- Wow. You must have
amazing dinner parties. - (raucously laughing) Oh, yes. - Sadly it's kind of my
laugh. (raucously laughing) I went to a comedy club back home and it was cabaret seating
and I was like, oh no, I hope I don't find this guy too funny. Might be a bit scary hearing
my old laugh in the background. (raucously laughing)
(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Richard Gadd. - My name's Jess Gunning. - I'm Weronika Tofilska. I'm
a director of "Baby Reindeer." - I play Martha. - I'm the exec producer, actor and writer of "Baby Reindeer." - And this is Variety's "Making A Scene." - [Donny] I felt sorry for her. (door clicks)
(hinges creaking) That's the first feeling I felt. - I always wanted the show
to open straight away, kind of throw you right
into to the deep end. That's what the live show did. "Baby Reindeer" the live show open with, "I felt sorry for her. That's the first feeling I felt." It's the most important part
of the show almost, in a way, 'cause it sets, it sets
everything in motion. I also really wanted to
get his self-hatred across in the first voiceover as well. So the very fact that he
says, "I felt sorry for her. That's the first feeling I felt." It says what he feels about Martha and it's a patronizing, arrogant feeling. Who's Donny to hand out, sort
of, empathy cards to people when his life is going so wrong. - You have to buy something. - Can't afford something. - Right? Not even a cup of tea? - We really wanted to
capture the experience of Donny seeing Martha for the first time. And when we were talking
about how we're gonna approach the sort of visual language of it, we were talking a lot about subjectivity and the fact that it's going to be told from Donny's perspective. We really wanted the camera to really capture the
point of view of Donny. For example, when Martha comes in, we don't really cut to her close up. The camera pans like the
way he kind of looks at her and with every step
when she approaches her, we approach Martha and we
reveal more and more about her. - There was, like, a very specific kind of rhythm to it a bit. It was quite important, so we
did that quite a few times. In my kind of character backstory, she's just left whoever she
was previously connected to and walked into the pub
almost to kind of escape that. But it was kind of important for us all, Richard and Weronika and
I, just to get a sense of she's in a bit of a troubled
place when he first sees her, which is why he's so
intrigued and drawn to her and drawn to kind of help in a way. - And there was this very important moment when he offers her a tea on
the house when she looks up. - How about I give you a
cup of tea on the house? - This is a straight POV shot. This captures this moment of
them looking at each other and seeing each other for the first time, and especially how Donny
sees Martha seeing him. - I knew I wanted to make a
big moment of that look up and really translate it to the audience and make that moment. And Weronika did that
very well, the director, just make that moment as big
as and important as possible. And then I think everything
else that follows you sort of understand. - I don't know how many people have paid huge amounts of
attention to her before. So not only is this a light bulb moment 'cause he gives her a free cup of tea, but I think it's also a light bulb moment 'cause it's like she's
seen for the first time in a long time. - It's almost like a little
miracle happen in her world at this point. We talked a lot about this scene, it was really important to us
this sort of like step by step Donny getting to know this woman. - If he didn't offer her the cup of tea, it probably would've stayed
in that space I imagine, but then when he does that is broken and everything changes from there really. - And then the moment
when he does this joke. - Wow. You must have
amazing dinner parties. (Martha raucously laughing) - He's a comedian. She has the best laugh
that he has ever heard and that's exactly what he wants, that's exactly what he needs, really, at that point in his life. - Sadly, it's kind of my laugh so now I'm very mindful if I ever go to, I went to a comedy club back home and it was cabaret seating and I was like, oh no, I hope I don't
find this guy too funny. Might be a bit scary hearing
my old laugh in the background. - [Donny] She had this incredible laugh. This giddy, slightly disconcerting laugh. - And that laughter basically
starts this sequence which is probably the most joyful sequence in the whole show. It gets much darker
from there on. (laughs) - It's the butterfly effect, isn't it? The small thing that
leads to the disaster. - We very much kind of had
this kind of camera movement which was very sort of like, the conveyor belt was one of these ideas so we kind of like
moving through his life, and this, and this, and this. And he sort of almost
like this constant in it and we could see that he's kind
of not, he's not very happy. And then Martha is the person
that lights up his life and she gives him the attention that he really, really
needs in that moment. - [Donny] She would sit
there talking about me. - You've got really
manly hands, haven't you? - And that's when we
kind of had this moment of her coming into the pub and
this almost operatic moment of them kind of starting
this relationship together. - [Donny] So when someone sees you through the mire of it all, sees you as the person you came
here to be, you notice them. You notice them noticing you. - And I think he feels the
same way about her, you know, there's all those little bits about somebody hurt you, didn't they? And she sees him in a way
that others don't, you know? His jawline, his manly hands and that. I think he wants to be seen in that way. And I think vice versa for her, somebody to kind of have a banter with and you know, look through her contacts and not kind of judge her, and make a joke of, "You must
