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  • Austin Reaves is upgraded to questionable for Lakers in first-round Game 3 against Rockets

    Austin Reaves is upgraded to questionable for Lakers in first-round Game 3 against Rockets

    Austin Reaves has been upgraded to questionable for Game 3 of the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Rockets.

    EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — Austin Reaves has been upgraded to questionable for Game 3 of the Los Angeles Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets.

    The Lakers made the designation on their high-scoring guard Thursday while the team flew to Houston. Los Angeles has a surprising 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 on Friday night despite playing without Luka Doncic and Reaves, its top two scorers.

    Reaves hasn’t played since he strained his oblique muscles and Doncic strained his hamstring in a game at Oklahoma City on April 2, but Reaves returned to on-court basketball activities over the past few days. Before the Lakers’ flight, coach JJ Redick said he had no update on the schedule for his injured starters’ return to play.

    Reaves averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds during an impressive regular season for the Lakers, although he played in only 51 games due to two lengthy injury absences. In his fifth season with Los Angeles, the former undrafted free agent cemented his status as a prolific secondary scorer and dependable offensive facilitator while the Lakers won 53 games and the Pacific Division.

    But Reaves and NBA scoring champion Doncic were both injured during the Lakers’ blowout loss to the Thunder three weeks ago.

    Doncic is still out for Game 3, but Redick said earlier this week that the Slovenian superstar is expected to begin initial on-court work soon. The Lakers haven’t publicly speculated on the date of either guard’s return.

    After losing three straight games following the injuries, the Lakers have regrouped and won five in a row. Los Angeles stunned the NBA by claiming the first two games of its first-round series at home over the Rockets, who were perceived as the strong favorites in the series due to the Lakers’ injury problems.

    The Lakers defeat the Rockets, 101-94, to take a 2-0 lead as the series heads to Houston.

    Although 41-year-old LeBron James is leading the way, Luke Kennard and Marcus Smart also have stepped up impressively in the absence of the Lakers’ starting backcourt. Kennard scored 27 points in Game 1 and 23 in Game 2, and Smart scored 25 points with five 3-pointers in Game 2 while leading Los Angeles’ impressive defensive effort against Kevin Durant, who managed only three points after halftime.

    Reaves will be eligible for a big new contract this summer if he declines his option for next season, as expected. Both Reaves and team officials have said they believe the guard will remain with the Lakers, his favorite team since childhood.

  • US soldier charged with using Polymarket to bet on Nicolas Maduro abduction

    US soldier charged with using Polymarket to bet on Nicolas Maduro abduction

    The United States Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against an active-duty soldier for placing a bet on the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, using classified military information for personal profit.

    On Thursday, prosecutors accused Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of cashing in on the operation against Maduro, to the tune of more than $400,000.

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    They say he used the prediction market platform Polymarket 13 times to bet on topics including whether US forces would “invade” Venezuela and when Maduro would be removed from office. Officials framed his actions as a dire breach of public trust.

    “Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly betrayed his fellow soldiers by utilizing classified information for his own financial gain,” said James C Barnacle Jr, an assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

    Van Dyke has been charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud and one count of carrying out an unlawful monetary transaction.

    Each commodities fraud and unlawful transaction charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The wire fraud charge could result in up to 20 years.

    The availability of prediction markets — online betting platforms where users can gamble on real-world events — has expanded under the second presidency of Republican leader Donald Trump.

    Administration officials and close advisers to Trump, including his son Donald Trump Jr, maintain ties to the prediction market industry.

    Trump Jr, for example, was named a “strategic adviser” to the prediction market Kalshi in January 2025, shortly before his father was sworn in.

    In May 2025, less than five months into Trump’s second term, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission dropped its legal fight against Kalshi, paving the way for bets to be placed on political events like elections.

    Since then, prediction markets have proliferated in the US, with some bets raising questions about the prospect of insider trading.

    Critics fear government officials and other politicians could use the platforms to bet on actions they themselves control.

    The sizeable bets made ahead of the US attack on Venezuela on January 3, 2026, were among the instances that raised red flags, with media outlets reporting on the “mystery trader” who scored big.

    Thursday’s unsealed indictment (PDF) makes the Justice Department’s case for why Van Dyke was the trader in question.

