Richard Gadd knows the human experience is a nuanced one.
It's why he can empathize with the female stalker whose torment became the subject of first a one-man play followed by the now-hit Netflix show, Baby Reindeer.
"I think I struggle with a sort of toxic empathy problem, where I feel a lot for people," Richard said during a May 7 press event in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "I remember when I was getting stalked—it was relentless and felt like it was everywhere, and I felt like my life wasn't really functioning—I still had these unbelievable pangs of feeling sorry for her."
Yes, amid what would accumulate to more than 41,000 emails, 744 tweets, 100 pages of letters and 350 hours of voicemails over a years-long ordeal, the 34-year-old still could not bring himself to hate his stalker.
"I never saw someone who was a villain," he recalled. "I saw someone who was lost by the system, really. I saw someone who needed help and wasn't getting it."
In fact, it's this complicated gray area of the show—and really of life—that Richard points to as a big reason for the series' success.
"The world is maybe in a bit more pain than I think we realize, perhaps," he reflected. "If you just look at the state of the world right now, everything just feels slightly wrong. I think Baby Reindeer has stood out so much because it goes back to something about the human condition, which is dark and difficult and challenging, and every human being is a mixture of good and bad."
And indeed, the quick, seven-episode series has clearly struck a chord, having rocketed up Netflix's top 10 shows list.
"I always believed in the show and I really loved it," Richard said of its unanticipated success. "And I thought it would maybe sit as a little cult, artistic gem on the Netflix platform maybe. But then overnight it was crazy. It felt like I woke up one day and everyone was watching it."
But with seemingly the whole world watching the show, an equally unanticipated result has been the unearthing of the stalker's real identity—though Richard has asked fans to stop this pursuit, noting, "That's not the point of our show."
Instead, the Scottish native only sought to put his story to first paper, then to bring it to life onstage and onscreen, endeavoring to remain as truthful as possible throughout.
"I never wanted to kind of lie," Richard explained of the creative process. "I always had to constantly check myself to be like, does this feel truthful to me and to my experience all the way through? If it didn't, I would have to bring it back. But it was a tightrope."
He continued, "It was a constant process between what works for a TV show and not selling out on your own story, and that continued all the way from writing all the way to filming and all the way through the editing process in finding that right balance. I think we did in the end, but it was a hell of a process."
For more on the true story behind Baby Reindeer, keep reading.