when industry It premiered during the height of the pandemic, in November 2020, and critics quickly got on board — but viewers were slower to find the thrilling drama, which centers on ambitious young graduates navigating their new lives at a major London investment bank. As the HBO show took some wild twists and turns, welcoming new star-studded cast members like Kit Harington along the way, ratings remained at No. 1 and ratings began to catch up. The Season 4 premiere jumped 20 percent year over year.
Off the Emmys radar, industry Suddenly he feels like a player. Last year, Marissa Abella won a BAFTA for her central role, and now all eyes are on her original co-star Mihala, who gets her biggest cameo yet in season four as the volatile, brilliant and self-destructive Harper Stern. This collection of episodes saw her grieving the death of her estranged mother, reeling from the passing of her long-time mentor Eric (Ken Leung) and taking some big risks – as always – to keep her new trust afloat.
Next season will be industryThe last. “I just read some very early drafts of episodes one and two, and they are very exciting and classic industry“No, I can’t tell you anything,” Myha’la says as we begin our conversation.
Season 4 finds Harper at her most vulnerable. How did you prepare for that?
The question always arises: “Who is she without commerce? What makes her special?” As all of these characters evolve, they can’t be the same Harper from season one and two. She’s ten years older than she was when we met her. So, going into it, we were all really looking forward to exploring what it’s like when her heart is really involved in something, or if she’s emotionally challenged in a way that she’s not used to.
Let’s take the situation with Eric: she’s spent her entire young life avoiding family, avoiding hurting her feelings, and when she finally has no family anymore and needs someone, he’s the closest thing to her. “I know what happens if we’re weak with each other, it’s going to ruin everything,” she’s told him multiple times in the season. Her prophecy has been fulfilled. The great thing about diving into uncharted waters with a character I know so well is that it didn’t require the kind of preparation I might do for something else. I put myself in her shoes and let my emotions wash over me.
Did you surprise yourself with the way you responded, I guess, to that?
One hundred percent. The amount of sadness she felt over Eric’s passing was just as shocking as the sadness she felt when her mother died. You would think that someone who did her best to separate herself from the person who traumatized her so badly wouldn’t have a tear to cry, but it was very much an unhealed piece of her inner child who just wanted her mother to love her. She also feels all this resentment, as if she was robbed of her opportunity to grieve or confront, because who knows if that will happen in the future? I was surprised at how heavy these things were. But it gives it a human character. That’s what the season is about: discovering Harper’s humanity in a way that people — and me — never expected.
There was a lot of fan backlash about not seeing Harper’s mother on screen, and then, of course, came this knockout punchline. I know you’re online, but have you been tracking this?
Some of those episodes when we got them were 120 or 130 odd pages long – so if we had the time, I’m sure we all would have loved to meet Harper’s mother. We have 60 minutes. I would love to see a lot. I still want to know what happened. If we could do a retrospective season and film all the BTS work that we don’t have time for, I would love it. But do you know what? This, to me, tells me how much people care about Harper. I’m not sure there’s anyone I love more than Harper. She feels like a part of me. She feels like my sister, but she’s also my friend who I think desperately needs therapy.
One hundred and twenty wild pages for an hour-long drama.
They love to write.[[He laughs.]They are only punished in the amendment, I don’t know why!
How have you experienced the overall rise of this show? There’s been a fandom around it since the beginning, but it’s exploded recently.
A few weeks after the finale ended, I walked out, which I don’t do very often, and got suspended – which has never happened before. The people who knew about us were a very dedicated and close-knit community. This was the first time someone had said, “Harper, I love you!”
You mentioned how close you were to Harper. How did you cope with some of the poor choices you made over the course of the show?
I have to understand her deeply so I can feel empathy, know why she does the things she does, and justify or at least explain it so she’s not a bad person. I don’t think Harper is evil. She’s not a bad person. She’s not evil. She doesn’t do things with the intention of hurting people, and she’s protecting her severely traumatized self. In order to make these choices feel authentic and grounded in reality, even if we as an audience don’t morally agree with them, I have to justify them for making them honestly in a way that I can’t punish or judge them for. I also feel like it’s really dehumanizing that, as a Black woman, you watch Black women characters on screen that are one- or two-dimensional and don’t feel complex, don’t feel like they have a struggle. It makes me feel inadequate and judged for being a human being who carries contradictions, divisions, traumas, failures and successes. That’s why I chase roles like Harper. They affirm me in my humanity.
You have this very touching scene with Marissa Abella in the penultimate episode, but by the end, we see them at odds again when Jasmine starts down a troubling new path. What do you think about where we left them?
It was heartbreaking. Like watching – I was going to say a plane crash, but it’s much worse than that. It’s being able to watch, in slow motion, someone launches a nuclear weapon and flies to another country to blow up a bunch of people. This is what I felt while playing. Much shock and confusion. Also real-time deniability. At this point, Harper has been through a lot, and I think she’s also exhausted from it all.
You defend the show strongly, and it’s no secret that the Emmys have ignored it so far. Do you hope that changes this year?
I was raised on the idea that I could be great without other people telling me I was great, and I truly believe that we have continued to aggressively pursue greatness without having to acknowledge or hope for it, because that is who we are and that is what we do on this show. Obviously we love Amy. We would like to be recognized by the Television Academy. It’s the ultimate reward and seal of approval. I would cry my ass off if either of us won an Emmy. Marissa won a BAFTA for season three, and she was terrified because she deserved it. I think we all do it…there are so many great shows, so many critically acclaimed HBO classics that never got Emmy nods, that are some of the best shows of all time. I know that whether we were fortunate enough to be recognized by the Academy or not, we did something special and important to a lot of people. We did it from a place of love. This is my Emmy speech.
This story first appeared in the June standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To obtain the magazine, click here to subscribe.
