Spoilers follow for the fourth season of Industry through the sixth episode, “Dear Henry,” which premiered on HBO on Sunday, February 15.
Eric Tao has literally walked into the sunset. The former Pierpoint managing director, who recognized himself in American striver Harper Stern (Myha’la), mentored and then sabotaged her, eventually lost his job at the British bank partially because of her scheming, and then went into business with her as one half of the short-only fund SternTao, has left the tumultuous world of finance behind. In Ken Leung’s hands, Eric is one of Industry’s most compelling, conniving, and sympathetic figures, a man who is always reaching for more without exactly knowing why. He’s the wise elder who’s desperately lonely but also incredibly relatable as a victim of the capitalist system he once championed so zealously. Eric ruined other people’s lives during his ascent to the top, and he’s devastated to realize he feels just as empty there as he did below. All he wants to do is win — until, maybe, he also wants to be seen, as a person and as a partner, and that’s ultimately Eric’s downfall.
The circumstances of Eric’s exit are, in typical Industry fashion, awful. The man has always had a problem lusting after younger women (so much so that he has to tell an amused Harper that he’s “not a fetishist”). In “Dear Henry,” he ends up blackmailed by Tender CEO Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) for sleeping with Dolly Bird (Skye Lucia Degruttola), a character who isn’t a 20-something, as Eric thought, but a teenager not too far off in age from Lily (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss), the daughter Eric can’t seem to connect with. SternTao has just struck a blow against Tender by revealing the aspiring bank’s layers of financial bullshit, but once Eric realizes the information Whitney has on him — and breaks out of the self-disgust and shock it causes — he decides to keep the blackmail to himself. Instead, he signs over his half of SternTao to Harper with no explanation, resulting in a brutal scene in which a crying Eric begs Harper not to “remember me that way” and an equally teary Harper insists she’ll always equate him with this abandonment. It’s the most painful breakup Industry’s ever had.
Leung has been a core component of the series from the beginning, and he’s not sure if he’ll somehow come back for a potential fifth season of Industry. No one’s told him that yet. For now, he’s treating Eric’s walk away as a final exit, one that caps off an entire season in which Leung says he shaped his performance in response to one word he felt the character was telling him: help.
How did you learn about Eric’s fate this season: that he’d be blackmailed, sign the company over to Harper, and then walk away?
As the scripts came out. That’s generally true on the show. I had a very broad overview of the direction they were taking this season. We had a little chat beforehand, and the main takeaway was that I felt the circle had been closed at the end of season three. We were kicking around, How do we open a new circle? If we’re going to continue, where do we take it? There was mention of bringing my family into it and what was going on with my kids. I’d never really gotten to explore that part; Eric, as a dad, doesn’t explore that part of himself. Season four for me represented his journey with Lily. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know how SternTao was going to play out. I just knew why I went into it and what Eric was hoping for through this new enterprise with Harper, vis-à-vis his daughter.
Did you suggest the family angle?
It seemed to be the obvious route because the system, everything he’s learned in the business world, everything, collapses. Him throwing the bat at the end of season three was a cool metaphor of being free of this thing that he devoted his whole life to — to climb to the top of this mountain just to feel basically the same. The obvious next place to go is, What does this mean outside of the office? You have a family, even if it’s broken. You have kids.
Take me back to reading “Dear Henry” and what your reactions were.
The main thing was the girl in the hotel that he hooks up with, Dolly, it’s written like any other fling, and I felt that that maybe wasn’t the case. I wanted to just imaginatively look under the hood of that a little bit. Eric has always been the creator of his own reality. In season four, that shifts, and he’s in a place where he’s willing to look at, What is reality? Who is my kid? I have no channel to her. Maybe I can learn about her through this person whom I do have a channel with, which is Harper. And I think when Dolly comes in, maybe he has true love in his mind. He’s totally oblivious to where she comes from, her agendas, but she’s a young woman he has an in with, and he’s in a place where he’s hungry for that. What is the language? How do I engage with young women in a way that I can learn and then use that to reach my daughter, whom I cannot reach? And who, alarmingly, is starting to take on all my bad qualities?
