Actor Mitchell Robertson discusses the profound impact of portraying Niall in 'Half Man,' the show's exploration of toxic masculinity and repressed trauma, the brutal finale, and how the role changed his personal and artistic perspective.
Warning! Spoilers for the finale of Half ManMitchell Robertson introduced us to Niall Kennedy in Half Man, but Jamie Bell 's performance puts a bow on the tragic character.
Told across several decades, Richard Gadd's Half Man follows the story of "brothers from another lover" Niall and Ruben and their ill-fated relationship. Dealing in themes of masculinity, repression, and complex family dynamics, Half Man is told through a fractured timeline, with the series flashing back from Niall's wedding to Albie , one of Ruben's former victims, to their rough upbringing and rocky adulthood.
This all culminates in a brutal confrontation between Niall and Ruben, who reunite after the latter is released from prison. In a physical showdown, Ruben suffocates Niall, but not before the latter stabs his brother in the side. Ruben was revealed to be dead in episode 4 of the series, but Niall also succumbing to his brother's wrath was a shocking ending to what has often been a bleak series.
ScreenRant caught up with Robertson to discuss Niall's journey across the show's six episodes, including how Niall's story in the last three episodes changed his perception of the character and what that ending and the show overall means to him. ScreenRant: The reception to Half Man has been nothing short of remarkable. What has that been like to experience on this level? Mitchell Robertson: It's been really nice.
I've had people reach out on Instagram and seeing things online. I told myself I wouldn't really look at the comments when it came out, but being in a show that's so worldwide and so highly anticipated, it's actually kind of impossible to stay away from it because your curiosity gets the better of you.
But the reception's been great, and it's been a little bit overwhelming at times just keeping up with the volume of stuff, especially when you're getting messages from people that you don't know that have watched the show. I think the first couple I responded to because I was like,"No, I really want to respond to everyone who reaches out because if someone's taking the time to send something...
" And then I quickly realized that actually I can't do that and also have peace and balance in my life because there's just so many, it just gets really overwhelming really quickly. SR: Especially for such a heavy show too, I'm sure that that kind of response has been refreshing. Robertson: Yeah.
I think what's been nice as well is people have really taken to what I think we were hoping for, which was this relationship between that is really tricky. But at times you maybe don't want them to be in each other's lives, but also you're kind of slightly obsessed with the idea of them staying in each other's lives.
And I think that was what we were kind of reaching for a little bit, and I've noticed that online, which has been really good. SR: That dynamic is so interesting in driving the show and episode three, in particular. You're handing the baton off to Jamie and Richard .
So I was curious, on a certain level, what was that like to handle as a performer, and what did you learn maybe about yourself as an actor in dealing with that sort of transition and watching the characters grow in that way? Robertson: I did truly learn a lot about just me as a person.
I've said this in a couple of interviews, but when you're playing a character that has so much internal conflict, like the characters that Richard writes, I found myself, when the show finished, I was really reflective on my own life and where I was hiding or what I was shameful of or what patterns I was in or what I was going back to that wasn't good for me. So it changed me a lot as a person, and I'm still on that journey a little bit, to be honest.
As an actor, how did it change me? What did I learn? It's interesting because when you're doing something like this, I was on it every day for about two and a half months, and you're doing multiple scenes a day, so you really are learning every single day.
And I think I did come out of it a better performer overall and I think it would just have been a case of picking up a lot of different small things throughout the process without even realizing actually what I was really picking up. I learned a lot from Alex as well, our director. She's got a really great instinct for what feels good and what doesn't, what feels truthful and what maybe doesn't or what's interesting.
I feel like Alex was always kind of looking for what was interesting, which I've actually taken away. That's something that changed me since working on this. Instead of looking for what I think is"good,", I look for maybe interesting or that feel like it's something that's worth going a little bit deeper into. I kind of love how they left episode three though.
I love the way that it leaves us. We actually shot a scene that was maybe going to come after the court scene that maybe gave a small tinge of closure to that kind of period. And I actually love that it's not there, because it's almost like you leave us in this really intense moment, which is better than having a sense of small closure.
SR: There's a line that Joanna says in episode three that really stood out to me and I think kind of reverberates through the rest of the series.
"Snakes can shed their skin, but they always crawl on their bellies. " In this show, there's often this lingering question of Niall and Ruben actively disrupting each other's growth. So I was curious, on a thematic level, what do you think the show is trying to say about the capacity for change in these two men, but also in people in general?
Robertson: I feel like with all of Richard's work, what I really love about it is that no character he ever writes is either good or bad, and he's always kind of exploring this idea that we're all capable of being self-destructive or making mistakes and to be human is to make mistakes, obviously. This is going to be one of those questions that I bet you in three days time in the shower I'm like,"Oh!
" because it'll subconsciously linger in me. The truth is I don't know. I really don't know. And that's why it's so hard to take your eyes away from, because you are totally in it with them, that need that they have for each other and that kind of codependency that they have, but would they be ...