have great dinner parties." I don't think she has that very often and I think that is what is a game changer in terms of Donny for her. - [Donny] Every day now
Martha would come in, each time with new makeup, new hairstyles, like a kid playing dress up. - I thought it was very important to get the sort of passage of time up top with the opening montages. I also thought it was very important to throw the audience into
a sense of propulsion. I would obsess about these montages and I always wanted the
voiceover but no gaps. I think the temptation
sometimes in the edit is to give the audience pause for thought, but what I really wanted is every time you see a montage sequence, the voiceover is joined
up, it's joined up, so if you need a gap in the
voiceover, it's extremely felt. It was an opportunity to not
only show the passage of time and just how much Martha was coming in and all these strands of her personality, her overexaggerations, her weird quirks. "I've gotta go" but then she never goes, her diet coke that she never drank. - In terms of camera, we
really want it to be dynamic. So this is the first time we introduced push-ins on Steadicam and we do whip pans which help
connecting different shots with the passage of time. And they're also quite fun and kind of give the shot a lot of energy and, you know, the sort of musical quality that we were really
after in that sequence. - That was a busy day. We just had the tent
right next to the studio and then had amazing hair and
makeup team, and costume team so I could run out and obviously do, 'cause we were doing all the whip pans of when I come into the pub, and then obviously with my bag we had like loads of different
bags to try for that. So that was an amazing day to film and I really love that montage
'cause you get a sense of, you know, how often she was
there, you know, chatting away. - I mean me and Jess talked
a little bit before the shoot and I think what we connected over was this idea that Martha in
her mind, she meets this man and he flirts with her, and that she believes that
they're in a relationship. How would a person in
a relationship behave if their boyfriend was
behaving the way Donny does? Jess is so amazing and
she could just really put all this into Martha's character and I think completely
believe her point of view. And even though we are telling our story from Donny's point of view, you have this amazing
empathy towards this woman. - I didn't share any real-life voicemails or emails with Jessica and she was also very good
at sort of being like, I just need the script and that's fine. I wanted Martha to take
on a life of its own, to exist outside the real life people, and I didn't want it to be like an actor trying to
inhabit a person, you know? I wanted it to be its own character. - Donny as a character
and Martha as a character were just so clear to me,
but I didn't want to muddy it by confusing it with any
information about the real person because, obviously, this is told through Donny's point of view and it's based on a true story
that happened to Richard, but she's a character. - So, we were sort of trying
to, throughout the whole show, put people in the experience of Donny. I think that was like our first rule, we wanna create an environment
that reflects how he feels, so we were really inside his
head all the way through. Me and Krzysztof Trojnar the DP we kind of were quite obsessive about this and often we had shots set up basically between the characters and we had them looking
almost directly into the lens. - There was a lot of map
box acting as I called it, which was like you put an
X on the camera like this and you'd be acting to that and Jess would be like
a voice in the distance, but I'd be acting with an X. So a lot of the scenes,
like loads of them, we weren't like even
looking at each other, we were looking at these
little X's on the camera, which is kind of crazy. And sometimes I'd do it and I'd be like, oh God, I just wish Jess's face was there so I can see her expressions. And sometimes I'm like, God,
I really hope it doesn't show that I'm acting to a
red X on a camera box. - I'll be the one sitting
next to the gorgeous brunette. - Who's that then? (Donny laughs) Oh, you mean me? (raucously laughing) - I think by showing her vulnerabilities, you make the audience care about Martha. When I was getting stalked I remember just feeling
a lot of empathy for them and like why isn't there
help for this person? I don't understand how
they're not being helped or they're just kind of allowed to just be out there in the world, sort of doing the things
that they're doing and also just in quite a
clear state of emotional pain a lot of the time. And it was just nothing like
I'd seen it on television where it was like insidiously evil, and I felt I really was up against someone who couldn't help doing
what they were doing, and there's a great sadness in that that I wanted to capture. - Sure, I'll come picnic will you. - Oh my, picnic fun times
with my favorite reindeer. - Throughout the whole show we very much explore
the conflicting feelings that Donny has towards Martha and we really wanted to create almost a sense of a very
unlikely sort of love story between those two people. And obviously it's not, it's
not really a love story, it's a sort of platonic love story, but it was really important
to us that, you know, in terms of both music and how we film it, there is this sort of idea there of a sort of a beginning
of a relationship. ♪ When I said I need ♪ - Richard already had some ideas initially with what kind of music he wanted and then we really stayed away from anything too modern and contemporary because there's something very
timeless about this story. And also I think Martha sees herself as a sort of romantic heroine
in some ways and so, you know, Patsy Cline or Brenda
Lee or Dusty Springfield are kind of of that world. - I'm 42.
