Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning has shared how she’d been celibate for 36 years prior to realising that she was gay.
The actress, 40, shot into the spotlight playing troubled Martha in the hit Netflix miniseries about a struggling comedian and his female stalker.
It was a role that propelled Jessica into the stratosphere, after she previously notched up appearances in episodes of Inside No.9, Doctor Who, Law and Order: UK, and the 2014 film Pride.
She can soon be seen in the fantasy film and Enid Blyton adaptation, The Magic Faraway Tree, where she plays Dame Washalot.
In a new interview, Jessica has opened up about her career path, sharing personal insight into her rise to fame.
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This includes explaining how she only realised that she was a lesbian in 2022 following a lifelong period of celibacy.
Speaking on how the personal revelation came to be, Jessica told The Times that it was a chance conversation with another lesbian that sparked her lightbulb moment.
‘I think it’s because I’ve never been in a relationship before. With anyone,’ she said when pressed on how she’d not known beforehand.
Describing acting as ‘my passion and my love,’ she continued: ‘The characters I got to play, I felt like I maybe lived vicariously through a lot of them.
‘I felt very sexual, and I felt very connected to myself, so I was so happy in so many ways. It didn’t feel like I was lonely. I lived with my best mate. I felt fulfilled. So I didn’t feel like I was lacking anything.’
When prompted, she added: ‘Yeah, apart from sex.’
Jessica also spoke of her sexual awakening after the release of Baby Reindeer in 2024.
Joining the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, Jessica said: ‘That was a mega, mega thing for me. I’m surrounded by gays; all my friends are gay, and so it wasn’t that I was repressing anything.
‘It was just that I didn’t think I could be, and I still can’t articulate it in the best way.’
Describing herself as a ‘big old gay,’ she explained that because she was a ‘bigger woman,’ she’d felt a ‘little bit alien’ and like she was ‘tagging along’.
Then the realisation came that, ‘no, it’s not that.’
Going on to speak about her coming out experience, she said: ‘It’s actually really emotional. And some of my straight friends have actually said they envy people being able to come out because it feels like a celebration of who you are.
‘And I think we’re coming into a time where we won’t ever need to really come out again. But when you do, it is so exposing. But it’s also really lovely going, “This is my soul”.’
Soon after the release of Baby Reindeer, Jessica revealed how she’d been struggling to find work, unlike the show’s creator (and her co-star), Richard Gadd.
She told Jessica Knappett on her Perfect Day podcast: ‘Richard has got incredible meetings out of this and everyone’s said to me, “What have you got?”‘
The offers that did come in then included a show about sharks – which we now know to be Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters – and an Australian production of Peter Pan, where she’d have played Smee.
She joked that the offers were ‘flooding in’ at the time.
However, with a project under Cate Blanchett’s production company in the works, she wasn’t ready to resign herself to reality TV or stage panto just yet.
And, with her role in The Magic Faraway Tree soon to hit UK cinemas, Jessica has also lent her voice to audiobook adaptation Death at the White Hart, in which she plays every character.
The Faraway Tree’s Madam Washalot is a far cry from playing Martha – who was later identified by social media sleuths as a woman named Fiona Harvey.
Following the series’ release, Harvey was found and interviewed by Piers Morgan, where she vowed to challenge Richard in the courts, insisting that many of the series’ events never happened.
However, a number of other celebrities subsequently came forward with their own experiences of the so-called ‘Real Martha’ – including Janey Godley, George Galloway, Laura Wray, and current UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Harvey previously asserted that the series had falsely implied she had sexually assaulted Gadd, and that she was imprisoned for stalking him.
Netflix has defended the lawsuit and Gadd’s ‘right to tell his story’, claiming that the alleged defamtory statements are ‘substantially true.’
However, unlike Martha, Harvey has no criminal convictions, which is where the lawsuit stems from, and why a judge ultimately allowed her to pursue the case.
On whether she’s worried about being typecast as Martha, Jessica told Harper’s Bazaar: ‘I think maybe if I’d been Martha about 10 years ago, I would be worried about being pigeonholed.
‘But the parts I’m seeing coming in are very different to Baby Reindeer. Though really, I don’t mind always being associated with Martha. I’m so proud to have been part of that show.’
The Magic Faraway Tree is out in UK cinemas from March 27.
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