“We are old now,” Myha’la says with a smile to her Industry costar Marisa Abela on Zoom. Considering the fact that both actors are 29 years old, that sentiment is far from true. However, four seasons into the buzzy British banking drama, it does feel like we’re a long way from the early days of Industry when their respective characters, Harper Stern and Yasmin Kara-Hanani, were first-years on the trading floor at Pierpoint & Co, diving headfirst into the wild world of finance.
In the penultimate episode of Industry’s fourth season, “Points of Emphasis,” Harper and Yas run through the gamut of human emotions. They begin the episode as business adversaries, hurling insults at one another, and end the episode as friends dancing till dawn in a perfect girl’s night out, sealed with a kiss—a fact that makes both actors giggle, recalling the shoot. For Abela, the club scene was both sentimental and nostalgic. “It felt like season one of Industry in that we’re just two girls dancing in a club,” she says. “It felt like that time in Berlin in season two, or all the season one stuff with Robert. It really felt like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the show that we set out to make.’”
But before they can get to that point, the frenemies have to hash it out. “I really resented you for being a breathing example of how I was less than,” Harper says to Yasmin, over drinks at a pub. “And I choose to love you for being a breathing example for how I can be more,” Yasmin responds. That conversation was “the most honest and vulnerable conversation that they ever have” in Myha’la’s opinion. “They both ask for each other’s comfort in a way that there’s no hidden agenda, there’s no nothing,” she continues. “It’s pure, platonic need for comforting each other.”
Many important characters have come and gone from the Industry universe—Gus (David Jonsson), Robert (Harry Lawtey), and most recently Harper’s mentor Eric Tao, played by Ken Leung. But throughout all the shifts and changes, Harper and Yasmin’s friendship—flawed though it may be—has served as the anchor of the buzzy HBO series. Below, Marisa Abela and Myha’la go deep on Yasmin and Harper’s complicated relationship, their sometimes toxic tether, and what we can expect for Industry’s season four finale.
Spoilers for Industry below.
Vanity Fair: After a season of being either separate or at odds, at the end of episode seven, we finally get to watch our girls together again, dancing at the club. What was it like filming that moment?
Myha’la: It was so special. As much as we know the audience wants our girlies together and to have their dancing at the club moment, we really wanted it too. It does feel like an accumulation of all the seasons, everything they’ve gone through together. It’s the most intimate they could possibly be—that they’ve ever been. It was also really fun. It was a very fun shoot day.
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