- You're 42? Well, you'd better give Peter
Pan his moisturizer back. - (laughs) My oh my. - It was the most
important casting, I think. The show really hinged on an actor being able to
deliver the nuances of Martha. If somebody plays it nothing but evil, nothing but weird, nothing but twisted, the show fails to take on the
nuance that I think it needs to be an interesting piece of work. - I've never read a character
quite like her before and I think that the
challenge was, I suppose, trying to capture what
Richard wrote on the page and translate that to screen 'cause I think she's one
of the most fascinating kind of multilayered,
contradictory characters I've ever read. And so I think the challenge was trying to get that balance right. - Who was it? - [Donny] Sorry, can you let
go of my hand now, please? - I want names. - The casting process was
long and it was challenging, and I always kind of wanted Jess. Every time I'd seen her in something she stole the scene in anything she did. - Yeah, I auditioned over the space of about
four months really. I think that they wanted to
kind of just really make sure that the chemistry between us was spot on 'cause I think you could go several ways with the part of Martha. I really fought for it because
I just saw her so clearly and I just kept thinking, oh man, if somebody were to do this and play her as a villain,
or play her as crazy, you'd miss the point a bit
because she so isn't that. And so I went in again and
again to try and persuade them. - There was quite a funny story that I think she's told publicly and she won't mind me saying because there was a
bit of a question about should Martha be older? And she did a self tape where
she like aged herself up and she went out and bought
like a wig from a joke shop, and it was the maddest wig I'd ever seen. But again, just like this
commitment, this passion for it. - I'd gone in a few times and obviously was just
absolutely dying to do it and I'd heard on the grapevine that they didn't think I was old enough. And so I spoke to a friend of mine who's actually an amazing makeup designer called Nadia Stacey. And I was chatting to her and I was like, "If you were designing this show, would you think I was too young?" And she was like, "No, I
just would either wig you up or gray your hair a bit and, you know, do what they did in the show
to make me look 42, 43." So she sent me to a wig place in London and they wigged me up and aged me up and then I went and put myself
on tape and sent it over to be like, "Look, see. Please." You know? And luckily it worked. But they probably just
went like, "Oh guys back. Geez, who's this woman? Back off?" - We saw amazing actresses for it, like the best actresses
in Britain for the role. And there was even actresses
in America really interested, I won't say who any of them are. - And luckily they took a chance on me. I wore them down. (laughs) - [Donny] I wanted her to laugh. I wanted her to share in the
joke, but she just didn't. - I think the point of
it is that life is messy and connections can be
made that are complicated. And I think the way that
Richard has written this story is so honest about his
errors when they first met, the things he said that
potentially he might not do now or regrets. And I think that usually when
you read the headline of, you know, a female
stalker, you might assume there's a kind of
victim/villain role there, but I think it's so much
more muddy and messy and more complicated than that, and I think he's told it so honestly. I think the point is that there
isn't a clear answer really. - The whole experience was very surreal. Like taking this period in my life and committing it to screen
and having weird deja vu. I got a little weird deja vu with Jess, like, by when she was acting. I did sometimes, I'd be like (mutters) and after I'd be like, "Oh,
I'm on a film set, what?" Like, I really felt like
the film set disappeared, the camera disappeared and
I was kind of back there. I did have these weird
sort of life imitating art, art imitating life
moments on set for sure. Yeah, it was surreal. It was
very surreal, the whole thing. - Sometimes you do this job to entertain and make people feel like they can escape, but then a very occasionally
a job like this comes along that is kind of, not to be too cheesy, but changing people's lives. And so to be part of
that is just incredible. (upbeat music) (upbeat music fades)
