Kit Harington and Marisa Abela are set to cross paths in Industry season 3 which sees the Game Of Thrones star join the cast as Henry Muck, the founder of Lumi, a green energy start-up firm preparing an IPO through Pierpoint.
Meanwhile, Marisa's character Yasmin Kara-Hanani is fighting for survival at the investment firm after being publicly linked to her father's embezzlement scandal. When Lumi's stock market debut looks like it's about to hit stormy waters as questions are raised over the company's accounts, Yasmin spots a way to potentially salvage her career by making herself indispensable to Henry — but is he someone who can be trusted?
As series 3 finally arrives on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, we caught up with Kit and Marisa to find out what we can expect from Henry and Yasmin's business relationship of mutual convenience...
Kit Harington and Marisa Abela interview for Industry
Kit, you were already a fan of the show before joining the cast. What was it about the role of Henry that appealed to you?
Kit: "It was a new experience for me, coming into something that I was a fan of — although I hope I kept it as quiet as possible, being a bit of a fanboy! I remembered that of people coming into Game Of Thrones, being fans of the show who were slightly excited to be there; I felt like that coming into Industry. That's not the only reason I took the role though; if it hadn't been the right character for me, I wouldn't have come in just for the sake of it. I liked Henry because he delivered on all of the things that Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay, Industry's creators] are so good at, creating this character who you don't know if you like or not, who is deeply compromised but attractive and charming in a way. Hopefully, if I've done my job correctly, you strangely want him to succeed as well as being appalled by him? I think that's true of so many people in this show. And also, I felt like I'd met so many Henrys in my time. Maybe not quite as difficult or as dangerous as he is, but from the same world, with the same background, with the same kind of crippling entitlement that sort of weighs them down as well as elevates them. I just thought he was a really interesting person to drop into this world."
Yasmin's really going through the wringer at the start of the season. What was it like exploring her character in this fragile state of mind?
Marisa: "It was definitely a different place for Yasmin. We've seen her anxious and vulnerable before, but a decision that I made quite early on when I found out what she was dealing with was that she was probably in a state of fight-or-flight, and I think that's a really hard place to be in for a sustained period of time. There's anxiety about a specific situation, and then there's an inability to really feel anything other than fear; I think she's very, very afraid, and that was just a different place for her to be in. She's always trying to figure out in the first few seasons what she can do to make a situation better for herself, or have someone notice her in different ways, but this was different because when your starting point is being terrified, then the offshoots of that are very different. Her relationship with Harper, at the beginning, is one where as soon as [Yasmin] sees her, it's incredibly comforting because [Harper's] kind of the only person in the world who knows what's going on. And with Henry, he's offering her a level of safety and relaxation that she doesn't feel she's going to get absolutely anywhere else."
Industry is such a complicated show, with all of the economics and jargon in the dialogue. How did you prepare for that?
Kit: "I think that's the genius of the show, that you don't need to understand those parts of the dialogue to understand the relationship that is going on between two characters. Really, all of the dialogue that's about whatever is happening — financial or whatever's about to crash — is like the ticking time bomb on the submarine, it's the thing that matters least. It's the relationships going on around it that matter. But what I did realise is it is incredibly important as the actor to know what you're saying and understand what you're saying when you're going into any of those scenes, otherwise it just becomes sort of nonsense, and whatever you were trying to do between the characters won't work anyway. So yeah, there were a few questions to be asked about 'what the hell does this bit mean? Why is it important? What's that phrase there, I've never heard of that?' and figuring it out so that by the time you get to the scene, you can at least pretend you know what you're talking about!"
Kit, your casting might well attract some new viewers to the show. How would you persuade your friends to watch the show?
