Interview with Showrunners/Creators of HBO's Industry
'Industry' Creators Mickey Down & Konrad Kay Talk Season 3 Premiere As HBO Drama Continues To Explore "Corruptible Influence" Of Finance World https://t.co/uJvVvJNdKk
- Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) August 12, 2024
The co-creators of Industry, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, spoke at length with Deadline about the season premiere of their show this past Sunday and tease what lays ahead..
How much of S3 did you have in mind when writing the S2 finale?
Down: Nothing's guaranteed. We never know if we're going to get another season. So we try and write a quite satisfying, or at least interesting, ending for every season. And quite honestly, the first thing we thought about when we were doing Season 3 is how to honor the ending of Season 2. We spoke briefly about the idea of just resetting everything, or figuring about a way for Harper to be back at Pierpoint, and we just felt like it would be a betrayal of the ending, a betrayal of the character, betrayal of the audience. We thought, ‘Okay, the first thing we have to think about is, what does Harper’s life look like outside of Pierpoint?
Practically, there’s more Yasmin this season, because the beating heart of the show for us, is Yasmin and Harper.[...] So it was like, ‘What does that look like if Yasmin sits on the trading floor when Harper’s on the other side of the phone? [...] So that was our first starting point for how to actually continue the show with Harper outside the bank.
How did you settle on Harper ending up at FutureDawn?
Kay: Basically, it was the TV logic thing of like, she’s a character who’s been stripped of agency, of power, but part of the joy of watching her is her gaining agency and power. So we wanted to bring her back to a place where she could go toe-to-toe with Eric as quickly as narratively possible, while also making it feel like she’d been out of the game for a while. [...] So we thought, philosophically, we could set her up at a fund which was like a beacon of a certain type of investment, a progressive kind of investment, or what the show calls ‘woke investment,’ and to basically put her into into the schism of the two powerhouses within that company. She’s a chameleon, Harper, she sees weaknesses, she seizes on it.
On Kit Harington's character, Henry Muck
Down: Henry really was born out of our desire to write about a certain kind of industry. [...] We wanted to place Pierpoint firmly within the ecosystem of business and finance and tech and startups. [...] Green energy.
Then we thought about this whole phenomenon about ESG and the idea of ethical investment, and whether that is a contradiction in terms, and how can we have our Industry approach to that kind of thing. How can we explore, actually, if there is a version of investment management or in banking that can actually be altruistic and for the good of the planet and for good of society? [...] it felt like a totally different lens for the show - someone in business, someone that actually needs Pierpoint but doesn’t work within Pierpoint. A young person that has a lot of power within the season and a reflection of a certain type of fake-it-til-you-make-it, private education, overeducated bluster that is so prevalent in our country. [...] Henry was that character - immense privilege, to the point where his uncle owns newspapers and is able to basically bend the narrative of the country to his will.
Kit came to us as a fan of the show and said, ‘Is there something for me in the in the season?’ And we were halfway through constructing Henry, and we thought, ‘Okay, well, he could be really, really good, but it’s Kit Harington.’
Have your cast's performances of these characters influenced the way you write them?
Kay admits to underwriting for Ken Leung in the first two seasons. Praises the cast and basically says, "we can write anything for them [...] liberating for us as writers [...] with the younger cast, there's a huge amount of their own DNA that are now into the characters. They're not perfect one for one analogs, and they're not sociopathic [...], but the mapping of character onto actor, that bridge is really close."
What's in store for Rob this season?
Down: Nicole's death is a catalyst for what is the way that he is the rest of the season, and it starts to make him really think whether he is right for this world. [...] Season 3 is like, God, this workplace might be the most corruptible influence of my life, and maybe it would be better for me and everyone around me if I wasn't part of it anymore. [...] It's a season where Rob starts to be unafraid to reveal his vulnerability a bit more.
Do you think any of these characters deserve or are capable of earning redemption?
Kay: I don't really know what redemption means. I understand it in a TV logic sense. I mean happiness, a kind of freedom. I don't know. [...] I guess if by redemption you mean sort of inner peace, I don't think that's available to any of them, to be honest.
How do you thread the needle of morality with a character like Yas?
Kay: We try and zone in onto what the motivation for that thing might be [...] we at least hope that there is a kind of human understanding. There's a cause and effect in all of their characters that makes them less cruel.
Down: Yas especially, we try and explore what the root of her issues is, and why she treats people like commodities sometimes, and why everything seems to be transactional, and the way that she goes through the world, and the way that she uses her own personality, her own femininity, for her advancement. It’s interesting to us why someone would be like that. This season [we explore] the shit horror of her personal life. [...]
As I said before, everything they do is despicable, but sometimes it’s explainable. I understand you, and I don’t agree with it, right?
Very long and wordy interview at the SOURCE
Season 3 premiere discussion!
