Jessica Gunning interview: ‘Baby Reindeer’
Jessica Gunning has been a fan of Richard Gadd since she saw his 2016 stage show “Monkey See Monkey Do.” In 2019, she tried to get tickets to his one-man show “Baby Reindeer,” but it was sold out. So she did the next best thing. “I couldn’t get tickets to the stage play, but I bought the play text actually, which is a little bit Martha of me,” Gunning quips to Gold Derby (watch the exclusive video interview above).
Martha, of course, is the woman Gunning plays in Netflix’s adaptation of “Baby Reindeer.” Based on Gadd’s real experience, the limited series follows struggling comedian Donny (Gadd), who finds himself stalked and harassed by Martha after he gives her a free drink one night at the pub where he works. While she was devouring the text, Gunning never imagined she could be part of a screen adaptation of “Baby Reindeer” one day. “I never thought I could be part of it or anything like that. When I heard that it was being made into a show, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, OK.’ And when [the audition] came through, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,'” she recalls. “Because I always just saw the stage show, I suppose, in my head when I was reading the play text. But I think he did such an amazing job of adapting it and creating these amazing characters, who you kind of feel so many things for. It’s just a real feat that he managed to do that.”
Though it’s easy to label “Baby Reindeer” as a “stalker show,” that would be reductive. And unflinching portrait of trauma, the series avoids villainizing Martha as typical crazy stalker, giving her depth and a humanity, through Gadd’s writing and Gunning’s performance, to create a much more complex story about two lonely souls who were seeking connection. For Gunning, it was of utmost importance that Martha comes across as a three-dimensional character. “I never really saw her in that light [of a crazy stalker],” the actress says. “I suppose the final voice message she leaves to him in the scene at the pub really got to me as me as well in terms of what is at the core of the character and how complicated she is and how safe she feels around him in a way.”
Gunning points to a scene in the premiere with which she auditioned. “I went through the scene with a friend of mine where we’re outside the comedy club and Martha says she wants to zip him up and squirrel all the way inside him. And I said to my friend, ‘Oh, my God, this scene is so romantic. I love this one.’ And she read it and was like, ‘This is crazy.’ And for the first time, I was like, ‘Oh, it could be read in a different way.’ Because I just thought, ‘What a compliment to say.’ I really did empathize with her and her cuteness, I suppose, and what she sees in him. Richard’s so great in how he writes stage directions too and … in the courtroom scene, he just says, ‘These are just two lost people looking at each other.’ And I think that really comes across in how he wrote it. They needed each other at a time in each other’s lives when they felt maybe a bit overlooked.”
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A majority of Gunning’s performance in the finale is via voiceover. After Martha pleads guilty, Donny listens to endless voicemails she has left him after she savvily procured his new number. While she did some temporary voicemails on her phone for Gadd to have on set for his performance, Gunning recorded all the messages in ADR six months after production wrapped. In the interim, she had filmed a whole season of the BBC One series “The Outlaws,” but it wasn’t difficult for her to get back into Martha’s headspace. “We kind of paired them up to moods she was in, similar to what what Donny does, compartmentalizing complimentary ones. We did a run so it felt like we were in the same space each time. But by then, I kind of knew the character so well, I was able to quite quickly get into that zone.”
The final voicemail Gunning recorded was the final one Donny listens to in the final scene. In it, Martha reveals the bittersweet reason she calls him Baby Reindeer. “That final voicemail was what I always used to read if I ever needed to feel emotional as her,” Gunning shares. “I would read that and it would get me every time. So it didn’t take much. I think we did, like, one or two takes of it.”
Donny listens to the message at a pub as the scene mirrors the inciting incident in the premiere. The bartender tells Donny his drink on the house after the latter says he left his wallet at home. “Oh, my God, I loved that. When I read that, I was like, ‘Genius! What a great way to bookend the show. How clever.’ And I love that I’ve heard so many different theories about it. It’s so great to have a show that isn’t clear-cut necessarily in the ending. So many people take away certain things. What did I make of it? I think I probably thought of it along the Martha angle of him understanding her more and that kindness of the barman saying, ‘It’s on me,’ he realizes what he meant to her.”
