'The Interview': ‘Baby Reindeer’ Exploded Richard Gadd's Life. It Also Set Him Free.

New York Times and I test mattresses. Today I am testing 7 mattresses. This mattress is very

“supportive. It's just a very easy to shift position. You've considered nearly 4 dozen foam”

inner spraying and hybrid mattresses. We're looking out for an edge support motion isolation and firmness levels. At Wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come visit us at nytimes.com/wirecutter. From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Marquezie. In 2024, the relatively unknown writer and actor Richard Gadd had the strange experience

of seeing the lowest moments of his life become viral entertainment. His unsettling Netflix show Baby Rain Deer, which was based on his experiences as a victim of both sexual assault and

stalking. Unexpectedly became one of that year's biggest critical hits and one of the streamer's

most popular shows ever. A catapulted Gadd, who's 36, into a heightened and uncomfortable level of personal and professional attention. His response to that discomfort has been to go deeper. His new show, Half Man, which will air on HBO, is about the decades long mutually destructive friendship between two Scottish men. The slight and thoughtful Nile played by Jamie Bell, and the brutish violent Ruben played by Gadd. Unlike Baby Rain Deer, the show is not based in fact. But what

Half Man shares with its predecessor is a brutally unflinching exploration of sexual confusion, tortured masculinity, emotional abuse, and the impact of trauma. All of which Gadd himself is still trying to understand both in his art and in his life. Here's my conversation with Richard Gadd. Richard, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Thanks very much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I want to start with a question that maybe doesn't have any

simpler straightforward answer. You know, you were someone who for years, working as a performer, you know, you did stand up comedy. But the work itself was often intentionally alienating. You know, you did a lot of anti-comedy. It's not like you've been trying for years to make some

mainstream thing. And then finally, Baby Rain Deer, it was the thing. You were kind of doing your

own weird thing. And so as a result of that, I imagine that the possibility of enormous mainstream success was probably not even really on your radar as something that was going to happen in your career. But what did achieving success show you about the reality of what success can do for you or can't do for you emotionally?

“The best thing about success is that it leads to opportunity for me because all I really ever”

care about is right in the next thing or working on the next thing or trying to explore more things that I want to do is not. It's fame on the other hand is an interesting thing that I think I still come to terms with. You know, I think at the best times of a self-conscious person.

And I think like it's so funny, I always look back on those, as you say, those kind of early

comedy days, where I was performing this, early in anything sort of comedy style to to comedy class up in the other country, I used to think, why is no one getting this? This is, this is, this is that, this is the Cusp of brilliance, that's right here. So I find it so good that I can look back on that and kind of laugh at myself because I think fame has led to a certain degree of discomfort in the way I go about my life now. You always have to think about what you're doing and where you're

going and, like, no, not so much about, you're just saying, oh, I hope there's not too many people here, I worry about people coming out to me and I know that it's ever bad when people come out to me. They're almost like projections of my own fear, but that is also a byproduct of fame, you know, because people who come out to me, if not all the time, tend to be really, really nice. But I still,

“because I think I'm just wired to think in an anxious way, I always think that something is”

lurking that might be hard to deal with in a social situation, but, but I think in a lot of ways, like, I'm quite a reclusive guy in a lot of ways, but I don't think people kind of realize, and I, it didn't really change, like, the way I lived my life, full of, all I was ever interested in doing was, was taking baby reindeer and building on the success with, hopefully, different pieces of, of work and all. The new show, half man, raises so many questions about masculinity, right? It's one

of the central themes of the show is what does it mean to be a man? What does manhood look like? And that was also a question that comes up in baby reindeer in various ways. Do you have an answer

answer. I mean, it's tricky, it's tricky. I definitely, I remember like a press release going out with half man saying it will get to the bottom of the question, what would it be to be a man? And I remember, you know, I was in a really busy writing process at that point of view, and then a press release comes in your desk, you're like, I don't have time for this, yeah, that's fine. And so I think I worry that quite a lot of people are heading into a man with me somehow,

answering an almost excess, essentially, impossible question. But I, for myself, no,

