggling comedian, his female stalker and the early abuse - a series that became one of the most-watched shows in Netflix history and is now the subject of an ongoing defamation lawsuit from the woman who claims she's the basis for the stalker character.

You know, Richard, one of the things that makes "Baby Reindeer" different from almost any other story about stalking that I have ever seen is that you don't let yourself off the hook as the victim of being stalked. So you write Donny as someone who, on some level, was kind of flattered by this lady - by being seen, even by someone you knew was unwell. And I felt like that seems to be a very uncomfortable thing to admit publicly. So why was it important to you that you show that you hold both things at once? - that you were a victim and that you were also someone who liked being wanted.

GADD: Well, I just thought there was, like, a fundamental human truth to it. Like, I always try and dig into, like, the complicated stuff. Like, I think in a lot of times, like, on TV, it's too obvious who the good guy and the bad person is, you know? And it's just - like, life is not like that, I think. And I think that we're all made up of good qualities and bad qualities and mistakes and successes and all these kinds of things, and I just dug into it. And it kind of goes all the way back to the stage show. 'Cause I remember, you know, when I was - I wrote the stage show which later became the TV show, I would trial it. And the story went, you know, I offered this person a cup of tea and look at what happened. My one act of kindness - my God. And I remember just feeling like it wasn't coming to the fore, like it wasn't working. And I think it wasn't working because I was avoiding the truth. And the truth is that, you know, I egged it on and I indulged in it. And I indulged in it because I was, you know, going through a lot and I would take any attention, wherever I got it, just because anything that would take me out of the mire of what I was feeling and experiencing.

And that, to me, was the heart of "Baby Reindeer." And that was what I was avoiding when I was trying to work up the live show into something that was worth watching. Because I realized that I wasn't really writing the truth of what happened, and truth is the fundamental key to writing something, you know, authentic and interesting. But "Baby Reindeer," you know, it was tough because it was, like, you know, not many people would do that, especially in this day and age of kind of moral enlightenment and, oh, hey, look at all the mistakes I made. Like, it felt very daring and it felt very, like, vulnerable and exposing. But really, in a lot of ways, I think therein lied - lay the success of "Baby Reindeer" because I think people recognized something in that and in the flawed idea of human consistency.

Like, I think a lot of people struggle. Like, one of Donny's, like, big struggles was his inability to put up boundaries - like, his inability to say no or inability to hurt someone's feelings. I think a lot of people relate to it. I think a lot of people struggle to be honest. And it's not that they're good liars, it's that they struggle to not circumvent the pain of having honest conversations. And I think that's what Donny - why I think the Donny character resonated so much, and I think people could just appreciate that honesty. You know, like, it was a radically honest show, and I think because of that, it was a success.

MOSLEY: OK, Richard, I want to go back to your childhood in Scotland. You have said one of your earliest memories is writing a book when you were about 5 years old.

GADD: (Laughter).

MOSLEY: It's called "Felix The Furball" (laughter).

GADD: Yeah. No. I do remember that.

MOSLEY: Tell me about Felix.

GADD: I can't remember if that's, like, the earliest memory, like, I have. I actually have an early memory of running up - at my uncle and aunt's wedding, running up the aisle. I was a pageboy. And my mum would be like, no, come back, come back, and I just bolted up the aisle 'cause, like - that's probably my earliest memory. I don't know how old I was then. But I remember a very early memory of me kind of button-bashing like mad at a computer and, yeah, writing "Felix The Furball." I mean, it was about a fluff that got - piece of fluff that got blown out the house and had to find its way back into the house. And that was - genuinely, every chapter was kind of the same. And I just kind of wrote it obsessively. I almost think my writing style's never changed. It's kind of, like, just, like, smash, smash, smash. Like, you know, get it out, like, stream of consciousness.

MOSLEY: Your dad is a microbiologist - a professor.

GADD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Your mom worked in schools. It sounds like you had a very stable household, supportive parents. But the town you grew up in was really, really small.

