To portray Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) as a stalker with a wild and obsessive imagination in Baby Reindeer would not only do her character a disservice, but it would miss the point entirely. Based on Richard Gadd’s solo theater show about a struggling comedian called Donny Dunn, Baby Reindeer is now a limited series for television.
Gunning first saw Gadd on stage in a play called Monkey See, Monkey Do in 2017 where he was on a treadmill for an hour. “I thought what an amazing story teller he was. He was always on my radar.” Later when Gunning tried to buy tickets to the stage version or Reindeer, they were all sold out, so she bought the play text instead.
When she was asked to audition for the series, she was excited to see how Baby Reindeer might translate from the stage to the screen. The major focus would be the relationship between Martha and Donny. Jessica and Richard rehearsed the cafe scene from Episode 1 where she orders Scotch Broth.
Ironically, Richard was looking for an older Martha, so Jessica had to age herself for the auditions which lasted around four months. It was imperative Martha looked right for such a complex character.
Portraying mental health issues and trauma takes such delicacy and preciseness
Limerance – An Obsession With Obsession
Jessica researched a condition called limerence to study Martha. “It’s almost an obsession with being obsessed with somebody.”
“I used to imagine that she’d go home and maybe, act out in her head, the best case scenario of what the next day would bring. And the thing about Donny, he was sometimes even better in real life than in her imagination.”
Jessica Gunning
“For example, in the cafe scene, I imagined that when he agreed to go for coffee with her, she’d in her head, practice that I want the Scotch broth, but I don’t know if it’s on the menu. But then he makes it better, when he says, ‘It’s on the specials.‘” A deadpan non-joke that sends Martha into extended belly laughter.
Donny enables Martha even when he eventually rejects her. It’s unclear if he’s simply being polite or he gets something out of it. There’s another scene where Martha’s showing Donny the high-profile contacts in her phone. Rather than smiling or rolling his eyes, he reports with, “You must have really good dinner parties?'” Martha bursts into more laughter.
“You can see what attracts her to him and vice versa. They’re both lonely souls who need each other at a certain time in their life. We go on to see why Donny behaves the way he does. The timing was right.”
There’s also an unspoken cosmic connection between Donny and Martha. He’s wearing a white t-shirt and he wears a red one the following day after Martha imagines him in a read t-shirt. Call it fate. Call it a meeting of souls.
The relationship between the two is always intense through fun times and uncomfortable ones. Martha is compassionate even at her worst. The audience feels the sadness when Donny finally summons the courage to tell her he doesn’t want to see her again.
“Everyone’s torn and I think that’s the beauty of the balance of the show. You almost root for them in moments. But also, you are aware that it’s an unhealthy dynamic, so it’s a real complicated mesh.”
All the scripts were written before filming, so Gunning could gauge the full span of Martha’s emotions from the start.
Despite her irrational outlandishness, Martha has a relatability to her. She has been broken down emotionally by the world. But does Jessica take Martha’s brokenness too far in the show?
“We always try to be really truthful as much as we can, and try and find a logic to any of those moments. It’s probably the hardest to watch Martha in the scene with Donny’s girlfriend Teri (Nava Mau). Teri’s with her man, and she sees red because she thinks she’s going to lose him. The stakes are suddenly heightened for Martha.”
Martha Scott – So Many Things At Once
“There are so many ways this performance could have felt gratuitous or false,” states Gunning. As soon as she read the script, she “fought for Martha.”
“If anyone played her like she was crazy, or a villain, you’d spoil the whole thing, because she isn’t. Her actions can be received in a problematic way.”
With regard to Martha’s incessant and obvious lying, especially with regard to her imaginary stellar legal career or the high-profile politicians she’s wined and dined with, Martha genuinely doesn’t believe that she’s lying.
“I think that there’s a real honesty to the character. She’s so complicated. It was a real challenge for us to navigate all of those shifts, because she can experience an array of emotions in one scene. It was really important to get that balance right, so it never felt over the top. It all felt like rooted in a believability. If you ever went the other way, you lose your connection to Donny as well.”
Martha’s personality and mood can flip on a dime, so keeping track of everything her character entails was a challenge. There’s a long voicemail message in the last episode that Jessica Gunning refers to as her North Star. We find out why Martha calls Donny Baby Reindeer. “I think it’s linked to that feeling of safety.”
It all came down to the right tone in Martha’s character and not over-complicating her character.
Martha can be so many things at once. And sometimes all at once. Docile, manic, outraged, sympathetic
Gunning is cognizant of the fact that actors may over-analyze their characters. Sometimes she “defined Martha in the moment.” She’d imaging what Martha might do off-screen after she left the pub as a way of explaining the present.
Richard Gadd vs Donny Dunn
Richard Gadd’s writing is brave, honest, and vulnerable. The jagged edges of Donny’s character are never filed down. “He doesn’t hate himself. He could have easily painted himself as this victim who did nothing wrong, who everything happened to. He’s really honest about when he led her on, when he flirted back.”
Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd) Photo courtesy of Netlfix
Donny’s raw openness is astounding. He reveals more about himself than his character requires.
There’s a dissonance between Donny Dunn and Richard Gadd despite the character being based on him. “This is a story that is based on what happened to him. So often he’s having to reenact things, and it must have felt very strange.”
“I definitely felt like he was playing a character. He wasn’t Richard when he was Donny. It felt like I was acting with Donny, not with Richard,” notes Gunning.
The heavy seriousness of Baby Reindeer is often undercut with comical precision, sometimes to the point of absurdity. In one of Martha’s numerous emails, she declares that she had an egg as Donny reports her stalking to the police.
Jessica Gunning is equally thrilled and taken aback at how well global audiences have embraced Baby Reindeer. “I was a little surprised because it does not shy away from how messy and complicated we all are. We don’t want to see things that are tied up neatly in a bow. And there’s space for honesty. People also want to see realness on screen. I think that’s why people have responded, and people can handle it.”
“There’s no goody or baddy. There’s no right or wrong. It’s not black and white. And I love that people are finally talking about their trauma. In one Q&A, Richard Gadd said, ‘I think people hurt and more than we realize,” concludes Gunning.
