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This article was originally published on June 5, 2024 as part of our2024 TV issue.
We are recirculating it now timed toIndustrys season-three premiere.
Dont worry: They still find a way to do coke there.
Robert has long lusted after Yasmin, while she has tortured him emotionally, psychologically, and sexually.
When Henry Muck enters the picture, Robert and Yasmins relationship gets more complicated.
Robert is assigned to work with Henry on his companys IPO; Yasmin becomes the object of Henrys interest.
This is his mansion.
Another take, and he is better.
I watch the monitor, and its like his face is shattering onscreen.
Were happy for them; they deserve that spot.
Theres another dynamic at play.
In fact, HBO may value it more than ever.
Im hoping the audience will maybe open up a bit because wed love to make some more.
Before Harington joined the show, he was already anIndustryaficionado.
Tonally, its one of the most unique shows out there, he said.
InGame of Thrones,we had actors come in who were fans of the show, he told me.
Now it was the other way around and I was fanboying over the actors inIndustry.
He knifes her in the back in the finale by revealing her fake degree to Pierpoints HR.
(You may be thinking,They have an HR team?)
She is summarily fired.
But then they realized that would be a bridge too far in terms of toying with the audience.
Rest assured Harper is back with a vengeance inIndustrys third season.
She and Eric start off far apart, but their connection is more unhealthily obsessive than ever.
She is played byBarrystandout Sarah Goldberg, another actor who came to the show as a fan.
All the choices shes making are fueled by the fact that shes not in the office with him.
In person, Myhala and Leung evince a lot of that same closeness, though in more positive terms.
Three seasons and more than half a decade into working together, the two can communicate in shorthand.
I feel so safe with you, Leung says.
Its an easy day when were together on the call sheet.
Myhala, like many of the shows stars, was just out of drama school.
And I was freaking out like,I dont know what Im doing here!
I dont remember the freaking out, Leung says.
I just remember the energy.
Down and Kay had not originally envisioned a Black woman for Harpers role.
After some early conversations in their first writers room, they decided to make Harper Black.
When they cast Myhala, Harper was written as more outwardly anxious than the version you see onscreen.
It didnt ring true to her as the way a young Black woman would act.
I was like, What if she comes in being like, Im the baddest bitch youve ever met?
This understanding that my life could look so different, but it doesnt.
The writers bent story lines toward the strengths of their other actors too.
But Abela pushed to give the character more social savvy and an intriguing streak of cruelty.
Abela advocated for her character to be turned on by control.
In season one, the writing basically had to catch up to our actors standard, Kay told me.
One of the great prides of our career is that this is all their first major thing.
Cardiff has a very special place in my heart.
I love it, Lawtey says.
I think Im the only one who does.
Office life in all its mundanity has been carefully replicated.
Flip a switch and you get all the real-time financial information you need, straight to Cardiff.
They show up for work and sit for a day of filming as if they were at office jobs.
Some have started to date each other.
That realism stems from Down and Kays background in finance.
The two creators met during their time at Oxford, where they were assigned to the same college.
After Kay was laid off from Morgan Stanley, the two decided to try their hand at writing together.
Around the same time, Tranter was mulling an idea about finance herself.
So why the fuck are any of them going to work in these big American banks?
At the very least, we were going to get something authentic.
At the most, I loved the way they talked and spoke.
What I hadnt anticipated was how much and how quickly they would grow.
Fittingly for a show about money,Industrymade it to television in large part owing to budgeting.
In 2019, HBO announced plans to film a pilot about young adults in finance directed by Lena Dunham.
started to get an intriguingly complex answer.
Underneath the interpersonal mess of Pierpoint, theres some weird thrum of power.
An executive at HBO asked what they got out of being on the job in the first place.
Theres buzz to it, Down realized.
That adrenalized buzz is powerful, Kay says.
We make a run at give it to the viewer.
Pierpoint & Co.s biggest buzz addict may also beIndustrys fan favorite Rishi Ramdani, played by Sagar Radia.
People come up to me and say, We love your lines off-camera!
Im not sure whether to be offended by that or not.
Its that kind of quality that makesIndustryexcel.
That penchant for verisimilitude can run up againstIndustrys delight in debauchery simply on a logistical level.
you’re free to take what you want from the show, jokes Down.
Maybe you want an in-the-weeds business story line.
If you like sex and drugs, you get that.
you’re free to second-screen it very well, Kay adds.
I reckon 10 percent of the audience listens to the dialogue.
The buzz, so to speak, is meant to be even louder this time.
It was us thinking were making a drama for HBO, Down says.
God, it was heavy.
Now that Ive watched it, the success of that hybrid is apparent.
But the show also revels in the sensational.
Eric spirals into sex and drugs.
The comedian Joel Kim Booster, another bigIndustryfan, makes a nude appearance in a sauna.
They pitched the idea to HBO with the email subject line coke and boats.
Is that enough to makeIndustry,finally, a breakout hit?
To be clear,Industrydoes already have an audience.
And given the series cheapness, HBO has gotten bang for its buck.
I go, Oh, so we have nothing in common.
The show is adult, in content and form, and not based on any IP.
Its not full of movie stars.
Its old hat to compare television to novels, butIndustryclosely resembles the sprawling 19th-century serialized fiction of London.
Anthony Trollope wrote about scheming bankers and charlatans too.
These ones just have access to ketamine.
We always find ourselves, as writers lets put it this way period-drama adjacent, Kay says.
Weve always liked the old British class literature.
Perhaps thats why Down and Kay have ended up in that mansion in the first place.
Described that way, the terms of the season are nearly Victorian: a courtship plot.
Can they tame them?
You, as a viewer, may hope so, but dont bet on it.
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