    According to the criminal complaint, the soldier — who was based at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina — created a Polymarket account around December 26, 2025, using a virtual private network (VPN) to place his location abroad.

    Within days, he was making bets related to Venezuela that prosecutors say leveraged the classified intelligence he was privy to.

    Around December 27, he bought $96 worth of bets on the prospect that US forces would be in Venezuela by January 31. A few days later, on December 30, he placed roughly $1,323 in bets on Maduro being out of office before the end of January.

    His gambling continued as the military operation ticked closer. On January 1, he gambled $6,100 on a range of different scenarios, including Maduro being ousted, the US invading Venezuela, and Trump invoking war powers against Venezuela.

    The following day, he placed even more bets, worth $6,150, $6,000, $7,050 and $7,215 a piece.

    Then, in the early hours of January 3, the US launched its military operation against Venezuela, culminating in the abduction and imprisonment of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

    Dozens of Venezuelans and Cubans died in the attack, which was confirmed to the public at 4:21am US Eastern Time (08:21 GMT).

    The indictment explains that Van Dyke “was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve”, as the military attack was called.

    “He possessed material nonpublic information about that operation at the time of each and every trade he placed in Maduro and Venezuela-related markets,” the indictment alleges.

    Shortly after his $400,000 windfall, prosecutors say Van Dyke transferred much of his proceeds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault. By January 6, he contacted Polymarket to delete his account.

    Thursday’s indictment comes one day after Kalshi revealed it had fined and suspended three users who were allegedly candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. All three had placed bets on the outcomes of their own races.

  • Altcoins has ‘30% to 60%’ upside if Bitcoin taps $86K: Analyst

    Momentum from Bitcoin’s recent rally could spill into the altcoin market, which could see gains of as much as 60% if Bitcoin continues to rise, according to a crypto analyst.

    “I think this leg has enough room to continue to $86K, and altcoins to run 30-60% from here,” MN Trading Capital founder Michael van de Poppe said on Thursday.

    A move to $86,000, a level Bitcoin hasn’t seen since Jan. 28, would represent about a 10% increase from its current price of $77,890, according to CoinMarketCap data.

    Bitcoin is up 11.25% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap

    Van de Poppe attributed his outlook for further upside to a “V-shaped recovery” in the Nasdaq. The Nasdaq Composite, a stock market index that includes most stocks listed on the Nasdaq exchange, is up 11.31% over the past 30 days, according to Google Finance.

    It’s a long-held view among crypto market participants that Bitcoin would need to reach new all-time highs, followed by an Ether rally, before capital rotates further down the risk curve into other altcoins.

    However, Bitcoin is still far from its all-time high of $126,100 that it reached in October. Altcoins also need to play catch-up, with total altcoin market capitalization down 28.09% since October, according to TradingView.

    Source: Plan C

    Van de Poppe said it is “crucial” that Bitcoin holds above $75,000, though broader markets are not convinced that level will hold.

    Polymarket traders are assigning a 55% probability that Bitcoin drops below $75,000 by May 1. Meanwhile, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo said in an X post that $80,000 “remains a key test level” for Bitcoin and pseudonymous crypto analyst Jelle said in an X post on Thursday that they are “still not sure that the bear market bottom is in.”

    Bitcoin may benefit from three “upside macro catalysts”

    Bitwise’s head of research for Europe, Andre Dragosch, said in an X post on Wednesday that he’s tracking three key “upside macro catalysts” for Bitcoin.

    “Bitcoin continues to price out recession risks — it is still undervalued by that count,” Dragosch said, describing the first potential macro upside catalyst.

    The total crypto market cap, excluding the top 10, has seen a slight 2.90% uptick over the past 30 days. Source: TradingView

    Dragosch also flagged declining interest rates despite rising inflation, and the idea that Bitcoin could catch up to global money supply levels as concerns around quantum computing “continue to fade.”

  • Meta lines up layoffs while Microsoft offers buyouts

    Meta lines up layoffs while Microsoft offers buyouts

    Meta will lay off 8,000 workers while Microsoft is offering buyouts to 8,750 people, a first for the Windows maker.

    Published On 23 Apr 2026

    Meta is laying off about 8,000 workers, or about 10 percent of its workforce, the company has said as it continues to ramp up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure and highly paid AI-expert hires.

