Industry’s Harry Lawtey breaks down Rob’s big moments (and beating up Kit Harington)

[Editor’s note: This interview contains spoilers of the first two episodes of Industry season three.] 

“I am a man, and I’m relentless!”  

So yells Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey), repeatedly, after being goaded to do so by his boss, Eric (Ken Leung), who’s nursing a cocaine hangover while his employee nurses something akin to a broken heart. See, that morning, Rob woke up next to the corpse of his client/sexual abuser/mother figure/mistress, Nicole (Sarah Parish), and, later, emotionally collapsed on the floor of the firm where he works, Pierpoint, his face ashen, his voice broken—”a lost boy,” to quote Lawtey, in a harsh, money-fueled world that simply doesn’t have the time for lost boys.  

Welcome to Industry, a lean-and-mean HBO drama centered on a group of investment bankers in London. In the third season of the show—the first to air in the network’s coveted Sunday-night slot (the same one as The Sopranos, The Wire, Game Of Thrones, and Succession)—Rob is paired with Sir Henry Muck (Thrones’ Kit Harington), a CEO who’s taking his green-energy company public. If this sounds like a lot—a lot of death, a lot of drugs, a lot of sex, a lot of plot—it is. Industry, which was created by Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, burns through beats and settings with an intoxicating style yet still manages to say something interesting about the human condition.   

The A.V. Club spoke with Lawtey, who’s also playing Harvey Dent in the upcoming Joker: Folie À Deux, about some of the big moments for his character in this season’s first two episodes. 

The A.V. Club: What did you think when you first read the scene of Robert waking up next to Nicole and discovering she’s dead? 

Harry Lawtey: It was a real shock to me, as I imagine it was for anyone watching. I think it’s a very bold and propulsive storytelling decision from Mickey and Konrad, and that’s very characteristic of them. They have this notion that they live by, really, of burning your best ideas, which I think is very admirable. They’re not waiting to drop things until the final episode and having a season full of buildup. If they have an instinct or an impulse, they follow it and back themselves [into a corner] to write their way out of it. They have faith that they’ll solve the problem that they’ve created. And so in that sense, it was a really exciting beat. Of course, it’s the kind of agent of chaos in that episode from Robert’s perspective. It completely turns his world upside down, and he does not have the self-awareness to be able to process trauma like that. It was a really exciting challenge for me, and I was thrilled to be able to have a go at it—a bit intimidated, too. But then it was a slightly mixed feeling because Sarah Parish, who plays Nicole, is someone I just loved working with. I think she’s an outstanding actor, and she’s had such impact on the show in such small windows throughout the three seasons. The relationship that Nicole has with Robert is absolutely one of my favorites in the show. I think it’s so complex and nuanced and really indicative of the type of strange connections that Mickey and Konrad are interested in. It speaks to so many different themes, about abuse of power, about romance and connection and finding one’s confidence in relation to someone else—and then also consent and this male idea around consent and questioning one’s own masculinity.

AVC: Robert looks so confident when Nicole answers the door the night before, very different than he did in season one, when he was wide-eyed and finding his bearings. But that next morning, he shifts back. And it’s almost like the show is underlining the idea that, sure, you can mature and change, but you also can’t. There’s a reason he keeps going back to her as much as he thinks he’s figured out this sort of game he’s in.

HL: I mean, I certainly do look different in the first season. It’s quite a profound thing to have your aging recorded on television. But yeah, I think what we tried to go for is to show literally different faces of the character—and I think with Robert especially, ’cause there are certain aspects of him that he endeavors to ignore or transcend or move away from. But he is who he is, and he’s sort of a lost boy on a journey of self-discovery. He’s certainly not yet a man, and that’s why he clings to figures like Nicole to try to affirm or validate his identity and his self-esteem. I think that’s why her death is such a great loss to him and shapes him so truly, because there was a love for her. But that love is rooted in a love of the person that she made him feel like he was. You know, she kind of gave him back his mojo, which had been pretty dormant in season two. If ever I see clips from season two or even photos, I always think I look like a person who doesn’t have any confidence, which isn’t necessarily something I’m proud of. 

Harry Lawtey and Kit Harington in season 3, episode 1 of Industry (Photo: Simon Ridgway/HBO)

AVC: Speaking of needing other people’s validation, I love the relationship Rob has with Henry, Kit Harington’s character. You almost seem like brothers. He’s constantly holding what he has up in front of you. What was it like working with him? And were you surprised at all by how, for a lack of a better term, funny he was? 