There’s a thing that didn’t make it into the show that is right after the first phone call, where Harper introduces this idea of, Can we do something together? He makes a call to his daughter and realizes the trouble that she’s in. He gets two phone calls in quick succession that pull him out of this stasis that he finds himself in, hiding away in this conservative retirement community, doing nothing and being bored. So there’s an emergency. And when that betrayal happens, it’s not any betrayal. It’s a deep betrayal. That was my first impression of what to do with the Dolly relationship. It’s funny, because we don’t go into that aspect of it. But I took it that way, and that informed how the rest of it went.
We don’t see how they first met, right?
We used to. It was scripted that there was a scene of them in the bar, and we see them outside of the bedroom. But that didn’t make it into the show.
There’s such a focus this season on pornography and how sex can be used to fulfill us in a way that nothing else can. Were there any discussions with Konrad and Mickey about Eric’s use of sex this season?
No, we don’t discuss so much in general. When I have questions, they’re very specific, pointed questions. Mickey and Konrad make themselves eternally accessible, so that’s very helpful, but talking about it doesn’t help me so much. It puts me in my head. With Eric, I like to listen to him more than play him. Over four seasons and six years, he’s a really complicated guy. I get more mileage out of following his lead. After a while, I developed this facility with recognizing what feels right versus what feels wrong. Mickey and Konrad have said that Industry as a show has an intelligence of its own that comes more from the alchemy of its parts than from conscious design. Speaking for myself, the playing of Eric doesn’t come so much from a conscious plan as the alchemy of everything he’s been through, of everything I’ve played up to whatever point it is. I try to listen to him more than I have him figured out.
If you’re listening, what did Eric say to you this season?
He’s in a lot of pain, and he doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t know what to do with that. He needs help. “Help” is what he said. That’s the polar opposite of where he used to come from. He used to come from, “I’m the help. I dictate what help even means.” Then it all fell apart. Then he threw it all away. Then he went into a kind of fugue state, into a no-man’s-land. He couldn’t have been further from his daughters. He finally has time to spend with them, and he couldn’t be further away from them. He’s on Long Island with a bunch of people who remind him of Newman, who’s long dead, because that’s what he knows. That’s what he’s been taught and told himself, that this is what you work for, this endless vacation, and he realizes, Well, this is it. This doesn’t do it for me. And now this person’s in trouble. That person’s in trouble. I’m in trouble. Help.
There’s this moment in “Habseligkeiten” where you and Kenny are getting on the elevator, you apologize about firing him from Pierpoint, and he says to you, “It’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever done.” You have this expression on your face of pain, regret, and melancholy, and it made me think, Does he think about Adler?
He’s haunted by it. You know, we filmed a scene where he is visited by Adler’s ghost.
Like Hamlet style?
Like Hamlet style. That was incredible to play. It seemed like a different show — now, that’s hard to say because the show is such that anything can happen. But he wakes up, there’s a wind coming in the curtain. We see that he goes to check on his wife and daughter, whom he’s invited to stay over, and he has this very sweet moment, just watching, maybe imagining what life used to be, could have been. And then he goes back to where he was lying down on the couch on the other side of the hotel room. Before he reaches the couch, he sees a figure in a suit standing on the terrace, right beyond the waving curtains. He goes up to it, and then it’s gone. He’s like, Is this a trick of the curtains? Is this a trick of the lighting? What is it? That’s what motivates him to say, “I gotta get a grip on what I know, what’s real.” And that’s when he calls Dolly. In the final cut, we see the glimpse of his family and then we go right to the call for Dolly. But in between, there was a visitation by Adler’s ghost. So yes, capital Y–E–S, I think he’s haunted by what he did, how it went down. That is what he’s running away from. He’s not thinking, Let me get as far away as possible from my kids. He’s like, Let me get away from the shadow of Bill.
That unlocks a lot for me. I want to ask about a few other scenes in “Dear Henry” and what Eric was telling you in those moments. The first is the showdown with Whitney on CNN after Eric learns he’s being blackmailed. He insists to Harper that he go on CNN to debate Whitney about Tender. I saw it as Eric’s last stand. How did you understand Eric’s decision-making?
I didn’t articulate it that way to myself, but that feels right. It was my only scene with Max for the whole season. Max was so great at the table reads and he plays such a significant part in the season. Before Eric sits down, he whispers something from The Art of War to Whitney, and I thought that was very old Eric. That’s the Eric we know. He’s marshaling all his Eric-ness to do this final pitch, this battle, this last stand, as you say, to save everything that’s important to him now. It’s kind of a heroic scene. I was excited to play it.