    On Thursday, the company said it was making the cuts for the sake of efficiency and to allow new investments in parts of its business, as first reported by Bloomberg, which also said the company will leave about 6,000 jobs unfilled.

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    Also on Thursday, Microsoft said it was offering voluntary buyouts to thousands of its US employees.

    The software giant plans to make the offers in early May to about 8,750 people, or 7 percent of its US workforce, according to two people familiar with the plan who were not authorised to speak about it publicly.

    While an alternative to the sudden layoffs removing tech workers from peers like Meta and Oracle, the savings are likely tied to a similar industry upheaval that is requiring huge spending on the costs of artificial intelligence.

    Meta has already warned investors that its 2026 expenses will grow significantly — to the range of $162bn to $169bn — driven by infrastructure costs and employee compensation, particularly for the AI experts it has been hiring at eye-popping pay levels.

    This week, Meta also said it was breaking ground on an AI-optimised data centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a $1bn investment and its 28th data centre in the US.

    Wedbush analyst Dan Ives welcomed Meta’s cuts in a note to investors on Thursday.

    He said he sees it as part of a strategy of using AI tools to “automate tasks that once required large teams, allowing the company to streamline operations and reduce costs while maintaining productivity, driving an increased need for a leaner operating structure”.

    Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington state, has spent billions of dollars on operating an ever-expanding global network of data centres that power cloud computing services, AI systems and its own suite of productivity tools, including the AI assistant Copilot.

    CNBC reported earlier on Thursday on a memo from Microsoft’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman, announcing the voluntary retirement plan.

    “Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support,” Coleman wrote, according to CNBC.

    Meta stock fell 2.3 percent on Thursday, while Microsoft stock ended the day down 3.97 percent.

  • US Treasury Sanctions Powerful Cambodian Politician Allegedly Tied to Crypto Scam Network

    US Treasury Sanctions Powerful Cambodian Politician Allegedly Tied to Crypto Scam Network

    In brief

    • The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Cambodian Senator Kok An and 28 related entities accused of running a crypto scam network.
    • Officials say trafficking victims were forced to run scams that tricked people into sending money.
    • The action was coordinated with a federal anti-scam task force focused on Southeast Asia.

    The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a powerful Cambodian senator and 28 entities associated with him Thursday, claiming he is at the center of a massive crypto scam operation.

    The senator, Kok An, is one of the richest and best-connected men in Cambodia, who owns a sprawling portfolio of resorts and casinos. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accused him today of converting many of those venues into crypto scam centers organized by criminal organizations and populated by human trafficking victims.

    His casinos, and those of his associates, have been used to launder proceeds from these scam centers, OFAC said. In the scam centers, trafficking victims are forced to reach out to unsuspecting individuals around the world—including Americans—pose as potential romantic interests, and convince targets to send money to fake crypto trading platforms.

    “Treasury will continue to target fraudsters and scam centers that steal billions of dollars from hardworking Americans, no matter where they operate or how well-connected they are,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement Thursday.

    The individuals and entities sanctioned today include several casinos, casino operators, banks, and investment firms with ties to Kok An’s alleged crypto scam network.

    These actions were taken in coordination with the Scam Center Strike Force, a collaborative, multi-agency federal government initiative designed to target crypto scam operations.

    Alongside the OFAC sanctions targeting Kok An and his associates, the Strike Force today announced charges against two individuals accused of running a crypto scam operation in Burma, and attempting to open another in Cambodia.

    The Strike Force said Thursday it is currently focused on targeting actors in southeast Asia, a hotbed of crypto scams—particularly in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.

    Earlier Thursday, stablecoin giant Tether announced it froze some $344 million worth of its flagship USDT token tied to illicit activity, in an action coordinated with OFAC. The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment on whether the seizure was related to the new slew of OFAC sanctions announced today. 

    Last fall, the U.S. government announced it seized some $14 billion worth of Bitcoin from a Cambodia-based crypto scam operation, in the largest asset seizure in the history of the Department of Justice.

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  • ‘Apex’ Review: Man Is the Predator in a Rip-Roaring Outdoor Duel Between Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton

    ‘Apex’ Review: Man Is the Predator in a Rip-Roaring Outdoor Duel Between Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton

    Intrepid outdoorswoman Sasha (Charlize Theron) has all the physical tools required to weather the Australian Outback, but if she’d spent a little more time indoors — at the movies, specifically — she might have exercised a little more caution in venturing out there. All the threats so vividly established in films ranging from “Wolf Creek” to “The Royal Hotel” are further flagged in Baltasar Kormákur‘s punchily effective survival thriller “Apex,” and with due respect to the venomous snakes and rough-and-tumble rapids that feature along the way, once again they mostly assume male human form.