GADD: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Tell me about being a kid in Wormit, Scotland. What did boys like you do all day?

GADD: Wow, you even know the name. It's funny because people even in Scotland haven't heard of Wormit, so...

MOSLEY: Oh, really? OK (laughter).

GADD: I remember....

MOSLEY: It's that small?

GADD: Yeah. But I remember going to Glasgow...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GADD: ...Going to Glasgow University and they're like, oh, where are you from? I said, Wormit, and they're like, where?

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

GADD: And then I'm like, oh, well, it's next to a place called Newport, and they're like, where?

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

GADD: And I'm like, well, it's next to a place called Tayport, and they're like, where?

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: And I'm like, over the water from Dundee. And then that's when they go, ah, right.

MOSLEY: (Laughter) Wow.

GADD: But it's funny 'cause even in LA, if you say, oh, I'm over the water from Dundee...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GADD: ...They - they're still like, where?

MOSLEY: Right, right.

GADD: So - but - so it's funny to hear Wormit with a U.S. accent. It's funny.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

GADD: I - but, yeah, it was this tiny, tiny place. It was very picturesque. You know, it overlooked the River Tay - you know, the rail bridge. I could see the rail bridge out of my window - my bedroom window. But, you know, there wasn't much to do. Like, I grew up and it was just the corner shop. Like, that was all there was in the whole town. Loads of fields at the back, you know? And there was no, like, bus links, really. Like, there was a bus that would kind of take you to Dundee every now and again, but there was nothing, like, the other way. Like, it was one of those kinds of places. So me and my friends just hunkered down. I had great friends. I hung out in a four with a guy - Dave (ph), Craig (ph) and Eamon (ph), and we're still real tight to this day. And we just made the most of it - made each other laugh, you know? We would kick a football about a street.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

GADD: You know, a car would pass every, like, three hours. It was just - it was beautiful, but it was really quaint. And I don't think I realized how small it was until I kind of left. I mean, I remember...

MOSLEY: How old were you when you left?

GADD: ...Going to Glasgow.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GADD: I left for university. I must have been 18, I think. And I remember Glasgow felt so big to me. Like, so big. And now it's funny because I've lived in London and I've been to LA, been all around the world, and I went back to Glasgow to film "Half Man" and it suddenly felt so small to me compared to everything. But I remember when I moved to Glasgow, I couldn't get over the size of it. It made me anxious 'cause I was so used to such a sort of small-town existence, I suppose.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Did you watch television when you were growing up?

GADD: Me and my friends would watch it obsessively, you know, listen to music obsessively. But, I mean, you know, television was my ultimate outlet. And, you know, we would...

MOSLEY: What were you watching?

GADD: We'd do all the sitcom - oh, all the sitcoms. It was everything. You know, everything. It was - the golden age of DVD was when I grew up, you know, where the way of consuming things was DVD. And it was just - you know, for Christmas, you'd get a DVD, and it was, like, beautiful. But, you know, everything from the U.K. "Office" to "Peep Show," "Black Books." You know, I'd go back. I watched "Fawlty Towers," "Blackadder." I'd go back and I - you know, everything was consumed. And that's where I developed my love for comedy and everything like that. And everything we - "Arrested Development." I remember, you know, we'd - on the U.S. side, we watched "The Wire," "Sopranos," you know, all that kind of stuff. And I just consumed television, like, from an early age. Just loved it, adored it.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Emmy-winning actor, writer and comedian Richard Gadd. His new HBO series "Half Man," which he wrote and stars in, is the story of two boys who become brothers when their mothers fall in love and follows their bond in 1980s Glasgow, Scotland, into the present day. Gadd is also the creator of the 2024 Netflix phenomenon "Baby Reindeer." We'll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH SONG, "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I'm talking with Emmy-winning actor, writer and comedian Richard Gadd about his new HBO limited series "Half Man." Gadd also created the 2024 Netflix phenomenon "Baby Reindeer," a semi-autobiographical series about a struggling comedian, his female stalker and an earlier abuse.

