Myha’la was ready for a change: She wanted to cut off all her hair. But it was just before the actress was set to begin filming the new season of HBO’s Industry, so before picking up the scissors, she picked up the phone and called her bosses, showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay. Myha’la plays Harper Stern on the intense, sexy drama set at a fictional London bank where everybody is cutthroat, conniving, and constantly on cocaine. Harper started the series as the ultimate outsider: a self-made Black American woman elbowing her way into a world dominated by wealthy, white British men. She spends two seasons deploying Machiavellian moves to secure her position, at tremendous personal cost—in her wake: torched bridges, scorched earth—only to be outed as a fraud by her mentor, who has her fired in the second season finale.
Down and Kay told Myha’la that she could do whatever she wanted with her hair. She pressed them: “Is it going to work for season three?” They assured her that it would.