    Played with grinning gusto by a startlingly against-type Taron Egerton, initially affable woodsman Ben is every Down Under psycho you’ve ever seen on screen rolled into one dogged, stocky package: a differently imposing screen presence from Theron’s fearless, khaki-clad glamazon. They’re well-matched, then, for a wilderness cat-and-mouse chase across land, water and some claustrophobic rock crevices, even if there’s never a moment’s doubt over who will ultimately prevail. A return to cheerfully pulpy genre fare after the sentimental diversion of 2024’s Oscar-shortlisted “Touch,” Kormákur’s film doesn’t trade in surprises, but offers more than enough heart-in-mouth action spectacle to compensate.

    So much so, in fact, that it feels something of a waste to release “Apex” directly to Netflix — where it will doubtless do ferocious streaming numbers, being an altogether better-made and better-acted adrenaline ride than recent viral hits like “Thrash.” But less than a minute in, as DP Lawrence Sher’s camera vertiginously scales the daunting, wind-lashed rock face of Norway’s famous Troll Wall, instantly knotting the stomach as it forces a look down to the ground far, far below, it’s clear that this film’s natural habitat is the cinema. A full Friday-night multiplex house, preferably, where viewers can shriek in unison with each obvious but effective jolt.

    The first such chorus would come in the film’s queasy-making 10-minute prologue, introducing Sasha and rugged Aussie boyfriend Tommy (Eric Bana) in the tent they’ve pitched on the aforementioned, very vertical Norwegian cliff, in the midst of an extreme mountaineering expedition that passes for fun in their world. Or in Sasha’s, at least: In an early heart-to-heart, Tommy admits that he’s slowing down, so you know he’s imminently toast. Sure enough, in a subsequent watch-through-your-fingers climbing scene, a harrowing mishap leaves him dead and Sasha racked with guilt.

    Five months later, she’s driving alone through the glorious wilds of New South Wales to lay his soul to rest, and patch together her own. For a solo female traveler, it’s rough terrain for a multitude of reasons, beginning with the aggressively leering local menfolk harassing her at a gas station and, later, a remote campsite. Though the more polite Ben makes a chivalrous display of intervening in the first instance, Sasha is still wary enough to resist his friendly overtures, though not his helpfully offered directions. Big mistake. With his regular-dude buzzcut and generally jovial demeanor, Egerton is cleverly cast, projecting a more chipper, can-do kind of masculinity than the type we’re usually invited to fear in such scenarios — until he very much doesn’t, least of all with a loaded crossbow in hand, and the game is afoot.

    The rules of said game are simple — kill or be killed, really — and Kormákur and screenwriter Jeremy Robbins make short work of establishing them. As they do of pretty much everything else in “Apex,” which comes in at a fat-free 95 minutes, and dawdles little on its protagonist’s background trauma when there’s more immediate peril to be getting on with. That brisk storytelling economy is a good fit for Theron’s own terse, sinewy performance style. She doesn’t play Sasha as a dull superwoman — her redoubtable fighting spirit still permits human wear, tear and palpable exhaustion — but, as in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” that pragmatic physicality makes for compelling viewing: When she’s getting tossed against rocks or battered by wild currents, we feel the cost to her body.

    Egerton, by contrast, gets to grandstand a bit more flamboyantly. Relishing a pivot into outright villainy, he makes Ben the kind of progressively unhinged movie monster you can nonetheless map onto other men you might know — and the idea that many men left to the elements might rot into caveman psychopathy is perhaps the point of “Apex,” inasmuch as Kormákur’s thoroughly in-the-moment nail-biter has any point at all.

    For this is, at heart, a proudly pleasurable B-movie lavished with the benefits of A-movie craftsmanship: Sher’s splendid cinematography, alternating National Geographic-scale scene-setting with rollicking, propulsive motion when the chase is on; Sigurdur Eythorsson’s crisply efficient cutting; thundering sound design and stunt choreography to seemingly die for. You won’t remember it long after the credits roll — and are immediately cut off by Netflix’s next algorithmic recommendation — but it’s a happy throwback to a time when more junk-food cinema got to look and sound and feel this good, albeit on a far bigger canvas.