When did you decide, I think I want to do this thing? I think I want to get on stage and try comedy.

GADD: I must have been about 20, I think, and I went to my student union comedy night that was on. And I remember just being in the crowd and kind of being full of admiration, I guess, a feeling of sort of wanting to feel what that must be like to make people laugh en masse like that. I just remember thinking, whoa, that must be a thrill. Like, it must be a thrill. And it is when it goes well (laughter). I think that comedy night - I look back because if I remember correctly, it might have been a freshers' week or something like that. So I think, like, there was probably quite a lot of - like, people were really kind of off for it, which isn't the same as a lot of comedy nights, and people were there. It was a lot of drunken vivaciousness. And I think every comedian that was on that night absolutely smashed the roof off the place. And I think it gave me a slight false impression that that is the way all gigs run, that it's kind of like you - it's almost like a bulletproof thing once the atmosphere is set up.

And I remember, I - but I was like, I've got to give this a shot. And I went to the promoter and I said, look, do you take students? 'Cause they were all professional comedians coming to do a comedy night. And I said, do you take students? Like, and he said he'd give me five minutes, like, in a couple of weeks' time. And I said, OK, I'll take it. And then I was just nervous, nervous, nervous for, like, three weeks. But I just worked up some sort of five-minute set. If I remember correctly, I packed my mates in the place a bit. And I remember my first gig went really well. And it gave me an idea of, oh, it is like this. It is like this. And I think it was my second to a thousandth gig that went badly (laughter) when I was figuring out how to do it without my friends in the room. Yeah, but that's how I got into it.

MOSLEY: When you first started performing, people did not really get you. I mean, it's kind of off the wall. It was a little bit, you know - and you couldn't figure out why. Like, give us an example of something that you were performing out there when you first got started that people were like, what?

GADD: Well, I mean, I could take you on the whole journey. It's kind of - I like talking about it, in a way, 'cause when I first started stand-up, I tried to do the man-microphone thing, you know, where you're like, hey, let me tell you a story. And I found an old video of me doing it the other day, and I was talking about a dog. Now, I've never had a dog, but I was talking about owning a dog 'cause I must have thought, well, this is some material about owning a dog. I'd never...

MOSLEY: You didn't even own a dog. Right. OK.

GADD: No, no, which shows the kind of - why it was - probably never worked 'cause it never really came from a place of authenticity. But I did a routine about a dog. And it was just like, what am I talking about? And I think the dog was called Keith (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: And I think that was the whole joke, that the dog was called Keith. But I looked at it, and I was like, oh, you can - I can tell that I'm not honoring my voice or my - what I find funny in a lot of ways. But I remember having a kind of watershed moment when I'd be - you know, 'cause when you're doing comedy and you're going around, you often see comics at the back of a comedy club. And they kind of stand and they watch the acts. And that was what I used to always do. I'd always watch and just try and study all the acts and figure out where I was going wrong and what they were doing right.

But I often found that I would laugh at the stuff between the jokes and the stuff that didn't land. Like, I would always find it quite funny if a comedian made - it sounds mean-spirited, but it wasn't that. But if a comedian made a joke and didn't get a laugh and they went, OK, moving on, I would ha ha ha. I would just, like, burst out laughing. And I realized that I would - what I found funny was stuff that kind of didn't land and - or humor that kind of wasn't funny, in a way. Like, I - and I realized, well, why don't I do that? Like, why don't I just do jokes that kind of aren't funny and then do a really awkward - be a really awkward comedian that does bad jokes and has kind of almost a bit of a breakdown on stage and kind of is really nervous and anxious and make that humorous sweet spot my act? And I did it. And there is a large portion of society that really, really go for that alternative stuff.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GADD: And so there would be gigs that I'd go to, and they would be great. But there would be, like, some crowds - I remember Friday and Saturdays were really tough - where you would hear a pin drop. I mean, I've had some deaths that people - comedians still talk to me about to this day, like, that they've never seen people die...

