Steven Prusakowski
In a growing sea of emerging talent, Mitchell Robertson is a stand out. He arrives on the scene not with bravado, but with a quiet humbleness and reflectiveness that feels genuinely charming. That same quality is found in his performance as young Niall in Richard Gadd’s Half Man, where so much of the character exists behind a wall in his own head. For a role defined by repression, fear of commitment to his own feelings, and the heavy weight of shame, Robertson’s work shines through, often found in the subtleties he conveys as his expressive face offers hints of the turmoil beneath.
This was the fourth time I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Mitchell, so the way he carried himself was not nerves or an act. Every conversation left me struck by his kind nature, sincere gratitude, and those thoughtful moments of pondering. Even as acclaim builds, he carries himself with the same grounded appreciation, as if worried someone might take it away.
But make no mistake, this is a true talent with plenty more opportunities ahead. For his first major role in the HBO’ Original Half Man, Robertson delivers a complex, endearing, and deeply moving performance. It is a series you need to watch to discuss in any way, because even among those who did, find plenty to dissect and interpret.
In the series, the story of the two dysfunctional “siblings” told over several decades has a pair of actors playing the duo. Niall is played as a teenager by Robertson, Jamie Bell (also interviewed for Awards Radar) plays his adult counterpart – while adult Ruben is played by Gadd, the younger version played by Stuart Campbell.
As I watched Niall the urge to pause life for a moment just to give the character a hug grows. Ruben and Niall’s lives grow more intertwined and tightly wound, feeling ready to unravel at any moment. The question that always lingers with me: could these broken men have found a better fate?
Robertson brought careful insight to Niall’s internal struggles, particularly around shame and hidden emotions. As he shared in our conversation, “I just wanted to make sure that the audience could feel that pain that he had and that shame as well. I’ve used the word shame a lot over the last couple of weeks, but because I think it’s really heavy and I think a lot of guys do struggle with shame and don’t know how to deal with that,” shared Robertson. “I wanted to make sure that it was behind the eyes and my body that the audience could kind of see that.”
For a character living behind walls of his own making, Robertson understood that the performance had to live in the physical and the unspoken. He reflected on Niall as someone holding himself back the most. “Richard said an interesting thing … he said, Niall feels to him like a bit of an example of just how big those walls in our own head can be, just how big we can make them,” revealed Robertson. Niall is in a lot of ways like the kind of the person that’s holding himself back the most. So obviously I’m playing the kind of beginnings of that.It was important to me to realize that how he was in episode 1 would be different to how he was in episode 3 in a lot of different ways.”
That layered approach extended to how he handled Niall’s secret without playing into stereotypes, instead focusing on the act of pushing emotions and reality down. “I tried to play in the same way I would play any character that has a secret because ultimately Niall has a secret,” said the actor. “In his head, the idea of this secret becoming known to people is the worst thing that could happen. It was just a case of making sure that I was playing someone who was keeping something really within him.”
“I didn’t at any point try to play the sexuality,” continued Robertson. “That was never ever anything I considered. It was just a case of playing the pushing down of something that anytime it started to come up, they kind of pushing it back down.”
The destructive dynamic with Ruben added another layer, one rooted in hidden emotions. “Their relationship, there’s so much disruptiveness and so much destruction between the two of them throughout their whole relationship.That’s the kind of exciting bit because you’re playing characters that are hiding something or trying not to show an emotion,” confessed Robertson. “That’s what we’re all doing as people. We’re all kind of trying to show something or hide something.”
When asked directly about whether Niall and Ruben love each other, a question I also asked of Gadd and Jaime Bell, Robertson’s honest, thoughtful, reflective response tapped into what he brought to the role.
“It’s a really good question,” he said followed by several extended pauses. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t know,” explained a pondering Robertson. “I would like to think there was love there. I’m going to say yes. I’m going to say yeah.”
As for what drives their love, the young actor was not sure. “ I’m really not sure. It’s really tricky. There’s a lot about these characters and a lot about the show I still don’t know. And I’m still kind of learning – you know, like doing this press stuff,” shared Robertson blurring the line between his high stress performance as Niall and the pressure of being a talented new actor ready for the next challenge. “I’m still learning stuff about them.”
That humility and curiosity are exactly what make Mitchell Robertson’s work so easy to connect with. In a series full of broken men on a bleak path, his take on Niall is one you won’t soon forget long after watching – a performance showing all the signs of a bright, hopeful future.
Half Man is streaming now on HBO Max. Watch my full interview with Mitchell below.
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