Kit: "Interestingly, I've done a few things where I've had to sort of sell it to my friends. But loads of my friends watch this, they're big fans, and their main concern is 'are you going to ruin this for me by being in it?'! I hope what you say is right, that people come to this show because of me being in it, and I would hope that they'd go and watch the first two seasons before they join the third. I don't think that they absolutely have to, but I think it's advisable to, because the first two seasons are so good, and you want to get to know all these characters before you see season three. I think this show has been, certainly a 'cult hit' is probably the words associated with it; it has its fanbase, but the very fact that we're doing this press junket, speaking to people from around the world, puts it in the category of a show that is, and should be, about to break out in a bigger way. I think Mickey and Kon have astutely realised that, and sort of exploded the show outside the confines of just this one room of this company, they've gone 'OK, let's make this bigger'."
What was it like for the two of you working together, and what was your most difficult scene to film?
Marisa: "It was amazing, working with Kit was really incredible. I think when you're on a show like this and season three starts, the pressure is how do you keep it fresh and exciting? Of course we feel we know Yasmin now, but as people do, she should change and evolve and feel different. The writing helps, but also working with new characters and new actors is really useful, because it shows a new side of Yasmin. I think Henry brings out a side of Yasmin that I find really enjoyable to play — I don't know what the right word is, but she feels that she's allowed to let the slightly uglier side of her out, in terms of socially how she feels about the world, she can let that full princess side of her out. The most difficult scene, I don't know — there's a scene in the shower! [laughs]"
Kit: "[laughing] That's the one I was going to say!"
Marisa: "Which was, you know, quite something."
Kit: "Yeah, I'm glad that we did that scene after we'd done a few other scenes and got to know each other a bit better. I think — close your ears, Marisa — this season, Marisa's work is extraordinary, and Yasmin's story arc is amazing. So to be part of this sort of triangle that Marisa is at the centre of was really exciting. It's just nice working with good actors; that's the only thing you can hope for, is that you're working with good actors, on stuff written by good writers, and that's what we got in this."
Are there ways in which you relate to your characters?
Kit: "I think I related to Henry in a sense. I am, and I'm not, from the same background as him. I wasn't privately educated, I didn't go to a kind of elite public school, but weirdly — I'll say it, because it's on Wikipedia! — my dad's a baronet, so I kind of know that world, but I don't know that world. I sort of knew him in my background somewhere, he was tappable-into because of people I've known. He wasn't so far from me in some ways, but very far in others."
Marisa: "Yeah, I think it's the same with all of us. If someone else played Yasmin, she would just be different; there will always be parts of her that I relate to because at the end of the day she is coming from me, somewhere. There are parts of her personality and the choices she makes that I definitely don't relate to as myself, but I can understand. I enjoy playing all the facets of her, both because they are similar to me and they are very different to me. Actually, where the fun lies mostly is the more different bits, because you get to explore a part of yourself that you don't normally live out. But yeah, I empathised more with her this season than I had before, because she was in such a desperate situation, so it was easier for me to feel that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the kind of situation that she was in."
Kit: "The only thing I'd add to that is that I think writers like Mickey and Kon are clever in that they see what you're doing, they get to know you as a person, and then they start melding you with the character. They're still writing the season [during filming] in some ways, they're still adding dialogue or changing things, so they're like 'oh, Kit's bringing this to him', so they sort of write in a way that does merge you and the character in a really smart way."
Kit, you're known for playing a very heroic character in Game Of Thrones, but this character is more comedic and villanous — can we expect to see you in more roles like this in the future?
Kit: "Yeah, I hope so. I guess I am looking for things that have that slightly comedic edge to them, and that's another reason why Industry was appealing. I've said this a million times, but I'll say it again: I played a character who was literally the least funny character of all time in Jon Snow, for 10 years of my life, so I'm not that interested in playing solemn, heroic types any more, and Henry is certainly not solemn or heroic. I think he thinks he's heroic, but he's not!"
- Industry season 3 launches on BBC Onw on Tuesday, October 1 at 10.40 pm. All episodes are available now on BBC iPlayer. All episodes are now available to stream on Max in the US.
