While a show about financial services might not sound like a compelling premise on the surface, HBO struck gold with Mickey Down and Konrad Kay’s “Industry.” Set against the backdrop of the banking world, the British series transformed into a bankable hit following its 2020 debut, garnering critical praise and renewals.
Now heading into its third season, which premieres on Aug. 11, there’s no doubt other actors see a future with the series. Want to learn about the casting process? Our in-depth guide takes stock of all you’ll need to know about getting cast on “Industry,” including audition advice, so you can make a wise investment in your acting career.
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Set within the cutthroat world of investment banking, “Industry” follows interns at London’s fictional bank Pierpoint & Co. Fresh out of college, the newcomers learn they have six months to impress their manager if they wish to survive Reduction In Force (RIF) Day, at which time those who’ve succeeded will be offered full-time positions on the floor and those who haven’t will be let go.
Harper Stern (Myha’la), the show’s protagonist, finds herself dodging HR’s transcript requests, as she never actually graduated from college. But as deception and manipulation abound in this workplace drama, it’s every intern for themselves, as each one works to secure their future at the firm.
Seasons 1 and 2 starred:
- Myha’la as Harper Stern
- Marisa Abela as Yasmin Kara-Hanani
- Harry Lawtey as Robert Spearing
- Ken Leung as Eric Tao
- David Jonsson as Gus Sackey
- Conor MacNeill as Kenny Kilbane
- Sagar Radia as Rishi Ramdani
- Caoilfhionn Dunne as Jackie Walsh
- Sarah Parish as Nicole Craig
- Freya Mavor as Daria Greenock
- Nicholas Bishop as Maxim Alonso
- Mark Dexter as Hilary Wyndham
- Alex Akpobome as Danny Van Deventer
- Indy Lewis as Venetia Berens
- Priyanga Burford as Sara Dhadwal
- Katrine De Candole as Celeste Pacquet
- Will Tudor as Theo Tuck
- Jay Duplass as Jesse Bloom
As Vulture noted, Duplass and Jonsson were not included on the Season 3 cast list, indicating they have left the show. But viewers can expect to see some new additions, including Sarah Goldberg (“Barry”) as Petra Koenig and Kit Harington (“Game of Thrones”) as Sir Henry Muck. According to Deadline, they’ll be joined by Miriam Petche as Sweetpea Golightly, Andrew Havill as Lord Norton, Roger Barclay as Otto Mostyn, Fady Elsayed as Ali El Mansour, and Fiona Button as Denise Oldroyd.
Julie Harkin (“I May Destroy You,” “A Discovery of Witches”) and Rae Hendrie (“The Couple Next Door,” “Suspect”) of Julie Harkin Casting serve as the primary casting directors on “Industry.”
As Harkin told GoldDerby, casting “Industry” meant creating an ensemble of fresh faces. “I don’t know how you could have done it any other way,” she explained. “I think the excitement about going on and creating an ensemble of new actors is something I am always driven by…. I wanted to do the job for that reason.”
Creators Down and Kay agree. “Practically, we didn’t want people to be distracted by people they recognized,” Down told us. “We wanted to feel quite vérité and realistic and almost that you were just putting a camera on a trading floor…. Some of them, it was their first job, which is the same for the characters. We felt like that sort of wide-eyed, rabbit-in-the-headlights thing worked really nicely. You can see it in some of the first scenes. I think it really captured that fear and anticipation.”
After all, as Kay added, “We thought if we picked five characters with enough difference between them, socioeconomically, attitudes to privilege, attitudes to stuff in the world—if they each had a very [different] take on their experience, we thought there were enough entry points for an audience to be like, ‘I see part of myself in that character.’ ”
When it came to casting Myha’la as Harper, in particular, it was as if the stars had aligned. Myha’la was with an agency in New York, Harkin noted, as she’d done mostly theater prior to landing the role. After Harkin and her team did their usual search via social media, Myha’la popped up on a self-tape amid their yearlong search for the character. “She just completely popped,” Harkin said. “It was just one of those golden moments where sometimes you’ll read a character in a script and you’ll think, Oh, my God, this is so difficult; I don’t know how we’re ever going to find this. And it’ll appear to you straight away. And then other times something will take a long time. Looking for Harper took a long time, but, my God, when she arrived, it was like there was no one else.”
Harkin gushed, calling Myha’la a “beautiful woman and highly intelligent person” who “puts layers under Harper that we didn’t know Harper had.” She continued, “She brought her off the page in a way that I didn’t expect and even more in Season 2.”
There are currently no active auditions available for “Industry,” as the series remains in limbo ahead of its Season 3 premiere. We recommend bookmarking our main HBO casting page for the latest on upcoming opportunities. Or you might also be interested in checking out our guide on how to audition for HBO as we wait for Season 4 news.
Believe in yourself. Myha’la might be a relative newcomer to the industry, but she’s wise beyond her years as she has faith in her ability—and she wants everyone to feel the same way when they walk into an audition room. “Always enter a room 100% yourself,” she told us. “Come in confident, prepared—and, most of all, enjoy yourself! Casting folks want you to be ‘the one’ just as much as you do, so [there’s] no need to try and convince them of what you’re capable of—just share it with them. And if it doesn’t end up going your way, it usually means life is making room for whatever is meant to be.”
As Myha’la noted to Cos, “You can and you will, if you decide to. It’s probably going to be hard, just like everything is hard, but commit yourself; do whatever you need to do to be great.”
Expect the unexpected. Leung entered into the acting profession with no expectations. Instead, he let his love for the craft guide his path; success was just the cherry on Leung’s proverbial cake. “I never came into this profession with any kind of expectations. I don’t think it’s realistic for any actor to,” Leung told the Golden Globe Awards. “I knew I loved acting. I loved learning about it. I wanted to keep doing it. I wanted to get good at it. And anywhere that I could do that I went towards that thing. It wasn’t so much of, ‘Oh, well, I’m only going to be satisfied if it looks this way,’ or, ‘If I get this over here, I get to do that over there.’ It was just: ‘Hopefully, I’ll find a way to work in such a way that people will be interested in sharing that experience with me.’ Beyond that… It’s none [of] my business where that goes.”
There’s no “right” way. Lawtey told British GQ, acting remains subjective—there’s no so-called “right” way to do anything so bring your best self to all you do. “The whole of acting is silly. Like they call it ‘a play’ for a reason—it’s a mess around,” Lawtey noted. “So the idea of formalizing or conceptualizing to an extent where you believe that there’s one right way to do it—that’s pretty stupid.
“It’s a negotiation—actually, it’s a collaboration,” he added. “There’s experts everywhere you look [on a set]. And they’re all responsible for that piece of this jigsaw that you’re kind of making; and you just want to do your piece right, but you can’t do it right without kind of negotiating the way that someone else wants to do their piece as well. It’s the best.”