I spoke with Charlie Heaton, and he told me Industry is filmed almost guerrilla style, and there’s not as much of an emphasis on continuity as there is on the actors doing what feels right. What energy did you want to bring to this moment, aside from all the Eric-ness?
For that scene, it was a very formal setting. I didn’t play it as if Eric was so used to being on talk shows like this. He’s like, “What is this thing? I guess this is what the gladiator arena looks like today.” That scene didn’t feel so much like what Charlie’s talking about. There are moments where you’ll be going through something, or find something that maybe you didn’t plan for, and they just will keep the camera running to see what happens. And what happens, you don’t even know — and that’s thrilling. That’s because you’re in a lived space. You’re more than making a show; you’re trying to capture something ineffable. That happens all over the place, but not so much for the CNN scene because it’s such a set piece. There’s a certain way you have to sit and behave.
If not in the CNN scene, where do you think that happened this season?
The scene when I’m eating and Harper comes in. We have this exchange, and she slaps me with, “What do you think this is?” I say something like, “Is that all I am to you, a business partner?” And she’s like, “What else do you think it is?” And having come into this season the way we were talking about previously, that was like a bucket of cold water on me. She storms out, and in that moment, that’s a cold reality. Everything is saying to Eric, You’re no longer making stuff. Stuff is happening to you. And I had a breakdown during that, after she left, that I didn’t expect to have. That was one. And then the final moment of signing over the business to her, another breakdown I didn’t expect to have.
It’s interesting that we don’t see it. It makes me curious about where the performance ends and then the making of the show begins. Sometimes you’ll go through something really intense and it doesn’t quite fit in the show. Maybe it’s too much; maybe we’ve not come far enough to know the character this way. But you as the actor have gone through something real. You carry that with you, regardless of what makes it into the quote-unquote show. It’s almost like there’s a show, and then there’s a shadow show. Maybe because that’s in the DNA, we feel something, even if we don’t see something. And I love that. I don’t know any other show I can talk about this way. I think it’s unique to Industry.
The scene where Eric signs over the partnership, I was very emotional watching that. When we cut away, I wondered how he was feeling, what he was doing.
He disintegrates, to the point where he has to tell the lawyer to leave the room. Myha’la checked in on me for the week following, asking “Are you okay?” [Laughs.]
How did you prepare for that?
That is an amazing question, partially because it’s so beyond words. I don’t prepare for the scene. I prepare to be as supple as possible. I prepare to be ready, and as naked as possible. Depending on what side of the bed you wake up, that can take some doing sometimes, and other times, you’re there already. It’s something you can only prepare for that day. You can’t prepare for days in advance. You can’t even prepare for it hours in advance. You have to only prepare for it right before it happens, and that’s really beautiful about acting, because it’s not even something you can learn. It’s an agreement. It’s, Do I say yes to now or not? And it’s not a brain yes. It’s a body yes. To be in a field where that is even a question is a miracle.
You’ve said that Eric sees Harper as a version of the younger him, which made me wonder in this scene, is Eric saying goodbye to a portion of himself? Did you and Myha’la talk about that scene beforehand?
No, we didn’t talk about it. And that’s not to say we didn’t talk, but we were very gentle with each other before that scene. We’re very in tune with each other as actors. I know when to be playful and when to joke around. But that was a very fragile scene.
Did you have to do a lot of takes?
I have to say, I couldn’t, because I looked different. My face was puffy after that scene. I couldn’t do it that many times. I do remember I was given the option for my coverage to be first or for her coverage to be first, and I chose to be first. Because if you’re going to say yes, then say yes right now. I’m not going to say yes in 10 minutes. I’m going to say it right now. I was glad for that.
Was it the last thing you shot?
I don’t think it was the last thing I shot. The last thing we shot was me and Dolly in the bedroom, which is hilarious, because that day happened to be the table read for the final block, which I am not in. Everybody was around. After the scene with Dolly, I have this awkward modesty thing strapped under my pants. I opened the door, I’m about to wrap, and everyone is there. Everyone is there. There was this amazing, beautiful moment with everybody.
