Season two of the drug, sex, and financial drama Industry debuted Monday night on HBO, with the junior investment bankers at Pierpoint & Co. back for their second year of deals and debauchery.
Despite what’s shown on-screen, Myha’la Herrold, who plays Harper, admits that behind the scenes, it can get “a little bit messy.”
“Especially when you’re snorting things and then also doing intimacy,” she tells ABC Audio. “In between takes, you’re, like, blowing your nose and then going and kissing.”
Explaining one particular scene, Marisa Abela, who plays Yasmin, adds that it’s more awkward when you’re fully clothed and someone else is naked.
“There was a scene where…we were doing some drugs and a guy came in and took all clothes off complete and was like stark naked,” she explains. “So I kept being like, ‘do you want a snack? Do you need anything?'”
Nakedness aside, the most challenging part of the gig was understanding the financial jargon.
“It’s like another language. It is so difficult,” Herrold admits. “You really have to know the words by heart in your sleep, so that once you get [on set], you can let the words fall out and you can play the intention.”
And when it comes to getting things right, Herrold says that she’s had “a lot of particularly Black people in finance reach out and say how seen they felt by every character.”
What Herrold loves most about the show though is that none of the characters are “stereotypical” or “archetypal.”
“For Harper particularly, she goes left every time you assume a young Black American woman would go right,” says Herrold. “And whether or not you like it or it’s morally correct is beyond the point. It’s that she’s a human being and she’s multifaceted and she is different.”
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