“because I think I suppose that's why I do write these themes and these things and a lot of the”

characters, particularly the central characters go in these kind of soul-searching journeys of self-discovery,

because I think I've always had a sort of like a void within me that I can't quite explain or

like a certain sort of hold in the soul or whatever that I think perhaps comes. I'm not sure about this, but perhaps comes from pressures that I felt as a man in my life. But in terms of answering questions, I, I think it offers questions. I don't think I answers them. What were some of the struggles or or open-ended questions around manhood that you felt like you've had to come to terms with? I certainly think like a lot of the way sort of a certain sense of broken masculinity or

parades in today's sort of society can be traced back to certain societal repressions which happened years ago. You know the 80s in this country was a very unforgiving time for people who grew up different

“to everyone else and I think that leads to repression which can lead in general to sort of broken”

and damaging behavior in later life and and that was what I wanted to explore. I wanted to sort of show these sort of deeply entrenched sort of things that affect us in our childhood and how they manifest in their adulthood. I know it's this is kind of like quite heavy stuff to get into, but there's certainly things that happen in my life that I've spoken about publicly, that I found very hard to come to terms with due to draconian false ideas that this doesn't

happen to a man and this shouldn't happen to a man and that men shouldn't be vulnerable in this way. All stuff that I've projected and in fact being, I guess vulnerable are kind of admitting to my my my my biggest secrets of whatever has led to the biggest freedom in my life. Yeah, I assume you're referring to the assault that happened to you. But the thing that you said was that ex or alluded to was that exploring the ideas or making them talking about them has been

liberating and that's related to something I wanted to ask about because in half man you do talk about these ideas again of manhood of you know people caught in in mutually I don't know if destructive is quite the right word but sort of mutually complicated relationships. There are teams of abuse in half man and these are themes that also came up in baby reindeer and the thing that I want to know about is how do you achieve that sort of liberation through

making art about these traumatic personal ideas? Do you find it cathartic? Is it healing? Is there some moment at which you're able to go like okay I've sort of moved forward in my processing of

“this experience? It's kind of interesting I I think I find I think you know I I think because”

of baby reindeer people people come up and they tell me things you know and and I say I can never give

advice but try writing it down and I often feel like when we keep something in our head or keep it inside of us it grows to it can grow to intolerable levels like intolerable levels and I think the shame and fear and guilt and all the feelings around sort of complexity are complicated all the complicated stuff and the fact that I even feeling like an idiot was a big part of sort of like the battle that I faced with everything I I it built to in total levels where I felt like

all I was doing was whipping like a abiliable around my head over and over and over and over again to the point where it was just ricochet and harder and harder each time and I got to the point where like it was intolerable and I think I really had a choice because I couldn't keep it in any longer really and I and I think what I did is the first thing I ever did before I spoke to anyone about it

was I I sort of wrote it down and I think what art is always done and what is always given to me

is it's a playground to explore things that I'm sort of struggling with then I think that's kind of all I really wanted to do I I also wanted to sort of understand you know masculinity is such a talked about word and I had such a sort of gravitational pull in a way it's a big weighty sort of word and I I really wanted to sort of explore male camaraderie and the male connection which seems to be almost transcendental in a way and sometimes unexplained and I really wanted to dig deep into

going to synonymise with the show in a lot of ways I think for something to be toxic you know

like drugs are toxic but they have to be intoxicating as well you know to begin with and I think that the normalization of these things that were so casually thrown around in the 80s on TV in society words slurs all these kinds of things they they they they lead to a repression and people who are scared to admit certain things but really I I just really wanted to kind of get into the whole messy complicated subject is there anything about yourself that you're still scared to

“admit probably you know I think almost like the journey of life is trying to come to terms with”

yourself you know and I and I think almost like you can stumble through life not knowing I think

I think I've always been quite confused actually which is something I've always kind of spoken

about and I even as I sit here you know 36 year old I still feel but I still sometimes feel confused I still sort of feel like and and I've tried to take many labels in my life you know and and the labels never brought me any sort of comfort you know comfort comes from within it always does no no external and so use the excess to an internal conflict in my opinion and so I certainly think with me the inconsistencies the confusing nature of life the fact that I've never really felt

settled in any camp that's okay and I'm accepting that I might never stand on solid ground is a form of acceptance that I didn't realize I might have to come to terms with and that's