The walk away was one of the final scenes. There were a lot of scenes with Serrana that didn’t make it, which despite the logic of the show and whatever reasons they have, I feel is unfortunate, because she is amazing. I would love the world to see more of Serrana. It created a lot of shadow scenes that inform what we do see. Before the walk, I have this moment with her. I notice that she wears a nose ring, and I blow up because it reminds me of Harper. I immediately regret blowing up, and my wife is there, and I say, “I’m going to go get a pack of cigarettes,” just to extricate myself. My daughter runs away, and then I turn around and I leave, and that’s the walk.
Did you know the Joni Mitchell song “Both Sides Now” would be playing over that? Did you have any input?
No, I thought it’d be in silence. I pictured it in silence. And it was a long walk! We don’t even see it all. We did it a few times. I was told to take my time and walk in a straight line. It was a really beautiful, meditative thing. It was always from behind. The story wasn’t about what he’s feeling, or even where he’s going. The story of it was that he’s walking away.
I have to ask whether it’s the end for your character.
I don’t know that. Whatever happens, I do feel that it’s an end. There’s no clearer punctuation to that than the way it happens.
It’s helpful to know the scene that came before the walk, and that there was more of Eric trying to figure out who Lily is, and how he can relate to her.
And failing, and then sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The moment when he realizes what Whitney has on him, Lily is in the middle of saying something to him.
She’s saying “I love you.”
Yeah. And this is what he wants! A perfect opportunity! If you want to know her, then at least look at her when she says, “I love you.” But he’s gone.
There’s a moment in “Eyes Without a Face” where you and Harper are talking about Tender’s tactics, and Harper says, “Why are we holding ourselves to any ethical standard when they have none? We’re gonna lose the war because they are willing to fight dirty and we’re not.” I was curious watching that scene what Eric’s ethics or moral code are at this point.
This is the part of Harper in which he recognizes a younger him. It’s almost like I’ve taught her too well. At a time where I’m trying to be a different kind of person, or learn to be a different kind of person — a.k.a., father — she is going all in with what resembles the old me. I can’t blame her. I did this. Eric would take all the credit for it. It’s that kind of discovery for him.
Do you think his ethical or moral code changes over the series?
Yeah, he’s shocked by the effect he has on people. Sometimes it’s like, I didn’t mean to do that. I meant to do this. To talk about my daughter again, I’m not present, and still, she learns lessons from me as if I was present. This season, he starts to see that kind of mirror, whereas before, he never looked in the mirror, or knew there was a mirror to look into. As far as morality, he was taught a lot of this stuff. He was concerned with the morality of making it, and what it takes to get ahead for a person of color in this kind of cutthroat business. Well, I was taught a certain way. I had to absorb a lot of racism and whatever treatment to even be here. In his mind, I think it’s a fluid thing. It shifts.
As you said earlier, Eric is so haunted by Adler. He feels the impact of his actions. In the season premiere, Harper says, “Without an economic function, society buries you before you’re dead,” which made me wonder what’s next for Eric. Are you an actor who thinks about what might happen to your character after your time playing them has ended?
I love this quote, I try to live by it. Different people have said it in different ways. The quote is, “Walker, there is no path. The path is made by walking.” That is where I would leave Eric. It will be revealed by his next step. That’s part of what I’ve been talking about when I say “listening” to how to play him versus “deciding” how to play him. To think about, or predict, or imagine where he would be after the show is antithetical to that. So I don’t know. I do know he’s an addict. Harper and him are both addicts of a certain kind of thrill, a certain kind of action. I would hope that he sees through that, but it’s equally easy to imagine that he doesn’t.
Similar to that, if this were the end of you being on the show, is there an overarching observation you would want to make about playing Eric Tao?
I never imagined I’d get to play a character where I could play him this way, and have the kind of freedom to listen to how I play. I’ll never forget it. I don’t really think of it in the past. I’ll carry him inside of me, to some degree, I think forever. It’d be easy to say, “I’m thankful, I’m grateful.” I think it’s beyond that. I think it’s part of me, and I just feel really lucky. You can be an actor your whole life and not get a role like this.
Newman was Eric’s racist mentor at the controversial hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, toward whom he holds complicated feelings of affection and resentment.