The actress who plays Martha on the TV show Baby Reindeer believes the stalker is actually a victim.
The Netflix hit tells the true story of creator and star Richard Gadd’s ordeal as he is stalked by a lonely former lawyer, played by Jessica Gunning.
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In Real life the woman, Fiona Harvey, spoke out to deny the veracity of the program.
Richard claims she stalked him for five years, sending more than 40,000 emails, 350 hours of voicemails and 106 pages of letters – before culminating in threats of violence and a restraining order.
In the show, Richard’s bartender character, Donny Dunn, becomes the object of obsession for Martha, played by Jessica.
Asked if she thinks the real Martha is also a victim, Jessica said: “I do. The first thing that popped off the page was that it didn’t feel like a villain versus victim story. Richard is very honest in his portrayal of Donny in saying that he enjoyed the attention and flirted back with her.”
The actress continued Stylist magazine: “She makes mistakes and behaves badly at times, but she is also a very complicated character who has also been through a lot in the past and so I tried to do justice to that side of the character.
“It wasn’t black or white, there are a lot of gray areas, like in life.”
The traumatic story was turned into a critically acclaimed play, before Netflix turned it into a series of the same name.
Richard said he went to great lengths to hide the identity of the woman who stalked him in real life and begged fans not to look for her.
But last week, law graduate Fiona Harvey spoke out, claiming that fans of the show had accused her of stalking Gadd in real life.
And she vowed to sue Netflix, claiming she would “kick their ass” in court.
Baby Reindeer by numbers
The Netflix series became a huge success…
- 7 Number of episodes in the series
- 30 Number of countries in which the series topped the Netflix charts
- 64 Percentage increase in viewers that the program gained in the second week, compared to the first
- 97 The show’s percentage score on industry bible Rotten Tomatoes
- 41,071 Number of emails Richard claims were sent by real-life Martha
- 13.3 million Number of viewers who watched the show during the first week
Fiona, 58, is from Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, and says she met Gadd years ago when he was a bartender at The Hawley Arms in Camden, London.
She admits she befriended him and claims she gifted him a pair of “M&S tartan trousers” to congratulate him on one of his comedy gigs.
But she denies stalking him.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