“kind of the way it is I think sometimes accepting that is it's half the bow. I think a lot of”

men have had the experience particularly in adolescence of being either friends with or drawn to

other guys who exhibit what we would call toxic masculinity or just in general anti-social behavior like I know I know that there were periods in my life where I would hang around with guys who were kind of like not well-adjusted dudes who did kind of not well-adjusted things but there is an attraction to that but I just wonder if you had any particular relationships that you were thinking of or drawing on when you were creating the central relationship of half-man which is

between Nile played by Jamie Bell who sort of a more I guess you could say more sensitive younger man and Ruben played by you as an adult who just is you know the word that comes to my is anti-social just struggling with so much more. Were there relationships that you were

“thinking about or you know drawing on in some way? I think I must have been on a sort of subconscious”

level you know I sort of I think they must have been drawn I mean there were certainly people in my school who were terrifying and there were certainly people in my neighborhood who were terrifying and there were so many people that I would pray weren't on a bus when I was getting on the bus and all these kinds of things and I certainly think I have encountered people in my life who are prone to phenomenal violence for sure and almost like as a knee joint reaction

to any anything almost and I you know I can't say that it was drawn on anyone in particular at all if I had to definitely wasn't but I certainly think I've encountered enough intimidating male behavior to be able to draw on it you know and I think really you know Ruben like it's an interesting one because I'm keen to see what people think of Ruben in a lot of ways and I have a feeling or even I hope that I have a we're feeling that people might like him more than you might expect

because I think like he runs on a river of pain and I think there were a lot of men and I think the people might like him or a lot of men who act like him because I think they might right ultra aggressive marcho yeah very fixated on male power yeah and they might see someone like Ruben they might realize what they've been running from all this time but something somewhere has happened that has made them be that defensive that insecure in a way and I thought that that was worth

exploring I really did I I I feel you know I I don't know whether this is too empathetic but but I feel like a lot of male violence comes from a violence that they they have suffered before the half man is very different from baby ranger in many ways but as I said at the outset thematically it shares a lot but also there are a couple times in half man this is not a spoiler at all a couple times in half man where the character of Ruben mockingly refers to the character of

Nile as Bambi and I thought are you making some sort of it's not to baby reindeer right actually no well you know people are gonna read it that way right I guess so I mean I mean that was the funny thing because the script I mean kind of I could it could be any any animal in the

I was so subconscious love for them I'm not sure but I sort of I think like I you know it's

funny you say that because I did I did wonder if people would think that but if you look at the script that I wrote that there was written before baby reindeer it had Bambi in there it had Bambi in it and it was only a way to sort of mock him to use a name that innate these sort of patronise his Nile and mock him and and show that he's like a deer and I say he's he's and it was only way for Ruben to sort of you know like a lot of I guess out for presences do they they find

different ways that undermine you so they assert their dominance over you and I thought Bambi was a very it's almost like one of those nicknames you can give someone the can quite tell if you're insulting them or not it's quite effective by Ruben you know and it's but it is like it is demeaning in a lot of ways but it's hard to kind of pinpoint that and so even in later on in the series when it's used again it is used provocatively and I I needed a name like that for the

relationship to operate but I don't think I'll ever be able to convince the world no even yourself

“that it is itself baby reindeer reference so I think I'm going to suck there's something floating”

around in your mind but tell me about a little bit more about inhabiting Ruben because even just your physical transformation for him is quite striking I think you gained I don't know how much 50 pounds of muscle or something like that to play him but how did you get into that body and into that mindset I knew it was like a huge undertaking because I think like in order to explore what people consider a sort of alpha male character I needed to be big in my body like I

did I needed to be big you know I worked out six days a week I had nutritionists I had the meals made for me and sent to me and I had the them at certain times and I didn't stray from my diet once apart from on on days where I do topless scenes where you know you would you would go through a process of sort of dehydration almost like a like to make the muscles more defined right

to make the muscles more defined and it's incredible how it works you know I would be looking at

myself in a mirror the day before thinking I'm just not there I'm just not there and then you go through a very intense and I can't believe how intense it is period of sweating your yourself down to make the muscles more defined as you say and it's kind of incredible do you feel like you're someone who who has to be conscientious or intentional about his relationship