Yeah, I feel like, maybe. Maybe if they weren't in each other's lives, things would've been a lot smoother, but they're just bound together by this bond that they have that they can't quite get away from. But I think there's a really strong argument for the idea that if they weren't in each other's lives, things would be a lot smoother for them potentially.
SR: The show is sort of like a Schrödinger's cat situation where it's like it could go one way or the other. I think we see that in the future with the way Niall's life sort of ends up. They almost switch positions. And so I was curious too, about your reaction to the rest of Niall's journey.
How did you find that out? Do you read all six scripts at the same time? Did you watch the episodes? And what was your reaction to that?
Robertson So I hadn't the scripts four, five, and six, but I had a rough idea of where the story was going. I didn't really know the ins and outs and I didn't really want to. I only actually watched it for the first time maybe two weeks before the show came out, maybe a week and a half or something before the show came out. It wasn't long before.
Funnily enough, when I finished watching the episodes, I actually wasn't entirely sure how I felt because I'm so close to it, but also it's a character that I obviously played, but it's another actor playing it that's been passed on. And then there is a change in the character because, obviously, we've passed quite a lot of years. I think I started to, in some ways, lose a little bit of sympathy for as it went on.
I think the self-destructiveness kind of got so big and so intense that I started to lose a little bit of... Not love for him, but just sympathy, which was interesting, but that's the truthful answer. SR: Yeah, like"What the hell are you doing?
" Robertson: Yeah, stop please because we need to ... Especially because the relationship from episodes one to three, the relationship's always changing. One needs the other, then the other needs the other, and it's kind of seesaw a little bit. But then four, five, and six, especially the start of four, there's this real change where one of them's doing really well and the other one's really struggling.
I had a lot of shock watching four, five, and six. SR: Did it change anything that you saw about Niall in the first three episodes? Did you see anything that maybe Jamie did or that the turns of the story took, and you were like,"Oh, this completely recontextualizes what I knew of him in the first three episodes"? Robertson: Maybe a little bit.
Maybe a little bit. There's maybe a part of watching it that I felt like maybe he's so self-destructive in the last episodes that it's difficult not to question, a good person?
I think I maybe had, and I still don't know the answer to this, and I'm just pondering as I say this, but I had it really tied quite close to my heart while playing episodes one to three, not knowing what happened in the later episodes, that Niall fundamentally was a good person, and he's capable of mistakes as we all are. And some of those mistakes come from different places within him; shame, not feeling enough, feeling like he's wrong, trying to protect himself, whatever.
But maybe when it gets to four, five, and six, I maybe had thoughts of like,"Oh, maybe he isn't who I thought he was. SR: I mean, there's this loss of innocence that happens at the end of episode three where he almost does lie on the stand, doesn't lie on the stand, but then is threatened by Ruben, who he loves. So I think I agree with you, for what it's worth.
Robertson: So for me, all I saw was one to three and the end of three that we see with him is him kind of making the correct moral decision. He makes the right decision ultimately, I think, anyway, by telling the truth and that's that thing of the truth will set you free. So I guess I left on being like he's a good, solid person.
So then, silly me thinking maybe four, five, and six was going to be like all roses and sunshine. So yeah, it totally changed because I had that idea of where I was leaving him. SR: You kind of hope it's going to be roses and sunshine because we see getting married to Albie and maybe there's happiness at the end for Niall.
I saw some discussion around the reveal that Niall is marrying Albie and then his reunion later on when it's Jamie. Do you think a part of his reunion with Albie is maybe a form of guilt manifesting all of those years later, after what happened in the trial, almost as if Niall is making up for or proving to Ruben that it was worth it to tell the truth on the stand? Robertson: Wow, interesting. I don't know.
It could be. It could be. You see in episode two, and you see it in the later episodes when they meet again, there is a really strong connection between the two characters and I think you're really rooting for them both times as well, in the earlier stages and the later stages. It's an interesting thought, the idea of how much of that reunion is tied to that guilt, and it totally could be.
It totally could be because as humans... We don't really know what we're doing. All these things are happening, and we think we know exactly why we're doing stuff, but sometimes actually the reason why we're doing stuff is the opposite of what we think. SR: And I did want to ask about that ending a little bit as well.
Obviously, it's not a happy one. Neither man gets away unscathed, and I feel like it's fittingly tragic. So did you talk to Richard about the ending at all now that you've seen it and do you think this is where Niall and Ruben maybe needed to end up, or what was your interpretation of that ending? Robertson: I haven't spoken to him.
I haven't had a chance to ask him about it yet. I think in some ways it feels kind of fitting that they are both the reason for each other's... It's kind of fitting that it ends in the destruction that it ends in, that both lives kind of come to an end, and it plays into that idea that some bonds can break you.
It would have been nice if I had a happy ending, but also I didn't really know where it was going to go. I really didn't. I had no idea. Obviously, there's that kind of reveal at the end of episode five where we see that Ruben doesn't make it...
