The Cast of ‘Baby Reindeer’ Speaks Out: “You Have to Practice Self-Preservation”

During his 10-hour flight from London to Los Angeles, Richard Gadd decided to catch up on the 250 or so unread messages on his phone. He’s been inundated since his Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, reached phenomenon status last month. After stepping off the plane and clearing customs, he then encountered a huge mob of fans. He wondered if someone famous had been on his flight. Then he saw what they were all holding: printout posters of his Baby Reindeer alter ego, Donny Dunn. “They were going crazy,” Gadd says. He signed as many as he could. The crowd followed him as he left.

“It feels like you’ve left your living room window open and there’s a cacophony of people shouting into it,” Gadd says later from a stuffy West Hollywood conference room. “You have to practice self-preservation [in] moments like these.”

No kidding. As Baby Reindeer, a small-scale British production that was not heavily promoted, has amassed tens of millions of views around the world, crashing this year’s Emmy race in the process, it’s put Gadd and his costars Jessica Gunning and Nava Mau—sitting on either side of him on this sunny Wednesday afternoon—under a microscope. The series is based on Gadd’s actual experience, following a struggling comedian and bartender whose own traumatic past leads to a dangerously toxic dynamic with his stalker, named Martha and played by Gunning in the show.

The empathetic, darkly funny approach to two vulnerable characters finding hope and despair in each other has resonated globally. It’s also caused controversy, as the scale of the show has led viewers to try tracking down the real-life stalker as well as the powerful TV producer who sexually abuses Donny.

Gadd and company have just completed a glitzy photo shoot and are still giddy from the previous evening’s celebratory Baby Reindeer For Your Consideration event. At the same time, a Scottish woman named Fiona Harvey has come forward to claim she was the inspiration for Martha, announcing that she will be speaking out in an extensive video interview with Piers Morgan. (In that interview, which happened after I spoke to Gadd and his costars, she called Baby Reindeer “defamatory” and argued that Gadd is “obsessed” with her. Netflix’s UK policy chief Benjamin King reiterated on Wednesday that the streamer and producers took “every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story.” Vanity Fair has reached out to Gadd for comment.)

Since Reindeer’s premiere, Gadd has consistently said that he cannot and will not talk about the basis for Martha, while emphasizing that the real and fictional versions of her are substantially different. “I think it does a disservice to the art,” he says of the audience’s desire to find the inspirations for Reindeer’s characters. “I’ve spoken out publicly against it and said that I wanted to stop. I think that did have an impact.”

Would he have done anything differently, I ask, if he’d known the show would get as big as it has? “I can’t police the internet, and no matter what I would’ve done, you just don’t know how people are going to react to things. You can never predict the future,” he says. “You can’t second-guess yourself, or spend the creative process second-guessing yourself.”

For everyone involved with Baby Reindeer, the last month has been a lot to take in. “I have had to remind myself that I am not an infinite resource, and I actually am better able to do my work and serve my purpose by protecting my energy and practicing strong boundaries,” says Mau, who plays Donny’s girlfriend, Teri. “But it has overwhelmingly been an outpouring of love that I’ve received from people in all places.”

Mau’s nuanced performance grounds the series, with Teri navigating her affection for Donny as his trauma bubbles to the surface—and the ire of Martha once she becomes aware of the relationship. While Teri doesn’t figure prominently into the series’ endgame, Mau felt a sense of closure after filming a scene that did not make the final cut of the show. In that sequence, Teri leaves Donny a voicemail months after they’ve parted ways, telling him she’s watched his viral video—in which he reveals being sexually assaulted in a stunning stand-up monologue—and that she hopes he is finding peace. “It was a very nuanced, loving, clear, and adult and healed message,” Mau says.

Gadd shares a chunk of Teri’s dialogue from that scene with me: “‘I just wanted to say I saw how much you struggled, and I hope how much you’re going through right now helps you reach some sort of peace in your life. I’ve met a new man now, so don’t call me back. I thought I should let you know. Anyway, good luck, darling. Enjoy it.’” Gadd decided not to include that scene in order to maintain a level of surprise and heartbreak in the edit. We learn about Teri’s future more subtly without that extra context. “You have to kill your darlings,” he says.