“with his own body yeah I think I think I think I I think I do I think I'm always”

down on it and I think I sometimes even look at sort of Rubin sometimes but I wish I could have pushed a bit more I wish I could have maybe been a bit bigger and and I think I think a lot of gym goers certainly gym goers that I know speak to a certain sense I don't want to use this word like but so it says a body like insecurity and yeah I'm not being able to kind of see the reality is I know so many it's almost like dysmorphia almost it is more for you exactly that

was the the word I was reaching for and I think I certainly have it and I certainly would have it with my my person to train up and I they say I need to get bigger what we're going to do and even like you're fine you're good you're big you're big but you don't notice because when you're like I I didn't notice because it was incremental changes because you look at yourself in the mirror everyday you don't notice you're changing it's other people the notice you're changing

and I think it's so enabling the human to have sort of body issues of body insecurities for sure now I want to ask a little bit about something that you alluded to earlier but there was obviously a huge shift for you in so many ways as a result of baby reindeer and so you know I think for many artists particularly artists who have been working for a long time on the margins a little bit there might be a sense of shooting towards having a larger success and then sort of that

recognition or sort of validation might fill some sort of hole that was there before you know it's like it you know when when when I get successful I will feel different or that kind of thing did you have any of those sorts of realizations or feelings yeah you know it's funny like I think baby reindeer explored this in a lot of ways you know I remember Doddy Dunn's monologue at

the end of the show which is always that kind of the famous bit in baby reindeer where he kind of

goes um fame they they see you is famous they don't think of all these other things that I'm scared they're thinking like this guy's this and this guy's that now having lived that out I don't know that's quite the reality I think in a lot of ways I always think the bad things time is time is a million now because there's more people looking at me so it's funny I mean I'm just think to a certain degree but I I think there is that idea that a lot of artists I think I think a lot of artists

“chase success because I think they think an answer is a sort of internal problem yes yes that's what I'm”

getting at yeah absolutely you know I do think with me it improvised me answers really it led to kind of

like opportunities which is always just all I really want anyway but in terms of answering sort of

deep soul driven questions I don't think it did that in any way shape of form and I would caution

“against anyone really chasing fame for that very reason I think chasing success is can be great”

for motivated you and pulling you out of the trenches of of deep discomfort and all these kinds of things but but I think chasing fame the idea of idolatry and being loved will never answer the question of whether you love yourself it really does come from within and I'm not saying I do love myself I love myself a lot more than I did ten years ago but I still have a long way to go and it's funny I always thought myself is a fairly sort of cultured person you know but I always remember

the ending of Rupal's drag race where you go oh no if you can't love yourself oh the hell you kind of loves them when I was gonna get a man I'm like oh true you're killing me right now

and for a reason I would always watch that I'd always like I would constantly mature because

it's so true you know it's just so true yeah that's very interesting I wonder if it connects to what you said earlier about always feeling sort of a hole in the soul and it it's interesting because I listen to the interview that you did with Mark Marin probably two years ago something like that and he used that exact same phrase whole in the soul is something that you you felt and

“I wondered if you had any clarity about where that hole came from I think I think I mean the”

big turn of point in my life was being sexually abused groomed all that kind of stuff I mean that that was no doubt where things started to you know like where I felt like my whole physiology psychology sense of self changed dramatically overnight and I felt sort of completely disconnected to to to to the world you know you know Jesus I just remember like I remember I was just in London you know like I I was working at pub and I so it was so skint that like I could only ever really

afford the bus because the truth was to expenses I just walk everywhere and I just walk everywhere and I lived so far away from Camden where the pub was and I I sort of just I just remember just feeling so disconnected from life just wondering around these streets for no one ever like they even looks at you and so I think like a large part of my sort of existential crisis sort of happened

there but if I look back at my life I do think that there was always an insecurity and a kind of

listlessness of a sort of like a wondering of some kind you know like I even think of like the time when I went to university you know when I I left home to go to Glasgow and I just remember this kind of cloak of self consciousness kind of coming over me and I and I just felt so lost and insecure and like I didn't I didn't know who to be or what to do and I probably tried to be several

“different people before I tried to be myself and and I just remember that also being odd like”

when I was out in the world and I had to fend for myself I didn't really know that I even had a self-defense for it was it was very strange feeling so I think that whole in the soul is always been there and I guess like in the end I always turned to art I think a lot of the reason people create art is to find sort of meaning in life where where where they felt none in a lot of ways that the search for answers in a lot of ways yeah and and I guess that's the journey I'm on as

well what was the experience like of you know not only becoming sort of a publicly recognizable figure but becoming a recognizable figure for a piece of work that was so much about a trauma that you suffered you know it's like one person's bingeable show was the worst event of your life you know that seems to me like a strange state to inhabit or like two strange experiences to be the bridge between in a way did you feel any strangeness around that yeah it was very sort of

it was very destabilizing and very sort of interesting I never want to like I didn't think baby rain it was going to be a success I really did think it was going to be a success like I really did think that but did I think it would be a sort of mainstream sensation at one point in the kind of top 10 Netflix sort of most watched English speaking shows of all time I didn't I didn't think for a second it was going to do that and about of course brings with it a kind of multitude of

opinions and comments on your Instagram page which can be quite like god they have it they have a lot to say and some of those opinions can be quite harsh they can be quite hard to read and all these kinds of things but it's kind of what you sign up for like I sort of almost like I've read a lot of

I think I found the whole process on the whole quite healing actually more than anything else but there was difficult moments and and it was difficult put in my life for people to dissect and

“and have opinions over I think maybe trying to get at something just slightly different it's not”

so much about sort of critical reaction or people just having opinions about the work but let me

try and and I don't I promise I don't mean this in any sort of self-aggrandizing way or trying to make any sort of parallel between you know your experience in mind but maybe this is this can help be illustrative of what I'm getting at you know in in December I did an interview with the actress Kristen Stewart you know and we were talking about sort of things that maybe we don't want to know about ourselves and she put the question back to me and I I said you know one thing I just

mentioned that I can have some discomfort in my own body or disdain for my physical appearance and then people after that interview came out what's like oh I really liked that interview or you know

that that was a good interview and always in in in my head everything like oh now this person

knows like a deep insecurity I have because I I said it in public you know and and it seems to me that you have had an extreme version of that where the people who see you at the bar know sort of the darkest thing that has happened to you did you find that that had any effect either just on on yourself or how you related to other people or strangers I absolutely relate to what you're saying and I totally get what you mean now yeah I feel like since baby reindeer it's

it's been almost akin to sort of almost feeling like I've been walking around naked to a certain

“degree and and and but but I realize like every time I do feel that self-consciousness I think”

back to like you know really what I shared in baby reindeer wasn't something to be ashamed of and every time I feel like a sense of shame if we talk about the abuse stuff I saw my mind get something school there are they are they thinking about that are they thinking about that I realize and I think back to the young boy I was when all that kind of stuff happened and I I think the that's just like the feeling ashamed that I had at the time you know and um and that

really it's not worth paying to what's attention to when it comes but I think the problem with the human brain is it can sort of the feeling can hit you before your ability to rationalize it and I think that's such like the human if you're feelings of shame or feelings of fear or feelings of guilt or feelings of all these things they hit you before you like I don't feel that way and then

