Jessica Gunning has revealed she recently gave one Baby Reindeer viewer an inadvertent scare.
The British actor received widespread praise for her performance as a stalker in the Netflix show, which became a word-of-mouth global hit after it began streaming earlier in the year.
She and her co-stars Richard Gadd and Nava Mau recently sat down with Netflix to reflect on the show’s success, which its creator and leading actor revealed has surpassed his expectations.
“I really believed in it, I thought it was good, I thought it was different, I thought it would provoke conversation, but I thought it would probably be like a critical cult success,” he admitted. “[I thought] it would sort of sit on the platform as a bit of a sort of artistic gem.
“It’s just crazy that it has resonated with so many people.”
Proving Richard’s point, Jessica disclosed that she recently had an encounter with one Baby Reindeer fan that wound up giving them quite the fright.
“The other day I actually got out of my car, and I hadn’t had any makeup on and my hair was probably a little bit Martha-esque,” she explained. “And a lady just screamed when she saw me.
“I was like, ‘I’m so sorry’, and she went, ‘no I’m sorry – I just finished episode seven’.”
For those who’ve already forgotten, episode seven served as the Baby Reindeer finale, and sees Martha tracking down Donny’s family before finally being convicted with stalking.
After that, Donny then becomes obsessed with listening back to voicemail messages that she left him, and re-reading her old emails.
Jessica added: “She’d finished episode seven, turned the TV off, walked outside and then I was like, ‘hello!’ Imagine! No wonder she was terrified!”
During the same interview, Richard also spoke about some of the show’s celebrity fans – including one he’s still struggling to get his head around for personal reasons.