Baby Reindeer star Jessica Ganning has agreed that the alleged stalker who inspired her character in the show is a “victim”.
The hit series landed on Netflix earlier this month, and has left viewers glued to their seats for the whole eight episodes.
The limited series, starring Richard Gadd and Jessica, follows the real-life story of the actor’s experience with a female stalker.
Last week, the woman who allegedly inspired the on-screen stalker in Baby Reindeer broke her silence.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the unnamed woman claimed the series was “bullying an older woman on television for fame and fortune”.
She also said she had received “death threats and abuse from Richard Gadd supporters.”
“He’s using Baby Reindeer to stalk me now, I’m the victim. He’s written a bloody show about me,” she alleged.
“She sort of looks like me after I put on four stone during lockdown but I’m not actually unattractive,” she added.
During an interview with Stylist magazine, Jessica was asked if she believed that the real Martha was also a victim.
She replied: “I do. The thing that first sprung off the page was that it didn’t feel like a villain vs victim story.”
“Richard is very honest, in his portrayal of Donny, that he liked the attention and he flirted back with her.”
She continued: “She makes errors and behaves badly in certain moments but she’s also a very complicated character that’s been through a lot in her past as well and so I tried to do that side of the character justice.”
“It wasn’t black or white, there’s lots of areas of grey, like in life.”
The streaming service described the show: “When comedian-slash-barman Donny offers a lonely woman a drink in a Camden pub, he never expects a free cuppa would come with a side of obsession.”
The captivating series is based on Richard’s one-man play, which he debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In the series, the comedian’s character Donny offers Martha a drink while at the bar he works at, unknowingly starting the nightmarish situation.
At first she appears to be friendly, but her behaviour slowly becomes obsessive as she begins to stalk Donny both online and in real life.
Over the span of four and a half years, Richard revealed that he received 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, letters totalling 106 pages and 350 hours of voicemail messages from the older woman [Martha in the show].
