SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for the series finale of the HBO/BBC drama “Half Man,” now streaming on HBO Max.
For the past six weeks, Richard Gadd’s sophomore drama, “Half Man,” kept viewers on tenterhooks as they waited to find out what actually went down between his character Ruben and Jamie Bell’s Niall in that locked barn at Niall’s wedding — and, more crucially, why.
Now, with the finale revealing the explosive secret Niall had kept from Ruben — and Ruben’s almost predictable reaction — there is a conclusion. But is there closure?
Gadd — who conceived, wrote, executive produced and starred in the show — sat down with Variety to talk about the series’ potentially controversial sixth and final episode, which he admits was making waves before it even aired. “I would say the ending is the most talked about part of the show,” he says, adding that it’s the first thing anyone who has seen a preview of the series has wanted to discuss with him.
But Gadd is wary of revealing too much about the meaning behind the ending, “because sometimes it can take the magic away a little bit,” he says. “I like that the ending is a little ambiguous, and I like that you’re asking these questions. But I sometimes think, it’s almost my duty as an artist sometimes — or a writer, or whatever — to not over-explain intention. Because I think whatever people take out of the scene is more important to me.”
Still, the writer and actor — whose smash hit debut on Netflix, “Baby Reindeer,” also ended with a hint of ambiguity — was game to talk about how he landed on that closing shot, why he doesn’t like happy endings and how they filmed that explosive fight scene in the barn with co-star Bell.
Richard Gadd in ‘Half Man’
Courtesy of BBC/HBO
Was the fight scene in the barn with Jamie Bell filmed on location?
It was on location, I can’t quite remember where, but it was Scottish countryside, big abandoned barn. Very remote.
How long did you have to shoot?
I think we spent three days at the barn in total, and we squeezed the lot in. I think our second scene [with me and Jamie Bell] was the big final scene. We got very into it very quickly, I’ll put it that way.
What was the most challenging part of shooting the fight scene with Jamie?
How sore my elbows felt afterwards! I tell you what, working with Jamie, I loved it. We knew each other for like a week, and then before you know it we were throwing ourselves [around], snot pouring out my nose onto his face. Like, we really went for it. He is a real trooper.
Because Jamie’s such an established actor, he’s been going for so long, you always worry [whether he’s] going to be happy to roll around in the mud like this. Boy, was he happy to roll around in the mud! And it was physically grueling.
How much of Niall’s death did you choreograph?
I [not only] knew exactly the way I wanted it to be shot, but the way in which Ruben would kill him with a sort of severe pressing down on his face. That scene was in the draft script from the very first pass.
Everything’s carefully planned. I can’t physically press down on Jamie, so there’s a lot of fight choreography going into it. So really, when you see my hands pressing down, I’m putting a lot of weight into my wrists. And honestly, I remember by the end of it, God, my wrists were so sore!
Ruben, at this point, has been so emasculated, his worst fears realized [when he finds out that Niall slept with his wife, meaning not only is Ruben likely infertile but Niall is actually the father of his son]. Not only has he been so emasculated by the one person he A) trusted the most and B) never thought had the power in him to emasculate him. So the only way Ruben can get back his dominance is to kill him in the most masculine and domineering way as possible: kill him with his bare hands.
Ruben’s signature move throughout the series is stamping on people’s heads and it seemed he chose a “gentler” method for Niall. Am I reading too much into that?
There’s the calculated version of Ruben, and then there’s the explosive and in-the-moment version of Ruben as well. And I think he kills Niall in a different way, because he’s gone about the violence in a very different way as well. It’s not reactive. It is calculated, and thought through.
Jamie Bell and Richard Gadd in ‘Half Man’
Courtesy of BBC/HBO
Is there a significance to the fact Niall is killed on his wedding day?
I mean, weddings symbolize a happily ever after. You could almost imagine a preoccupation building in Ruben’s head when he finds out that this day is happening, that Niall is going to be living happily ever after. You can almost imagine the preoccupation with that, having had everything that he had in his life taken from him in the way that it was. And so, yeah, I think the idea of the wedding day would have built up so much in Ruben’s mind as something that Niall, quite simply, wasn’t allowed to have it.
The last shot in the show cuts about half a second before the audience expects it: You’re looking at Niall’s body, it almost looks like you’re rolling your eyes, and then it cuts. Did you always know the show was going to end with that shot?
I always wanted to end it that way. I knew something significant was happening in the barn at the end. The second I landed on it — I don’t know whether I was in the middle of writing Episode 6, and I was seeing the ending coming around the corner — I thought, “Oh, what about that?” And then I think I started to be like, “Oh, that does interest me and excite me.”
Coupled with the grunt, it’s almost comedic, in that it seems like you’re looking at Niall’s corpse and either thinking “Great, now I’m going to have to dispose of this body” or “Oh God, I’m going back to prison.” What was your intention when you were playing it?
I know what I intended with that sort of grunt, or with the ending in general and the cut to black, but I think the fact that provokes so much discussion, it’s almost more important than me saying what it is. I think that it can be interpreted in many different ways. In a show which is almost written so you have to fill in the gaps between the episodes, it felt only natural to me that you would have an ending where you have to almost fill in some of the gaps yourself as well. An ending in this that was neat and tied up and [checked] off a box and made everything feel whole didn’t really work for an innately fractured serial story like this.
Why did you decide Episode 4 was the right place to show that Ruben dies rather than keep it for the finale?
I thought something has to happen at the end of 4 to keep these wedding bookends surprising. Because let’s just say he completes the speech, I feel like there might have been a slightly deflating energy coming out the episode of feeling like it was ending the same as Episode 3. So really, just in a storytelling sense, I felt like I needed to shake it up in quite a significant way again. And I really was racking my brains because I knew I needed something at the end of 4 to really push those bookends along. And I can’t remember where it came to me, but the second it did, I thought, “Oh, that might be quite a nice way of doing this.”
The audience doesn’t actually see Ruben die, and the first time I watched it I thought maybe he survived and the end of Episode 4 was actually a dream sequence. Did you shoot a scene where Ruben explicitly dies just to have in the editing room?
No, I don’t think so.
Richard Gadd
Courtesy of BBC/HBO
Why did you choose not to have Ruben die on screen and to keep it slightly ambiguous?
I feel like some of the mistakes television makes so much in this day and age is kind of neat endings. I felt in a show that was innately playing with structure and innately playing with the stuff that happens that you don’t see, it just felt like the honorable way of almost mirroring the story we’ve seen so far.
I did [it] at the end of “Baby Reindeer” as well. There was multiple meanings you could have taken from the ending of “Baby Reindeer,” where Donnie looks up at the barman.
TV shows and films, they always have a happy ending. If you look at the rom-com structure, it’s usually “two people meet, they finally admit their love for each other, the credits roll and life makes sense from that point forward.” And I don’t think that’s true to life. I don’t think happy endings, or even conclusive endings, are really true to life. And therefore I’m not sure why television seems to have them all the time, because I think it almost brainwashes people to grow up and think that there is a point in my life where something will happen — I will meet someone, or some big life event will happen, or I’ll say something about myself — and everything will be fine. I think lack of conclusion mirrors life in a way.
The fact that people have to keep debating or questioning what’s happened to Ruben long after the credits roll means that the struggle of him and the struggle of the story and the questions around life and their relationship and humanity in general, continue after the credits have rolled. It just felt like the right way to end a show like this.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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