{"id":2459992,"date":"2026-06-15T10:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2459992"},"modified":"2026-06-15T10:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:25:07","slug":"industry-hbo-is-tvs-last-golden-age-drama-emmy-voters-pay-heed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/industry-hbo-is-tvs-last-golden-age-drama-emmy-voters-pay-heed\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Industry’ HBO is TV’s last golden age drama. Emmy voters, pay heed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One day, when people say \u201cthey don\u2019t make \u2019em like they used to,\u201d they will be saying it about \u201cIndustry.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

First filmed before the pandemic and launched in its throes, a survivor of the era of streaming wars, corporate consolidation and Hollywood strikes, HBO\u2019s addictively dissolute workplace drama remains as ambitious and authoritative as ever. Indeed, despite being divided from predecessors like \u201cMad Men,\u201d \u201cSuccession\u201d and \u201cThe Leftovers\u201d by a series of epochal crises, it more closely resembles a vestigial tail of the medium\u2019s past than most of its current counterparts: Out of place and out of time, \u201cIndustry\u201d can best be understood as the last great drama of TV\u2019s golden age.<\/p>\n

Cast member and \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d alum Kit Harington, resident expert on series that reshaped the medium, agrees that \u201cIndustry\u201d is a bit of a throwback in this respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you scroll back to \u2018Game of Thrones\u2019 in the first two seasons, it wasn\u2019t a massive Goliath success, and it exploded after Season 3 with the Red Wedding. I think there\u2019s a similar story going on here,\u201d he says. \u201cSo often in TV at the moment, you\u2019re given one season and everyone needs to pack in f\u2014 everything to get people hooked. But they\u2019re burning through too much story. Season 2 is then done; the characters haven\u2019t got anywhere to go. I think this is where this show has been successful, is that it was given that time to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this spring, I convened \u201cIndustry\u2019s\u201d creators<\/a> and cast in a conference room at The Times to walk me through its evolution into one of the best shows on television, and what to expect from its impending end.<\/p>\n

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Marisa Abela, left, Kit Harington and Myha\u2019la.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u2018What the f\u2014 are you thinking, guys?\u2019<\/h2>\n

A<\/i> trading-floor knife fight of hot, young strivers, or \u201cgrads,\u201d competing for a permanent place at the fictional Pierpoint investment bank, the first season of \u201cIndustry,\u201d filmed in 2019, premiered in the waning months of 2020 as a warped love letter to office culture. But for <\/i>Konrad Kay and Mickey Down<\/i><\/a>, the emerging writers at the helm, the voice of the series didn\u2019t fully take shape until they\u2019d found their main cast, including Myha\u2019la, as hard-charging American Harper Stern, and Marisa Abela, as privileged publishing heiress Yasmin Kara-Hanani.<\/i> <\/p>\n

Kay: <\/b>Season 1, me and Mickey were really green.<\/p>\n

Down: <\/b>We actually pitched HBO on the idea that it was going to be eight episodes, it was going to be in different months, and the big-bang dramatics were going to happen between the episodes. A bit like \u201cBoyhood.\u201d Huge things would happen in between episodes, and the episode would be about the reaction to those huge things. And they were like, \u201cWhat the f\u2014 are you thinking, guys?\u201d It was so antidramatic. <\/p>\n

Abela:<\/b> I had a lot<\/i> of rounds of auditioning for Yasmin. They weren\u2019t sure about me at all<\/i>. I think part of it was because they were quite hellbent on her being vulnerable, on her being soft, and that was what I was playing in those first two, three episodes. … And what happens in any functional collaboration is you start to see what they really<\/i> want from you \u2014 what it is that they need from your character. And in those moments of conflict, the moments of change, Yasmin has to stand up for herself at some point, otherwise it\u2019s too wet<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Mickey Down.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Down:<\/b> Yasmin was all vulnerability masked by Prada in script, and then you came in and you were very hard. [Laughs.<\/i>]<\/p>\n

Abela: <\/b>There is one scene with [Yasmin\u2019s abusive supervisor] Kenny [played by Conor MacNeill] in Season 2 where … Yasmin turns around to him and tells him to f\u2014 off, basically: \u201cYou don\u2019t have a disease, you\u2019re a narcissist, with a new excuse to lord it over people. You\u2019re weak.\u201d I think that\u2019s the first time that Yasmin became a gangster. I was watching \u201cReal Housewives of New Jersey\u201d at the time, being completely honest. She can go really mob wife really quick. <\/p>\n

Myha\u2019la:<\/b> I had almost the exact opposite experience in terms of finding or deciding who Harper was. When I read the scripts initially, I just thought, \u201cThere\u2019s no way in hell that Harper can\u2019t be steely and [on offense], because she\u2019s clearly feeling out of her depth, and as a young woman of color going into a new space like this, you can\u2019t show up like you\u2019re vulnerable. You\u2019re already expected to do poorly.\u201d … On the page, Harper was an anxious person when I first met her in the pilot episode. She was sweaty and clammy and stammering. And I just thought, \u201cHell no!\u201d <\/p>\n

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