Richard Gadd relives horror stalking ordeal that inspired ‘Baby Reindeer’

Richard Gadd struggled to “shake-off” a female stalker who “heckled him at gigs” and “abused his parents”.

The Scottish actor and writer stars in the Netflix drama ‘Baby Reindeer’ playing a struggling comedian and barman named Donny who is stalked by a woman he meets at work.

It reflects Richard’s real-life stalking ordeal, and although the actor admits he is still recovering from his trauma, he says he’s now “miles away from where he was”.

He told the Metro: ”The legacy remains to a certain point. That’s what trauma does – it’s very hard to shake off. But I’m certainly miles away from where I was.

“I do watch ‘Baby Reindeer’ and think, ‘Donny, that’s not me.’”

The 34-year-old said his stalker bombarded him with thousands of explicit emails, sent him nearly a hundred tweets to his Twitter account and left him 350 voicemail messages on his phone.

But he eventually managed to get a restraining order in place and Richard is glad he can turn his negative experience into a positive.

He added: "Hopefully, ‘Baby Reindeer’ is received well, then the whole ordeal you went through is synonymous with something positive. Therein lies the catharsis."

The actor adapted the seven-part mini-series for Netflix, and it also stars Jessica Gunning, Nava Mau and Tom Goodman-Hill.

He added: "My idea of what a stalker was, was that they are fundamentally, sort of, psychopathic characters. But it just wasn’t that case. I saw someone very vulnerable, really.

“Stalking, it is a mental illness, a mental state. It’s like, I guess, a fantasy addiction of some kind, and the person genuinely believes the reality in which they are living. It’s just not the reality as it is.

“And I hadn’t really seen that before… there’s a calculatedness to the stalkers, and a sinister, sort of, insidious intent.”