I'm Baby Reindeer's Richard Gadd, and this is why I knew I had to transform everything about myself for my new TV series

Before Baby Reindeer came out, I always used to write in public places – cafés, libraries, and so on – because I liked soaking in the atmosphere of the people around me. Since Baby Reindeer was released, that has changed significantly.

Going out in public now comes with a thousand caveats. I feel especially self-conscious writing in public, because the vast majority of people have seen Baby Reindeer and know what I do. So now, most of my writing happens either on set, in edit suites or at home in my spare room in north London.

Writing has always served a purpose for me. It helps me pause and reflect. In fact, it’s the only thing I have ever known that has given me any real sense of clarity over anything at all. I’ve found it to be a phenomenal tool for shrinking difficulties in my life into something more manageable.

My earliest memory of writing was when I was very young. In fact, it could be the earliest memory I have. I wrote a book called Felix the Furball, which was about a furball that was always getting blown out of the house. I cannot remember much more about it than that, but I was completely obsessed with it.

I would go to my dad’s computer and just button-bash for hours on end – not entirely unlike how I write now, in fact. It all came crashing down one day when my dad’s computer got a virus and he threw it out, without warning. I cried for weeks on end because my life’s work had vanished. I must have been around five years old at the time, maybe younger.

Since then, I’ve kept diaries at various points in my life – especially during periods of hardship. I find they can help ground you in times of crisis. And while I’ve never gone back and read them (I can imagine they would make for some difficult reading), I surmise that they might be an interesting time capsule, of sorts, to look back on.

In a lot of ways, I feel most writing is, to some degree, a reflection of self – even when it’s fictional, as my new BBC drama Half Man is. I truly believe that any artistic endeavour is an extension of someone’s vision of the world – or of life, or of how they see people – or how they want to make sense of themselves inside it.

That said, it’s a very difficult art form – especially inside the television process. The deadlines, the pressure, the sheer number of voices and expectations to navigate. On top of that, you still have to find something that feels singular and true to your own voice. So, there’s a lot to contend with, and it can be hugely challenging.

But I suppose that is what I like about it too – because when it works, it feels all the more gratifying for what it has taken to get there. I’m a big believer in perseverance and determination leading to a profound sense of personal satisfaction in the end.

And whatever pressure and expectation I felt following Baby Reindeer are nothing compared to the pressure I’ve put on myself these past two years to make Half Man as good as it possibly can be.

I always write for myself, and I believe all writers should. The television process inevitably involves satisfying other people, but if you lose faith in what you’re doing, or start writing for other people more than yourself, it will not work for anyone involved.

So, I always make sure to keep whatever project I’m working on close to my heart – for the benefit of everyone involved. I genuinely sacrifice my life for my projects, and so I have to feel creatively enabled throughout otherwise, what is the point?

Everything I do now, people will assume is based on my life, but Half Man is a fictional series, which I have built from a blank page. All they need to do is a bit of Googling to discover that my childhood was very different from that of the central characters, Ruben and Niall, who are brought together when their mothers start living together.

And while I grew up in Scotland, my upbringing differed greatly from the one shown on screen. I grew up in a much smaller town than the one Ruben and Niall grow up in. The characters in Half Man live in a more populated, urban environment, whereas I grew up in a tiny little town with one shop and a bus that came around once a year in June. My childhood was far more insular than theirs.

All the same, though, it did feel right to root this story in the country I grew up in. I love the identity of Scotland on screen, how it looks, the accent, the people – everything about it. From an artistic point of view, Glasgow has undergone significant change over the years, too – from a city that was often deemed violent in my youth, to one of the UK’s most formidable cultural hubs.

Neither Niall nor Ruben is based on anyone, but both are born out of certain psychologies that, I would guess, we all recognise in certain men. Most people will have encountered – even fleetingly – someone like Ruben: damaged, repressed, prone to angry and/or violent outbursts. And they will certainly have encountered someone like Niall, who appears quiet and honest at first, but who harbours a more devious or insidious side.

I’m not sure why I decided to tell this story now – or next. I assume it’s because there’s been a great deal of conversation around men in recent years, and I was interested in exploring how we arrived at such a weighty cultural discussion. In order to do that, I felt that examining male violence and rage through the prism of two broken individuals might be the most effective way.

For me, the series isn’t about toxic masculinity. It’s more about male existence and repression – about internal brokenness and hard-wired expectations. I’m sure people will pull that phrase from the show, but ultimately, at its core, it’s a complicated human story of two boys growing into men and struggling to come to terms with themselves – and, moreover, struggling to love one other.

Exploring themes of loneliness and trauma is both emotionally draining and strangely helpful. I have felt a great deal of loneliness, isolation and confusion in my life, and I like to echo that back on screen – for people who have felt the same way, or who may be going through the same thing now. It can be difficult, but it does lead to catharsis. Exploring any theme you are struggling with through writing can bring a phenomenal kind of clarity. It feels clichéd to talk about art as catharsis now, but it really does help.

Initially, I didn’t intend to be in Half Man. It was Jamie Bell who first suggested it when I went to LA to persuade him to be in it. I’d always wanted Jamie for the role of Niall. I don’t actively think of actors while I write, but he kept popping into my head every now and again as I was fleshing out Niall.

I cannot really explain it beyond two things: a) I think he is a generational talent, and b) he just kept resurfacing in my mind, again and again, as I wrote. Maybe it was the film Hallam Foe, which I loved, where Jamie played another Scottish character. But either way, when I have an artistic itch, I need to scratch it – and I suppose he needed to scratch his, too, when he asked me to be in it alongside him.

Around this time, HBO – who co-produced the series with the BBC – also said they wanted me to take on the role of Older Ruben, and so I suddenly felt like everyone was landing on the same conclusion at once. It terrified me enough to make me want to do it. If something scares me, I have this strange, almost instinctive rebellion in me that makes me want to fight that feeling.

I knew I needed to change physically if I was going to be believable as the embodiment of male violence and rage.

I knew I had to transform everything about myself – from how thin I was as Donny Dunn in Baby Reindeer to how big I am now as Ruben Pallister in Half Man. I trained for about a year, six days a week, sometimes twice a day, in the lead-up to filming. I still wanted to be bigger than I was, but I did what I could with the time I had. I worked with a nutritionist and a personal trainer and followed a strict routine and diet. It’s remarkable what the body can do.

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Returning to Glasgow, where I went to university, to film and edit Half Man has made me realise just how much I miss Scotland. My parents, who still live in Fife, haven’t seen it yet, but they will be the first to watch it when it’s released.

They watched Baby Reindeer the moment it came out – God knows what that was like for them – and they’ve always been incredibly supportive and non-judgemental. I would not be where I am today without them. Felix the Furball, aside…

Photography: Muir Vidler @muirvidler

Styling: Amanda Blackwood @amandablackwoodstylist

Grooming: Sandra Hahnel @sandrahahnel

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Half Man episode 1 arrives on BBC iPlayer on Friday 24 April.

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