“your brain helps you understand it and I think that's the kind of process with baby reindeer”

sometimes someone comes up in public they say something you know but then you're brain rationalizes you know baby reindeer like I'm I'm still not ashamed to put now out there in the world on the grand scheme of things you know my brain can sometimes be insecure and probably a bunch of people looking over what they think and what they say and what jokes are they making one of the worst things I think is when you see a group of table point no one laughing you're like oh who made what joke you know

but they might not be making a joke they might not have anything to do with you but that that's your brain creating reasons to to be sort of self destructive in a way but but I I think the grand scheme of things you know that the positive things I get the messages the letters these heartbreaking kind of letters and heartbreaking responses if I have to feel like a little bit more self-conscious in public so that people feel a little more peace in their lives and the grand scheme of things then I think it's

kind of a kind of feeling worth putting up with almost in a way and I think like on the whole in a lot of ways it was one of the best things I did putting all that stuff out there walks in all for the entire world to see because I've got kind of nothing to hide anymore and that can feel quite three in you know as that old Janice Jobs and so isn't it and me and Bobby McGee when you got it's free I mean I hear when you got him it's just another word for nothing left to lose there you go

and it's kind of this kind of amazing I've put it all out there now and I've sort of expressed my

vulnerability so in a way I also feel like people kind of hope me so much anymore I do think that on the whole it led to positive growth in me and hopefully in people who watch things could relate to it you know I just want to say that in preparation for speaking with you I went back and read ten years worth of interviews with Richard Gadden and you're in so many of them you're you're so open and and soul-bearing and honest about you know your anxieties and your your darker times

and I found myself really feeling almost protective of you you know I think this is a guy who kind of has some raw nerves there that that he's he's willing to expose and so it just makes me

how do you feel about yourself these days? God yeah you're good

“I don't know I don't know I think better than I did you know I think better than I used to for sure”

I think I'm more like settled in myself and I I think like I I I I feel like I'm I'm starting to kind of accept and and go at a pace which I used to just think I was just in a constant battle with myself and that was because I couldn't accept some part of myself or I had been through things I couldn't forget or I was just so self-dreaming like the way I would speak to myself was just like a pooling like a pooling but but I think I've I've gone on a journey recently of

myself discovery I I think I I spent a lot of time by myself you know I've been I've been single for a very long time now and I've spent a lot of time myself and I've used to be by myself and it's actually a good quality I recommend any person just spend an elongated bearded time by themselves

in their life because you really learn how to be with yourself and I never could do that.

I used to almost like not be able to even just spend one millisecond just looking in words and so even just that is an improvement but there's still a long way to go. I sometimes I think like half

“the battle in life is thinking that there is some sort of switch where it all is okay that that”

you can reach a point in your life where you have an almost serene consciousness you can almost have a sort of a click moment in life where you are at a piece with yourself and a piece with everyone you can wonder in a room and you won't care what people think and you can have an interaction you won't care if you've come across badly or well but you know life is challenging and life is

hard and and I think a lot of a lot of it is accepting that the struggle will always mutate into

different sort of struggles and and it's how you manage those choppy waters that's what what kind of makes a person be well in themselves. Thank you so much for taking all the time to speak with me today and I'm very much looking forward to connecting with you again I think it's next week. Yes. Yeah thanks very much I really enjoyed that chance I really appreciate that thank you. After the break I talked to Richard again about how trauma affected his understanding of both

sexuality and relationships. All I know is that I went through a period I mean this is radically honest almost the feeling quite asexual and then getting very confused I suppose and then exploring that and realizing that I'm sort of fine both ways and even now I'm still sort of a little bit lost with what it all. I'm Deborah Cayman I'm an investigative reporter at the New York Times. When I say real estate

I'm guessing you're thinking about things like the cost of rent what the market looks like whether or not mortgage rates are going to go up. What I do is I look at what goes on beneath those numbers the people running the industry who for so many years have been relatively invisible and the more that I look into it the more that I find there are people operating unethically and there are nethical behavior affects every single American. If we only focus on the

numbers it's like covering the results of an election and not looking at the politicians. To know

“why the system is the way it is you have to understand the people making decisions behind it.”

