From Baby Reindeer to big bruiser – Richard Gadd has undergone a dramatic body transformation for his new show, Half Man. With the Scottish actor playing Ruben, a physically imposing and threatening character, he needed to pack on serious size.
By 40kg, to be exact. ‘For Baby Reindeer, I was 68.8kg when I shot that,’ Gadd tells Men’s Health in the latest episode of Built For Life. ‘And at my heaviest in Half Man, I was 109.8.
‘I really, really bulked up. You feel it – you feel like you’re lugging around this massive body. You feel heavier and bigger. The thing that surprised me most about training is I would always look and think, “I’m not progressing, nothing’s happening”. Then someone would see me and say, “You’re massive now”, but no matter how many times somebody said that to me, it wouldn’t sink in. It was just something I noticed – I was suddenly carrying all that size around with me.’
Such an extreme transformation required absolute dedication. For a year before filming, Gadd trained six times a week – sometimes twice a day – while dialling in his nutrition to ensure he was fuelling growth. It’s an approach that helped him realise his vision of becoming a ‘big guy, a bruiser’ for the role.
‘I had a nutritionist. I had a personal trainer. There was a company in England that would send meals up – it was always high protein, no matter what. And at the start, when I began training about a year out from filming, maybe even more, they were quite carb-heavy,’ he adds.
‘So I would be gaining a lot. We knew that a lean bulk wasn’t going to give me what I needed to look big. And I also wanted Ruben to look real. I never wanted it to be a veiny, steroid look.’
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Gadd credits his trainer, David Jenkins, and nutritionist, Andrew Roche, for giving him the tools to add as much size as possible – muscular or otherwise.
‘Together they put me through my paces. They never let me slack off and always pushed me, and I’m always up for a challenge. There was no saying, “I’m tired today” – they’d push me through regardless. Some sessions were lighter weight with high reps; others were heavy with lower reps. On other days, they’d have me using a big, heavy club – they were always shocking me with different methods.’