MOSLEY: Oh, wow.

GADD: ...As bad as me. I remember I was in Edinburgh's Stand, and I remember there's this thing where, like, you fill your time. It's like comedy law. If you're booked for 20 minutes, no matter how good the gig's going, you play 20 minutes. And I remember going out, and I think I remember, wow, that didn't land. That didn't land. That didn't land. That didn't land. And I was racing through. And I looked at my watch, and I was almost done with my set 'cause I was clearly not landing. I was just racing through it - and I had about 17 minutes to go.

(LAUGHTER)

GADD: And I - and you could have heard a pin drop. And I just remember - like, once a crowd sucks up an atmosphere of tension and, oh, my God, this is awkward and uncomfortable, no matter what you do, sometimes you cannot get it out.

MOSLEY: It sounds like - OK, I mean, in a way, when it goes bad it's almost like a humiliation ritual, but you continue to do it. Like, you continue to put yourself up there and out there and expose yourself. So that intoxicating feeling of having a control of the room must be really intoxicating. Can you describe it?

GADD: Well, I mean, humiliation ritual's funny. I've never heard it put like that before, but it can feel like that. It can feel very self-damning, you know, when it's not going well. You know, the amount of long drives I've had home is crazy. You know, just being like, wow, my God. Like, the feeling of a bad gig - I said it to people, like, there's nothing like the feeling of a bad gig. It's, like, its own specific feeling. It's hard to describe. It's like a humiliation tinged with sort of existential doubt. It's - it feels like - you know, we've all experienced, like, embarrassment or whatever in our life, but it's a very specific feeling, a bad gig. You know, like, the adrenaline of holding an audience in your hands.

And sometimes, like, it - you know, we all work on subliminals and all that kind of stuff, and sometimes, like, comedy, it can be kind of transcendental in a way. Like, sometimes you feel like you just plug in, in a weird way, like a jigsaw piece and the audience plug back into you. And you sometimes feel like almost, like, moving your eyebrow makes them laugh. And you just suddenly go into this almost, like, suspended place where you're almost completely in the moment and you just feel like you're completely in tune with the audience. And there's times when I've gone offstage and I've, like, cried, you know, like, because the adrenaline and the euphoria were so great - to experience that - that my body was just like, oh, my God - like, shaking to the point of crying. It was kind of incredible.

MOSLEY: It sounds like those experiences for you were worth all of the bad gigs. Is that what kept you going?

GADD: Yeah. I'm super proud of comedy. Comedy's given me so much. Like, comedy's - it's a great training for life. Like, it really is. You know, you have to think in the moment as a comedian so much because you have to be able to adapt all the time to what people want. And sometimes you give them something and they're like, well, we don't want this. And you're like, well, I got 20 minutes to go. I better adapt.

I remember the other day, I was at Cannes - wonderful festival, CANNESERIES - and, you know, in front of the 2,500 people, you know, I got asked a question about what advice I'd give to people - artists out there, and I just spoke from the heart, launched into something that I think the audience took away as hope and powerful, I hope. But I remember thinking, thank God for comedy because it's - in a live space like that, it allows you to think in the moment, to almost have a way of tapping into a sort of psychological space where you can sort of think very clearly and react in a moment. And I think it's - it gives you - what it gives you most of all is an ability to think quickly on your feet. And I think that's such a life skill, in a way.

MOSLEY: Well, Richard Gadd, it has been a pleasure to talk with you, and thank you so much.

GADD: No, thank you. I really enjoyed that. I really appreciate the great questions. Thank you.

MOSLEY: Emmy-winning actor, writer and comedian Richard Gadd. His new HBO limited series is called "Half Man."

Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan recommends three ideal spring reads. This is FRESH AIR.

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TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan recommends what she calls three ideal spring reads - novels that are light, breezy and funny, with an undercurrent of chilly reality.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: Sometimes girls just want to have fun, right? I've been in a springtime mood of wanting to dive into a cartoon-colored ball pit of comic novels with spunky heroines. And I found some good ones. But what I also found is that much like the classic screwball comedies of yore, escapism in these playful novels links arms with edgy social commentary.

