The Baby Reindeer star looks completely different in his new HBO series, and he says the change required a year of hard work. Richard Gadd shocked viewers when first images of his upcoming drama Half Man appeared online. The 36-year-old actor traded his slim look for a much bigger, stronger body to play a character named Ruben.
Gadd told Men’s Health magazine about the exact numbers behind his change. He weighed 68.8kg while filming Baby Reindeer. For Half Man, he reached 109.8kg at his heaviest. That is a gain of 40kg over one year. The actor worked with a personal trainer and a nutritionist to reach this new size.
‘I Changed Everything About Myself’ For The Role
The Emmy winner opened up about his strict daily routine during an interview with STV Radio. He said he knew right away that his normal life would not work for this part. The character of Ruben is a tough, angry man who solves problems with his fists. Gadd had to look like someone who could actually do that.
“I knew I needed to change everything about myself,” Gadd explained to the radio hosts. “I changed my entire diet, I worked out six days a week, sometimes twice a day.” He also grew out his beard and changed his hair to look less like his Baby Reindeer character Donny Dunn.
The actor’s meal plan was very strict. He had a company in England prepare all his food. The meals came with exact calorie counts. They shipped the food to Scotland where the show was filming. Gadd ate the same things at the same times every single day. He never broke this routine during the whole time he worked on Half Man.
The ‘McDonald’s Moment’ That Ended His Strict Diet
Gadd shared a funny story about his last day of filming. After months of controlled eating and hard workouts, he finally allowed himself a treat. He asked the crew to get him food from McDonald’s. But the actor said the order was so big that the crew looked like they were feeding everyone on set, not just him.
“You wouldn’t believe what I ate on the last day of filming,” Gadd said. “It’s so gluttonous that I don’t think I would ever be able to live it down. It was a McDonald’s… you would think they were feeding the whole crew.”
This small moment became a big deal for the production team. After a year of strict eating, getting to have fast food felt like a celebration for everyone who worked with Gadd on his change.
Why Gadd Almost Said No To Playing Ruben
Half Man tells the story of two men who grew up together as teenagers in 1980s Glasgow. Their mothers started a relationship, so the boys lived in the same house. Ruben (played by Gadd) is a violent kid who just got out of a young offenders prison. Niall (played by Jamie Bell) is shy and quiet. The show looks at their messed up bond over 40 years.
But Gadd almost did not play the adult Ruben at all. He told Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast that he wanted to take a break from acting after Baby Reindeer. That show required him to be in almost every scene. He felt very tired and thought he would just write and produce new projects instead of starring in them.
“I remember after Baby Reindeer, being in every single scene and everything, I just remember thinking, ‘I need to take one of these things off my plate, so acting felt like the thing that I could take off,’” Gadd said.
Jamie Bell changed his mind. Bell told Gadd that he really wanted to act opposite him as Ruben. HBO also asked Gadd to consider playing the part. The idea scared Gadd because the character was nothing like himself or his previous role. He went home feeling very unsure. He spent a whole night thinking about whether he would regret saying no. In the end, he decided to take the risk.
Training For A ‘Bruiser’ Body Not A Fitness Model Body
Gadd did not want to look like a bodybuilder on a magazine cover. He told Men’s Health that he wanted Ruben to look real. The character is someone who got big from life problems and anger, not from spending hours on gym machines for looks.
“We knew that a lean bulk wasn’t going to give me what I needed to look big,” Gadd explained. “And I also wanted Ruben to look real. I never wanted it to be a veiny, steroid look.”
His trainer David Jenkins and nutritionist Andrew Roche helped him build a body that looked strong but natural. They used different workout methods. Some days Gadd lifted heavy weights with fewer repetitions. Other days he used lighter weights with many repetitions. They also made him use a heavy club for certain exercises to keep his muscles guessing.
The actor said he often felt like he was not making progress. But other people would see him and tell him he looked much bigger. No matter how many times someone said this, Gadd said it would not fully sink in for him. What he did notice was physically carrying all that extra weight around.
The Show’s Connection To Debates About Men
Half Man comes out at a time when many TV shows and documentaries are looking at male anger and confusion. Gadd told IndieWire that he started writing the first episode back in 2019, long before these topics became so popular in the media.
“It had nothing to do with the social, political landscape we now find ourselves in,” Gadd said. “It was actually a creative desire to just return to the project. I never really write with a sort of motivation to speak to our times. I write just to explore the human condition.”
The show looks at how two men fail to love themselves or each other. Gadd described it as a story about repression and what happens when people go through traumatic experiences while their brains are still growing. He set the show in Glasgow because the city has changed so much over the decades. When he was growing up, people saw Glasgow as a scary place. Now it is known as one of the gay capitals of the world. This change mirrors what one of the characters goes through.
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Casting And Where To Watch ‘Half Man’
Jamie Bell plays adult Niall. Younger versions of the characters are played by Stuart Campbell (young Ruben) and Mitchell Robertson (young Niall). The six-episode limited series is a joint production between HBO and the BBC.
New episodes of Half Man premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Thursdays at 9pm Eastern Time. The series started airing on April 25, 2026. Viewers in the United Kingdom can watch on BBC iPlayer.
The show opened the Canneseries festival before its TV release. Early reviews talk about how different Gadd looks and how heavy the story feels. The actor said he just wants people to react to the work, whether they like it or not. “If you provoke a reaction, that’s great,” he told Yahoo News.
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