  • Claude can now connect to lifestyle apps like Spotify, Instacart and AllTrails

    Anthropic is expanding its directory of connected services for its Claude AI chatbot. The platform can now link up with your accounts on AllTrails, Audible, Booking.com, Instacart, Intuit Credit Karma, Intuit TurboTax, Resy, Spotify, StubHub, Taskrabbit, Thumbtack, TripAdvisor, Uber, Uber Eats and Viator. Additional services will be added in the future.

    More and more AI companies are trying to up their third-party integrations in a pitch to make their services as useful as possible. The benefit of having multiple apps connected means that a chatbot can theoretically execute more complicated tasks on your behalf. This expansion takes that capability from the professional and educational settings, where Anthropic’s connectors have been focused for the past year, to a personal one. So, for instance, Claude can now help plan a hike on AllTrails and then pull up a Spotify playlist that will last for the duration of your trek.

    Anthropic noted that it is also reframing how apps are showing up so that an appropriate service is suggested for the task you want to perform. The apps should appear dynamically within the Claude conversation rather than needing a user to swipe between programs. As with most AI actions, Claude is supposed to check with its user before actually taking any actions like securing a reservation or making a purchase.

  • Dogecoin Social Buzz Just Collapsed: Here’s What The Data Shows

    Dogecoin Social Buzz Just Collapsed: Here’s What The Data Shows

    Dogecoin’s social momentum has fallen off sharply, and the rest of the market data suggests that the memecoin’s latest phase is being driven more by derivatives positioning than by any broad recovery in underlying network demand.

    That was the core message from Joao Wedson, founder and CEO of Alphractal, who wrote on X that “the number of social media interactions about Dogecoin has dropped drastically.” He added: “The truth is, only a few altcoins currently have strong engagement on social platforms. Interest usually increases much more during bull markets.”

    Dogecoin Social Interactions | Source: X @joao_wedson

    Dogecoin’s Underlying Data Looks Weak

    The social slowdown lines up with a broader cooling in on-chain activity. Daily active addresses were running at 37,197, down 38.35% on the day and 44.88% on the week, according to data by Alphractal. Daily transactions fell even harder, dropping to 26,189, down 64.30% day-over-day and 51.27% week-over-week. Adjusted on-chain transfer volume came in at $118.12 million, down 41.94% on the day and 41.25% on the week.

    Taken together, those figures point to a network that is seeing less participation across the board. That matters because it undercuts the idea that $DOGE is already in a clean demand-driven recovery. Alphractal’s AI explicitly frames the current setup as one where price action is “more sentiment- and positioning-driven than usage-driven.”

    There is, however, another side to the picture. Alphractal AI described $DOGE derivatives as showing “a risk-on bullish regime” as open interest expanded to $1.099 billion and the long/short ratio climbed to 2.6433. In its words, that reflects “leveraged upside appetite.” But the same summary immediately flagged the catch: “The primary risk is crowded longs, with the Long/Short Ratio 2.6433 signalling imbalance and a conflict between elevated leverage and fragile directional conviction.”

    That tension runs through nearly all of the current $DOGE data. On valuation, the asset looks depressed rather than overheated. $DOGE is trading roughtly at $0.096 versus a realized price of $0.1383, leaving its MVRV ratio at 0.686. Net Unrealized Profit/Loss stood at -0.459, which Alphractal places in a capitulation zone. In plain market terms, the average holder remains underwater, and the network is still sitting in a loss-heavy regime more associated with late-stage drawdowns or early recovery phases than speculative euphoria.

    Short-term momentum, meanwhile, appears to be stabilizing but not breaking out. Alphractal’s AI says RSI is near neutral and MACD has turned bullish, suggesting that downside pressure has eased. Even so, $DOGE remains below its long-term averages and “well under the 200-day baseline,” which keeps the broader structure restrained.

    Supply data adds another layer of caution. Circulating supply stands at 153.95 billion $DOGE, while exchange reserves have risen to 27.19 billion $DOGE, worth roughly $2.66 billion, after climbing 8.45% over the past seven days. Rising exchange balances are typically read as a sign that coins are moving onto venues where they can be sold, not evidence of a tightening supply backdrop.

