
Weronika Tofilska is on a roll this year. She recently co-wrote the Kristen Stewart film Love Lies Bleeding with filmmaker Rose Glass. On top of that, Tofilska directed the first four episodes of Netflix’s sensation Baby Reindeer, for which she is nominated for an Emmy Award.
She was born in Poland, based in London, and has directed several award-winning short films then made the leap into television, directing episodes of Amazon’s Hanna and HBO’s His Dark Materials. Tofilska is certainly a rising star director to watch.
Baby Reindeer is one of the most talked about shows of the year for its darkly comedic tale based on Richard Gadd’s real-life story of a troubled man and his stalker. Tofilska delivered this potent mix of genres expertly and is well deserving of the praise she is getting.
[Note: This interview was edited for clarity and length.]
How did you first come in contact with Baby Reindeer?
My agent told me about it and she gave me the context of the play and said you’re going to absolutely love this. I kind of just immediately knew that it’s something very interesting and different, even based on the title. I read the script and thought it was amazing.
Was there something specific of yours or something about you that you think maybe your agent or whoever said it felt that you would be a good choice for this?
I think my agent is very familiar with my taste. Comedy and things that are a bit off-center are always things I’m drawn to. I’ve always been drawn to things that combine those different tones.

When did you realize that this was based on Richard Gadd’s own experiences and did that affect how you approach the material?
I knew from the beginning that this was coming from Richard’s life. Knowing that in the back of your head, doesn’t influence necessarily the job itself. So this is a context that you kind of bring in, which emotionally and psychologically is important for a director, because it’s very precious material. In that sense that information is important, but in terms of actually directing and making creative decisions, it’s not a deciding factor here. You very much like you have a script and you have a story, you have characters in the story, you have their journey and you visualize on the page.
Jessica Gunning was pretty incredible. What a performance to capture, right?
I think Jessica Gunning was a godsend for everyone. The wonderful script described her character in such a powerful way. I remember just reading it and thinking, oh my God, how on earth are we going to find someone who can do all of it? Who can be both funny and someone who makes you feel empathy and also be terrifying? It was a challenging role to cast those. Jess did it so well and kind of exceeded everyone’s expectations. And she’s an incredible collaborator. She’s a dream to work with for a director, she was amazing.

How about Nava Mau? What did you appreciate about her as a performer?
This was another discovery for us. This casting process was quite a long one and we wanted to make sure that both Teri and Martha and all the other characters were just right. It was a huge relief for us when we found her. She brought so much depth to the role of Teri. I feel so lucky as a director, that all the actors were so passionate about the project and just gave it their role and they were absolutely the loveliest people to work and collaborate with.
Please, break down the visceral comedy club scene when Martha keeps interrupting Donny and they get into an argument. What did you want to achieve there?
I was talking to Kryzsztof Trojnar about the journey of how the camera is going to work throughout the whole series, we were very much aware that we kind of wanted to introduce more and more handheld work. I think that scene especially really wanted the audience to feel the nervousness that he’s feeling in that scene. So we came in close, which is what we did throughout the show because we kind of showed everything from Donny’s point of view, but also very close and handheld, which kind of gave it the feeling that we were panicking as much as he is.
Every time we looked at Martha, which was our rule in the show, we didn’t go too close to her. So we always kind of stay on the stage with the camera that way when you feel the way Donny thinks, he’s not always able to see exactly how people in the audience look like. I kind of put the audience in the shoes of Donny.
The other scene I wanted to bring up is in episode four, the scenes with Darrien.
Our thinking throughout the whole show was that we were basic in Donny’s head, and that was a principle that was kind of linking everything together. The hope was that we could also make different changes together because we’ll always be with him experiencing it. And in that scene as well, we created this feeling of, although these two people are sitting at the same table, there is this alienating feeling.
We did this thing with the camera a lot of the time when we asked the actors to move almost into the lens. So again, it was just sort of this feeling that Darrien is looking straight at Donny and it’s a kind of uncomfortable feeling of him penetrating his face in some ways. We did that a lot in episode four. We just wanted the audience to feel, again, how Donny’s feeling and that kind of uncomfortable put them in this awkward position that he was in.
Talk about your collaboration with Mekel Bailey. How’d your visions align?
He is incredible and he’s such a joy to work with. He is the most positive creative person on set always and kind of full of ideas. He brought so much, especially to Martha’s costumes because again, now obviously I consider a brief sigh of relief, but there were so many kinds of things on the show that could have gone incredibly wrong. Her clothing was one of those things because we had to kind of pull that line between eccentric but not kind of clownish. I think he got that completely right and shows exactly the type of things that a person like Martha would wear.
What about Peter Oliver? I found his techniques very fascinating, the way everything was delicately layered.
His initial assembly was great, more polished than your normal rough cut. He put a lot of work into it. There was a lot of music and songs in the series and the flow of the edit, which a lot of the time was a series of montages. It was just so important. It was amazing because we spent so much time, we were so kind of intricate with the sounds. It was kind of like a puzzle to put voiceover together with the music, with different kinds of scenes, with different kinds of transitions with sound and sound design. Sometimes it was doing a music video or an ad in some ways there were not that many traditional scenes in the show.

The songs in the series enhance the emotion in a big way. What conversations did you have with Catherine Grieves about music and tone?
That was actually probably the most collaborative process and the most fun as well. I think there were a couple of songs initially in the script that Richard just put in. One of them was “Happy Together,” and I think that kind of dictated the tone. We went through the sixties, seventies, and maybe even eighties songs. We were avoiding modern music because there was something about Donny that was a little bit of a kind of gone era. He’s a bit of an old soul and his comedy is a little bit vintage. In a way, there is that nostalgia, a melancholia that was something that just felt right for the show.
What has the reaction to this show been like for you? It’s such a phenomenon.
It’s been great. I have been working for several years now, but it was definitely the first project that made such an impression on audiences and the industry. So for me, I’m just so proud of it. I put a year and a half of my life into this, so I’m really glad that it paid off.
Baby Reindeer is available to stream on Netflix.