“One Needs A Head and The Other Needs A Body” Richard Gadd Talks Broken Masculinity in ‘Half Man’
Richard Gadd’s new series, Half Man, is an HBO drama set in 1980s Scotland, centered on two boys who become brothers when their mothers fall in love.
Gadd stars as Ruben Pallister, an explosive and physically imposing man, alongside Jamie Bell as Niall Kennedy, his quiet and sensitive step brother. The series explores their complicated, unbreakable bond over 30 years.
Ruben and Niall appear to be polar opposites, but their tumultuous relationship is nebulous in that they often alternate between being the agressor and agressee. Half Man plays as a stream of consciousness trampolining between time periods – like flipping through the pages of a book, reading a few pages, and flipping again backwards and forwards. It is a narrative that demands to be patiently experienced, as it snakes its way though Ruben and Niall’s lives.
Thematically, Half Man is a kaleidoscope of unbridled testosterone-fuelled emotions that must be tamed and understood – guilt, anger, grief, fear, love, confusion, confession, repression, expression, frustration, intimacy, and all its trggers. The boys often feel lost, adrift, isolated, different – yet somehow, they find solace in each other between fist fights.
Richard Gadd spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about Half Man.