HL: I wasn’t surprised, but I was really impressed. You know, I really like that analogy, by the way, of the brothers. I haven’t had anyone say that to me before, but I think it’s definitely that. I’m a younger brother myself. Like, if I had a bag of sweets, my brother used to make me give him one. He’d eat it and then he’d go, “Oh yeah, I thought I didn’t like those ones.” [Laughs] And it’s just sort of like some brotherly exertion of authority. And I think that relationship definitely has that. In terms of Kit, it was such a joy working with him. He’s so accomplished and experienced as an actor, and the fact that he had a real appetite to come and join our show, that he almost volunteered himself to be a part of it, was a real vote of confidence for us, who had been making it for a while. He came in with absolutely no ego and a real spirit of generosity and collaboration. And I found it so easy to work with him. Honestly, he’s just a very generous actor, and he’s very well prepared and really funny, like you say. And he’s funny in real life. This is a great angle [for him], especially for fans of him. It’s a new side to him, and it shows what a versatile performer he is. And I had such a great time with him on set. We were constantly laughing. We sort of developed our own little bromance. 

AVC: In episode two, your characters literally fight in a kids’ playroom, which is quite the metaphor, and Robert beats Henry with a cute stuffed toy. What was filming that scene like?

HL: It was bizarre. That was like the day after I met Kit. I’d known him for about 24 hours at that point. And it came straight off the back of a very important confrontational scene, which plays chronologically in the episode, and that was the way we shot it. So we did that scene just before, which really speaks a lot to the broader themes of the show about these environmental CEOs and the questioning of their integrity. And Rob is questioning his own support of that and being a cog that holds that kind of system up. And so to go from that very heavy, wordy, crucial dialogue scene and into this completely ridiculous and totally pathetic fight was bizarre, and we were exhausted. But crucial to a scene like that is the character doesn’t know how pathetic it is, you know? The stakes have to be very real and vivid for these people; otherwise, nobody buys it. And I think that hopefully, if it is funny, the funniness comes from the seriousness with which they approach it. And it’s certainly a lot less structured than any combat scene that Kit Harington is used to, which I think is hilarious. You’ve got Jon Snow being suffocated in a ball pit with a stuffed toy. But again, he kind of threw himself into it, and we didn’t coordinate it too much. Of course, we wanted to make sure that everyone was safe, but we wanted it to be ugly and awkward and absurd. And hopefully it comes across like that, with maybe a slight undertone of weirdness, because it leans into a tone that’s, “Oh, there’s something going on here.” That stuffed toy stayed on his face just that little bit too long. And you question the limits that all these people are being pushed to. 

AVC: Rob also has a big dramatic scene with Eric in episode one, when he makes Rob repeat, “I’m a man, and I’m relentless” to sort of snap him out of his breakdown. It’s an intense interaction. What was it like working on that? 

HL: It was a great lesson for me. Working with Ken, genuinely, is an education. I will shout this from the rooftops as much as I can: I think he’s, like, the most underrated actor in America. He’s the closest thing I’ve had to sort of working with a genius, I think. And that scene is a perfect example of that specifically. He’s kind of like a Jedi, because he’s so free with the way he works. He doesn’t plan anything; he’s a genuinely impulsive, responsive actor who is led by the moment, which is the truest actor you can be to some degree. And he really lives by those principles. And then in a scene like that, he has this amazing knack of making it feel as if you’re dictating the tempo, you’re heading the scene. At the same time, he drops in little notes or choices that send you in a certain direction. So you have this weird dichotomy of, “He’s kind of conducting you, but also absolutely responding and listening to you.” If that moment is in any way sort of memorable, I honestly attribute that all to him. 

AVC: Industry moving to its new Sunday-night HBO slot is a big deal. Does that come with any pressure?

HL: Not really, to be honest, not to say that I don’t pay respect to the significance of that. I absolutely do, and we’re very flattered and humbled to be there. But by the time we knew that for certain, we’d already made the show. And also, there is a slight thing of like, I live in England, and I’ve worked for HBO for many years, but I don’t have a HBO subscription. It’s not possible out here. So in some ways, I’m quite nicely disengaged from that. I’m asleep when America watches the show. That slight kind of disconnect is really helpful on a personal level, because it reminds me, crucially, that as much as we care deeply about the show, first and foremost, it’s to be enjoyed by the fans. When you make a thing—whether it’s a play or a film or a TV show—you make it in service of an audience, not to sound too altruistic. Ultimately, we put [the show] out there for people to like and for people to care about. We hope they care about it as much as we do.