Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd Is Back And Bulked Up In New Show Half Man — First Look Images

With last year's Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd announced himself as a major new voice in British television. A gripping Netflix thriller based on Gadd's own lived experiences with a stalker, the writer-star's series dominated the cultural conversation for months, sweeping up BAFTAs, Emmys, and Golden Globes left, right, and centre along the way. Now Gadd is back — and seriously, seriously jacked — in Half Man (formerly Lions), a self-written six-episode drama in which he and Jamie Bell play two Glaswegian 'brothers' with a history spanning four decades. Today, co-producers BBC and HBO revealed our first look at the show — check out the images below;

Gadd's Ruben and Bell's Niall may not be blood brothers, but they've certainly got each others' hard stare — and a whole metric ton of barely suppressed rage, if these first photos are anything to go by. While the most obvious thing to point out is how bulked up Gadd's gotten for his sophomore major series, it's clearly no stunt: per the BBC's press notes on Half Man, the multi-hyphenate star's latest offering is, among other things, an examination of 'what it means to be a man.'

The official synopsis for the show — which also stars Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell as a younger Niall and Ruben respectively — reads as follows: "When Niall's estranged 'brother' Ruben shows up at his wedding, it leads to an explosion of violence that catapults us back through their lives. Spanning almost forty years from the 1980s to the present day, this ambitious series will cover the highs and lows of the brothers' relationship, from them meeting as teenagers to their falling out as adults – with all the good, bad, terrible, funny, angry, and challenging moments along the way. It will capture the wild energy of a changing city - a changing world, even - and try to get to the bottom of the difficult question... What does it mean to be a man?"

Taking cues from the likes of Normal People and One Day in the growing trend of ambitious, decades-spanning limited series, Half Man sounds — and looks — like an evolution for Gadd, who's clearly widening the lens of his artistry while maintaining the intensity and intimacy of his already signature brand of character-driven dramatic storytelling. And in Jamie Bell, who shone so brightly with his sensitively calibrated performance in our film of 2024, All Of Us Strangers, Gadd has given himself another formidable screen partner. We look forward to seeing more of Half Man — and Gadd's extraordinary biceps — when the series hits BBC and HBO Max in 2026.