    There are a few offsets. Alphractal AI notes a mildly positive whale-versus-retail delta, implying somewhat stronger participation from larger players, and a 365-day delta growth rate of +4.54, which suggests $DOGE retains some longer-horizon structural resilience. But the composite market sentiment reading remains neutral, not decisively bullish.

    The result is a mixed but fairly coherent picture. $DOGE may be in a valuation-recovery zone, and leveraged traders are clearly leaning for upside. Still, collapsing social engagement, falling address and transaction counts, weak transfer volume, and rising exchange reserves make it hard to argue that a durable spot-led expansion is already underway.

    At press time, $DOGE traded at $0.09603.

    $DOGE remains above key support, 1-week chart | Source: DOGEUSDT on TradingView.com
  • Spot ETH ETF inflows hit 10-day streak: Will Ether rally to $3K next?

    Spot ETH ETF inflows hit 10-day streak: Will Ether rally to $3K next?

  • ‘Half Man’: Richard Gadd Breaks Down ‘Baby Reindeer’ Comparisons and Key Differences

    Following up on Baby Reindeer was an ambitious task — and the show’s creator, writer and star, Richard Gadd, knew it.

    The 2024 dark thriller, based on Gadd’s real-life experience of being stalked, became one of the most dominant shows of awards season, winning at the Emmys, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, BAFTA TV and Gotham TV Awards. It also holds a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Beyond critics, Baby Reindeer was a hit with viewers, as it entered Netflix’s all-time top 10 list for English-language shows, racking up 84.5 million views since it premiered that April

    Now, Gadd is back with his highly anticipated follow-up, Half Man, a British six-episode limited series he created, wrote and stars in. Premiering Thursday night on HBO and BBC, the show follows the destructive, codependent 30-year bond between two brothers-in-all-but-DNA, Ruben (Gadd) and Niall (Jamie Bell).

    Ahead of the release, Gadd spoke with The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s New York City premiere, where he acknowledged the pressure of following up such a breakout hit.

    “I know the pressure’s there, and I know the expectation is there,” he said. “When I’m going through an artistic process, the pressure I put on myself is far greater than any external pressure. That’s the pressure every day to make something as good as I possibly can — and that outweighs everything else. I go into almost a tunnel vision, where the world disappears and the project becomes my everything. Now that I’m coming out the other side of it, I can acknowledge the pressure’s there.”

    He added, gesturing to the packed screening audience: “There are so many people here, there’s so much hype around the project. But at the end of the day, I can never look back and think I didn’t give it absolutely everything. I promise you I did — and I will for any project I do moving forward.”

    While Half Man and Baby Reindeer tell very different stories — with the former fictional and the latter autobiographical — both explore themes of trauma, masculinity and toxicity through a raw lens.

    Gadd explained how the two projects connect.

    “It borrows from the same world of broken people,” he said. “I’m interested in exploring contradictions of humanity — the joy, the sadness, the depths people can go to. Baby Reindeer, in my opinion, was a fundamental human story, and I wanted to do something similar with Half Man. In any story I tell, I want to lead with humanity.”

    Stuart Campbell, who plays a young Ruben, said capturing the lighter moments between the characters was key — despite the relationship’s darker elements.

    “I hope people root for the relationship as well as see the obvious dark themes,” he said. “That they recognize the lightness and truth in it.”

    Still, Campbell noted that the new series stands apart.

    “There are definitely some similar themes, but also plenty of differences,” he said. “Richard says, ‘The art chooses you, rather than you choosing the art.’ He’s writing about real people — whether it’s fiction or not — and telling truthful stories. As an actor, that’s what I’m drawn to.”

    Alexandra Brodski, who directed the first three episodes, further explained the distinction.

    “I actually think it’s very different,” she said. “There are some connected themes, but the tone and feel are not the same. What’s consistent is the honesty — the humor, the brutality and the willingness to go to places not many people dare to go. Nothing is there just for shock value, but there are shocking moments, and they always feel earned.”

    While Half Man explores themes like toxic masculinity, Gadd said he doesn’t want to dictate how audiences interpret the story.

    “I wouldn’t want to force any meaning onto anyone,” he said. “Art — TV, film, whatever — should be open to interpretation. People can take their own meanings from it, and that’s absolutely right to me.”

    Half Man premieres Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.