At the New York Times we don't ever tell a story at just the top level. We're always looking

a little bit deeper to help readers better understand not just what something is but why it is and also who's causing it to be that way. You can subscribe to the New York Times at nytimes.com/subscribe. Richard, thank you for being here with me again. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So I want to just zoom out for a second so both half-man and baby reindeer deal in various ways

with the subject of trauma. There's this idea that there's almost like a template that we call the trauma plot. A character has been traumatized and that trauma in their backstory explains everything about their actions and then usually at the end there's some sort of cathartic moment. That is a very standard storytelling framework now. At the same time, in the broader culture, more individuals identify as having experienced trauma or

she thinks every person is traumatized. Without giving anything away, I'm like, I just think what you're describing is life. I don't think that's trauma. Who am I to judge anyone else's trauma? I'm just sort of curious what you think about the subject and how trauma is now sort of understood so much more widely. Yeah, I'll stop there. No, I hear you know, as if when when you said what your friend had said,

I sort of went, oh that's interesting. I agree. I saw which I found quite interesting. I

“think everyone has a battle of some kind going on with themselves. I think yeah,”

if I think about even the most well functioning people in my life, there's still things that I observe about the one I'm like, that comes from somewhere and that comes from something. I think we all have blind spots as people and I think we all have positives and negative trace and all kinds of things. I think we're shaped by our experiences. I'm way more of the kind belief that we are formed by things that have happened to us, like in life. I think about the

shift I went through in my life that really horrific stuff that's happened to be in my life and

I think almost like a brain chemistry before and after. I always feel like before that. I had

a clear pattern of thinking. I used to think a little more singularly, whereas after I always felt like my thoughts were discombobulating in self-scarring and inwards and I'd be guess I became introverted as probably the most simple way of putting it. And I think that is an impact of trauma. And I think everyone has whether small or big things in life has gone through difficulty,

“which is preoccupied. They're brain in a way which I would say is trauma. That's how I guess I see”

things. And you correct me if I'm wrong, but this is just on the idea of the impacts of trauma. But I think I read somewhere in an interview that you actually hadn't had same sex attraction until after your assault. Is that right? Yeah, that is true. And I know that that's a kind of

a controversial idea, but that's, I've never said it's because of that. That's absolutely where I

so I'd never say that. I say that perhaps it forced me to look at myself in a way where I had to re-examine myself. Maybe I was struggling for me to be repressing myself in such a way that I never looked before. I'm not sure what it is. All I know is that I went through a period, I mean this is radically honest of almost the feeling quite asexual. And then getting very confused, I suppose. And then exploring that and realizing that I'm sort of fine both ways. And even now I'm still

sort of a little bit lost with it all. I'm not, I do think that the abuse of that nature can leave you kind of very sort of in your body uncertain, but I'm not saying that abuse makes you gay in any way. But I certainly, but my truth, which nobody can take from me, is that I didn't question myself until something like that had happened. It just seems like a hard one to wrap the

“head around. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's why I always like my shows to be sort of”

inconsistent in a way, at least the character is like inconsistent. People doing and saying things that aren't necessarily clear. Like it's so easy. You see coming out things on television, don't you? And it's like all the character needs to do is say I'm gay and everything's fine. Whereas in reality, I think that there is a slight mythology. That can really work for people. I know, but I know people as well in their life who've said that, thinking that the smoke would

clear. And actually it's not about saying it or people knowing it's about saying it to yourself and you knowing. And that I think is a sort of a fascinating part of self-acceptance. And people are all all sorts of everything. And I think that's important. I think that's fascinating. And I think I just think that's like being human, you know? Yeah. You know, something that stuck out for me and I wondered if it was telling in a way is that earlier, when I had just asked

you, how are you doing? And you kind of off-handed and you didn't really pursue it. You said you're single now and you've been single for a while. And I just wondered if relationships are hard for you typically. Like why did that pop out when I asked? Because I think I think before

in my life, I always relationship hopped, I think. And particularly in the sort of aftermath of

everything that happened, you know, I certainly think like I thought that I needed someone there to comfort. And I think I sort of realized when I sort of got myself sober and made that

Because I'm quite proud of myself for being single for that long. I know I feel like quite a