But yeah, it just shows how far things can go when you're in that kind of dynamic with someone that there consequences to all of these things. What do you think? SR: I think it made sense. I think the show is about this back and forth of their destruction in each other's lives.
And so, I think I wanted a happy ending for Niall at least, but I think ultimately it didn't feel unearned to me. Robertson: I mean, obviously I wanted the happy ending. I wanted it to finish off with them somehow. I mean, that's the whole series, right?
The whole series is being like,"Okay, now you can work it out. Everything's fine now, and it'll be fine.
" And then something happens. SR: They get too comfortable in a way it blows up again. Robertson: Totally. It's blown up, it's this constant fire and just when you think you've put the fire out, the little flame starts again and then it grows and grows and grows, right?
And there's something genius about the wedding thing as well, because weddings are this kind of dramatic stage. And it's one of the most dramatic things that we all go to, all the people and everything that happens at them. So then it just feels like the perfect fitting also for it to end. SR: Yeah.
No, absolutely. Absolutely. No, I was blown away when I finished it. Robertson: I watched four, five and six right after the other, and it was a lot to then sit with after. that's another thing that's been happening online.
I've been seeing a lot of people posting about how much they're struggling to wait for the next episode, which is great. And I actually really loved it, especially with having the first episode come out, letting it kind of digest, sink in. So it's been nice having the audience watch it, live with it a little bit and then when you come back to them, they've jumped. SR: It's definitely creating a more engaged conversation.
And I do have one more question for you, in a broader sense, but honestly, this leads into it really well, because late last year, I think earlier this year maybe in the UK, there was Heated Rivalry, another six-part queer show. I think Half Man has been called Heated Rivalry for sickos, and I know that there's been conversation about the two sides of this queer coin where it's repressed sexuality, shame. How do we deal with that?
So I was curious, what do you think about that in the larger cultural context of this kind of resurgence of shows about gay men struggling with their sexuality? Robertson: I haven't had a chance to watch . I don't know. I don't know if I have enough knowledge.
I only know my experience of playing Niall and what I took for myself to put into that and the kind of specifics of that story. And I know that the specifics of our story in Half Man is that I grew up in the west of Scotland.
I didn't grow up in the same time period as now, but I know that growing up in the West of Scotland as a young boy into a young teenager, the worst thing I could have been called at school would've been gay. That is the biggest insult that people would've used for people. So there's a lot of shame around all those ideas that people really internalize.
So my experience when going to play Niall in Half Man was that I knew it was important to be exploring this story of someone who has internalized that shame and how it manifests and just how big the walls are. So I guess in the context of that, Half Man's a good example of how important it is that we keep telling these stories and keep exploring these stories because there's specifics and nuances in them and not one person's journey within that is the same because Heated Rivalry set in Canada.
So it's great that we can have these stories exploring these themes, one in Canada and I know it's to do around sports, which is, again, probably another specific experience... And then the West of Scotland and a different experience. So it's great that we have these themes and these shows exploring this when we can set them in different geographical locations and how that influences it, because it does change it.
There's not one blanket story that we can have where it allows us all to see the things because there's just so stuff in it. So I knew it was important, and I felt very passionately and very strongly about that side of the show. And of course, there's lots of layers to our show as well.
Niall's struggles a big part of it - the struggle he has with himself or the struggle with the idea of his sexuality or the idea of who he might be and what that might mean, but it's very prominent in it, and it's very prominent for a lot of the challenges that Niall faces and had he had better support when he was younger, maybe there would've been a happier ending. All episodes of Half Man are now streaming on HBO Max.
Half Man 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Like Follow Followed 15 Drama Mystery Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00 Network BBC One Directors Alexandra Brodski, Eshref Reybrouck Cast Writers Richard Gadd Creator Richard Gadd Powered by Expand Collapse
Half Man Finale Spoilers Mitchell Robertson Interview Jamie Bell Richard Gadd TV Drama Masculinity Trauma Brotherhood Ruben Niall Confrontation Screenrant Interview
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Win 2 tickets to Niall Horan SweepstakesDallas Observer is running a sweepstakes for 2 tickets to Niall Horan's event. Winners will be announced and official rules can be found on the Dallas Observer website.
Read more »
In a predictably dour Half Man, Ruben and Niall try—briefly, unsuccessfully—to be normal guysIn a predictably dour Half Man, Ruben and Niall try—briefly, unsuccessfully—to be normal guys
Read more »
Spider-Noir Gives Robbie Robertson a Long Overdue SpotlightLamorne Morris discusses the significance of playing Robbie Robertson in Spider-Noir, a role that finally expands the character beyond his usual supporting parts in Spider-Man adaptations. The noir-inspired series reimagines Robertson as a street-level reporter who already knows The Spider's secret identity, offering a fresh take on the underrated hero.
Read more »
Half Man Season Finale Preview: Niall & Ruben Reckon with Their PastWith the season finale hitting the streamer tonight, here's a look at what's ahead with HBO Max and Richard Gadd's (Baby Reindeer) Half Man.
Read more »