"Yesteryear," an intricately plotted debut novel by Caro Claire Burke, has been getting lots of attention - and deservedly so. The main character here is an online trad wife named Natalie Heller Mills. On camera, Natalie revels in activities like spending four hours making a loaf of sourdough bread and then adorning it with a nativity scene made out of herbal stick figures - from her own garden, naturally. A little of this goes a long way for those of us who share the attitude of the late Joan Rivers. Rivers famously quipped, I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again. Amen. So imagine my glee when Natalie, who only plays at being a pioneer woman, wakes up one morning to the realization that she's been transported back to the year 1855. Welcome to the real pioneer life, where if you want milk for your morning gruel, you'd better hustle out to the barn and find a cow.

If Burke had only stuck to this plotline, "Yesteryear" would be a fun, one-note snark at retro lifestyle influencers. But instead, it tells a more ambitious, suspenseful, and, yes, ultimately melancholy story of its heroine's aspirations and capitulations to ideas of how women should live their lives.

I thought Gary Shteyngart's brilliant 2024 essay in The Atlantic about his agonizing seven nights aboard The Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, had ruined me for all other tales of enforced frivolity on the ocean, but I was wrong. Emma Straub's latest novel, "American Fantasy," starts off sharing Shteyngart's cynicism and ends up affirming the right of women - especially middle-aged women - to party without self-consciousness or apology.

Our main character here is a 50-year-old divorced woman named Annie who's been persuaded by her younger sister to join her on a four-day themed cruise. The theme is on board, namely a gone-soft-round-the-middle boy band of the '90s named Boy Talk that both Annie and her sister loved. Almost every other passenger aboard is a woman of a certain age, otherwise, diverse in race, politics, ability, income bracket and even sexual orientation. All were rabid Boy Talk fans.

The cruise production manager, a gay woman named Sarah, reflects that these were the guys who had launched 1 million sexual awakenings. And even if they had awakened something other than heterosexuality, they had still been present, like distant guardian angels of puberty. Straub tells the story of the cruise through the eyes of Sarah, Annie and one of the band members, a thoughtful guy named Keith who, like Annie, is at a crossroads.

This is a novel that makes the radical move of honoring rather than ridiculing female fandom. Here's Straub's description of Annie's epiphany about her own fandom as she's standing in a packed crowd during a Boy Talk performance. The music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life. All around Annie, women were dancing and singing. And for a second, she closed her eyes and thought, no one else will ever understand this, except, of course, everyone standing beside her, who all understood it perfectly.

I've shared the premise of Laurie Frankel's forthcoming novel, "Enormous Wings," with a few friends. Based on how instantly they entered the book's title into their cellphones, the premise is all you need to know about this wild but all too timely story about female autonomy or lack thereof. So here goes. Frankel's heroine, Pepper Mills, is 77 and a reluctant new resident of the Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas.

Surprisingly, she meets a nice man there and has sex. And then, through a medical fluke that Frankel almost makes plausible, Pepper finds herself pregnant. Her doctors expect the pregnancy to end in miscarriage. When it doesn't, Pepper seeks an abortion. But she lives in Texas. And she's now such a media sensation that it's almost impossible for her to leave the state. Complicated, gutsy and entertaining, "Enormous Wings" pokes fun at life's unpredictability and stokes anger at situations that aren't at all funny.

MOSLEY: Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "Yesteryear," "American Fantasy" and "Enormous Wings." If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed - like our conversation with Nick Offerman about playing a washed-up pro wrestler in "Margo's Got Money Troubles," or with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on how his music has changed and how he's changed - check out our podcast. You'll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations on what to watch, read and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at whyy.org/freshair.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIG JOHN PATTON'S "COUNTRY GIRL")

MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with help today from Conor Anderson at WDET in Detroit. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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