Half Man Director Shares 'Huge Debate' the Crew Had About Niall and Ruben While Filming Courtroom Scene

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Half Man Episode 3. Read at your own risk!]

In the third episode of Richard Gadd's Half Man, Niall Kennedy (Mitchell Robertson) is put in an impossible situation. On his college graduation day, Niall's mom, Lori (Neve McIntosh), urges him to reconnect with his "brother from another lover," Ruben Pallister (Stuart Campbell). They've lost touch in the years since Ruben bludgeoned Niall's classmate, Alby (Bilal Hasna), and Ruben now has a favor to ask. 

It turns out that Alby has decided to press charges against Ruben, who now says he wants Niall to lie in court and say that Ruben only acted in self-defense after being groped by Alby. Ruben believes the jury would believe the false statement and be sympathetic because Alby is openly out. Niall is immediately horrified at his options: tell the truth and essentially confirm Ruben's sentence, or lie and use Alby's queerness against him. The latter is particularly troubling since Niall is closeted, and Alby — whom Niall was immediately attracted to upon arriving at college and kissed on multiple occasions — is the only one who knows his sexual orientation. 

What follows is an hour of inner turmoil for Niall. Does he hold on to his beliefs and burn his closest relationships or let go of his values and salvage Ruben's future? Alexandra Brodski, who directed the first three episodes of Half Man, spoke to TV Guide about key moments in Episode 3, from Ruben's outburst on the field to everything that happens in the courtroom. She also described a scene between Niall and Alby that was not used in the final edit. 

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After Ruben drives off the road and confronts Niall, he has a really emotional response when explaining the difference between getting stabbed and being groped. Heading into that scene, what were the most important things you wanted to get right?
Alexandra Brodski: My biggest challenge was, how do you make the dialogue feel as alive as I think it deserves to feel? It's very long, but it always should feel as if [the words they're saying] literally just came to their mind. I'm always very wary of never making things feel theatrical. And if there's a lot of dialogue, there is always this worry — how do you keep it alive? How do you keep reframing it [with the camera]? And also, because they obviously have to memorize just pages and pages of dialogue — they're amazing actors, it's not a particularly hard task for me to get this out of them — but to pay attention that it feels spontaneous, though it's obviously very planned and rehearsed.

Ruben viscerally screams that getting stabbed and being groped are "f---ing different." Were different kinds of screams attempted, and how many takes did that entire scene require?
Brodski: A lot of the times the takes go on for a long time. We wouldn't do loads and loads of takes. For me, it's always the question, what feels real and what makes the scene richer? Epecially in Episode 3, there are so many scenes with Ruben being angry or struggling with his potential fate — I was trying to watch the dial that it doesn't become, every scene he's equally angry. So that he'd still have a dynamic throughout the episode. We were exploring that. Sometimes we would shoot different options and then experiment in the edit [with] what felt better. 

For this particular one, I feel like his scream was the most explosive moment in the episode. How did you and the team decide on using that for the edit? 
Brodski: I don't want to spoil what's fully to come, but we all felt it's the appropriate moment for him to explode like that. I think Stuart is amazing at going to those places. It's such a deep pain he has, which kind of explodes to the surface. So we all felt, if there is a moment for him to burst out such a big emotion and so much anger, it's this moment.

Do you have an example of choosing a quieter moment in this episode to show more of the dynamic within Ruben? 
Brodski: In the scene when they're in the forest, when [Ruben] sits down and they have a heart-to-heart conversation. There were versions of this where he would get more emotional, versions of this where he would get less emotional. And it's not always only about anger. It's also about sadness or other emotions that sometimes you want to be a bit held back. Sometimes you don't want to reveal so much of what he's feeling, and there are only glimpses of the internal turmoil. That's the scene where we kind of wanted it to be boiling but not fully coming out.

ALSO READ: How Mitchell Robertson's and Stuart Campbell's Half Man auditions 'burrowed into' Richard Gadd's heart

I also have to ask about Niall and Alby's relationship. The young version of Alby doesn't say anything this episode, but through the looks he gives Niall in the courtroom he seems to express so much. What direction did you give Bilal, if any, for his facial expressions in those moments? 
Brodski: Alby always had, whatever happens to him, some form of understanding for why Niall acts the way he acts because he went through a similar experience to some degree of being scared of coming out and then coming out. There was actually a scene [we'd] been discussing at some point, where Alby apologizes about having forced Niall to come out. And we didn't decide to go there. But [we'd] been talking about, in terms of this character, what is he feeling? When he looks at Niall, I think it was a mixture of absolute horror — especially when Niall is actually lying — absolute disappointment and horror. But also, I think to some point, an understanding [of], you will never be happy, you will always be under the control of your brother. Bilal was an incredible actor, so it wasn't even that we were [having] super intellectual discussions. Most of the things he grasped himself very naturally.

For the apology scene, is that something you shot then decided not to use?
Brodski: It wasn't a scene was he fully apologizes. They had a moment where they were reconnecting after court. There was a sense between them, that both of them had some contribution to the situation that happened without in any way saying that it's Alby's fault. But there was a bit more of interaction between them, which we decided not to do. We actually filmed some of it, and then decided it just doesn't feel right. It was more for other reasons, because we want some things to come to the surface in later episodes. 

Heading into the courtroom scene, I was also fascinated by the use of "The Last Rose of Summer" when they're on their way. Can you talk about how that music choice came about?
Brodski: That was Richard's idea, the music in the scene. There was a version of the scene where we were toying with this idea, if Lori starts singing the song in the car in a slightly awkward way. I think we shot a take like that. Even while we were doing it, we were like, is this too far? I think Richard also already felt it was too far. But then we loved the song, and we kept the song. I actually had never heard it before, but it's such a beautiful song.  

What about the song were you drawn to?
Brodski: The melancholy of it, I felt was right for where they're going. It's obviously the right thing to do, what Niall does when he goes to the court. And hopefully by this time — as difficult and obviously deserved for Ruben to go to prison — but as difficult as he is and violent as he is, you still have spent some time rooting for their relationship and the love they have for each other. And you see Ruben struggling in the episode, and I felt like at least I was torn at the time to believe him that he has changed, and not to believe him. I felt it was a very melancholic, tragic moment, and this music was really right.

I have to ask, when you finished filming Episode 3, did you believe that he had changed?
Brodski: It's so funny, because when we were actually shooting the courtroom scene, there was a huge debate. I was like, oh, it's so sad, they're breaking up the relationship. And some other crew members were like, [Ruben] had to go to prison for what he did! I was like, yeah, I know, I also think he has to go to prison. I think we all agree that in the end, all the characters, to some degree, get what they deserve. They suffer the consequences of their horrible behavior. But what I always liked about the show was the empathy towards them. It doesn't mean that they don't need to have these consequences, but it means that I feel heartbroken that Ruben made this choice and that he didn't change. He didn't change, because as soon as Niall didn't do what he wanted, he tried to kill him. So I guess that's not a big change.

ALSO READ: Richard Gadd transformed his voice to play Half Man's Ruben Pallister: I 'wanted him to feel animalistic'

Half Man Episodes 1-3 are available to stream on HBO Max.