“amount of thing to say, but I think in my life I always kind of, I really sit hopped to a certain”

degree, you know? And I think I always felt like I couldn't be alone and it's what I

suppose is this kind of like running from yourself, running from being able to sit with myself. And I suppose I think I perhaps used to do, I didn't love and adore all the people that I met along the way and I'm falling in a lot of a good few times in my life. But I think I made the decision in my life of once things to be single. And I think I learned really through extraordinary self-discipline to kind of stand among to feet. And now I sometimes worry that I'm too comfortable being sick

or that I don't really want to be anywhere, which isn't necessarily true, but I sometimes feel like, oh yeah, I probably should maybe get back in the day and see in any. But but I think that is actually a testament to how far I've come in a way. And so just to connect things to your work a little bit, given how much your work is about processing things and exploring ideas and feelings that you've experienced, which tend to be related to sort of darker things. Do you think of art

as something that for you could be a way to, you know, express joy or optimism or like, could you imagine doing sort of a, and I don't mean this in like a perfunctory way, but doing like a light-hearted piece of work? I have been thinking about doing a light-hearted piece of work, but I suppose I think

like even if I was to, I always have this theory and whether it's true or not, it's that your

all kind of art chooses you in a way. Like, like, like I think that a lot of people when they start, they go, you know, like, like, for example, I start down comedy or I love the comedy stylings of this person. Therefore, I must be like this person and I always think comedians go on a journey where they almost start by imitation, at least in terms of style and it tips them back to their voice kind of chooses them and their voice steers them and then a comedian really

really becomes exemplary when they really realize what they have to say and that journey is so

“hard as an artist. And I think because my understanding of life is contradiction and to a certain”

degree sort of internalized pain, not that's also a goth, but, but I sort of, I feel like that, even if I did do a comedy, but the characters would still have to have some sort of comedic link

to some sort of like pain of some kind, but the idea excites me and, you know, never see never

suppose. Is there work that you turn to personally for, like, sort of, pure pleasure or pure joy or just just because you think it's funny? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Laurel and Hardy films are still really watch. Yeah, yeah, absolutely love them. I don't know what it is about them. They always make me so cry. It's weird. I sort of, I don't know what it is. I think I watched them when I was a kid like religiously and I don't know whether like my programming of life is a sort of built into me

when I was a young age. My mum would sit at the bottom of the stairs and she would listen to me laughing at the music box and she would, and she said to me one of the best times she ever had as a parent was just sitting listening to me laughing at the film. And I, I don't know when I watch it now, I sort of, I tend to watch stuff so different to what I do, you know, like I watch wrestling a lot and I watch football a lot. I'd never really watch if something I know is going to carry

quite heaviness. I actually don't really really watch it. It's strange. Can I ask you to this is something that I think about in my own terms, sometimes also, but on the idea of working through your experiences and working through it in your art, is there ever any sense of like, I'd actually like to transcend this and have worked through it and be on the other side and on to other things or is it just more like, no, this, this is who I am and this is what I do

and it's not about getting through it in some way. God yeah, I suppose I would say that one would hope that I would get to that point. How close I am to that is quite far, of course, I suppose my

“place in life, I'm understanding of life is still full of contradiction and sort of internalization”

to a certain degree. I would open the one day, I don't know, maybe I do something it's so far removed from me that it feels like some sort of release, like it's not even a part of me or it's not, it's not a precious, precious to it. I think if I was to move away, it would have to, I would have to find some sort of divine space and spirituality within myself, which feels quite far at the moment, but I am, everything's getting better, so we'll see. Richard, thank you so much for taking

Thank you very much, thank you, it's been lovely chatting and thanks for a great question,

it's been really appreciate that.

“That's Richard Gad, his new show Half-Man will air on HBO in April. To watch this interview”

and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/adsymbol the interview

podcast. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly, it was edited by Anabel Bacon,

“mixing by Sophia Landman. Original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemisto, and Mariel Azana,”

photography by Philip Gay. The rest of the team is pre-amath you,

white-alarm, pala new-dorf, joe bill moonios, eddy-costas, cationo-brain,

“and procheminters. Our executive producer is Alice in Benedict.”

Next week, Lulu talks to Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube about what the platform's dominance means for our society, our politics, and our minds. I'm David Markazy and this is the interview from the New York Times.