Baby Reindeer’s Creator Recalls the Exact Moment the Show Was Born

Summary:

• Baby Reindeer is a Netflix miniseries created by Richard Gadd based on his experience as a stalker victim.
• The show was critically acclaimed, topped the Netflix charts for several weeks, and remains one of the most talked about shows on social media.
• According to Gadd, he knew he wanted to make a show about the experience after receiving the voicemails that kept him up at night.

One of the things that people love so much about true crime podcasts and documentaries is the opportunity to explore the twisted minds of real-life criminals who may live right across the street, fly the same planes, and shop the same grocery stores as we do. However, there is a great fear that this genre feeds the criminals the attention they crave.

When a true crime story meets a fictionalized reality with professional actors hired to portray the characters, it can spare both the viewer and the production team some moral struggles. The author of Baby Reindeer, one of the most chilling stories of 2024, stands out because he told the story he actually experienced.

Is Baby Reindeer Based on a True Story?

Not only is Baby Reindeer based on a true story, but the show's creator, Richard Gadd, can remember the exact moment he decided to tell it to the world. As a creator for many years, he was used to channeling his emotions into his one-man shows, but this one story was one of the most vulnerable pieces.

It all started long before Gadd's stalker found his phone number and started bombarding him with countless voicemails, but it was a breaking point. He did everything he could, listened to every single one of them, tried to find some kind of threat to expedite the case with the police, but failed.

Instead, the stalker just took up more and more of his day and kept him up at night. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Gadd noted that it was then that he first had the idea to make the show about his struggle:

“It was almost maddening, hearing the voicemails bouncing around my eyelids. That’s when I thought: if I was ever going to do a show about how awful this experience has been, the first thing I would do would be to take the voicemails and fire them around the stage like an oscillating light display where you would see the words bouncing around,” he said.

Of course, Gadd wasn't thinking about a TV show at the time, but rather the idea of turning his story into a stage play. It was a Netflix commissioner at the time, Lindsey Salt, who planted the seed of turning the story into a thrilling psychological drama of a TV show, and thus Baby Reindeer as we know it was born.

While Gadd's real-life perpetrator is free to roam the public and give deceptive interviews, the show paints a clear picture of what it's like to be a victim of stalking. So if you're interested in checking out the show, but haven't had a chance to do so, be sure to stream Baby Reindeer on Netflix.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter