Image via HBO
Spoilers for episode four of Industry’s Season 2 below.
HBO’s Industry spends a lot of time on the lives of Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrod) and her fellow Pierpoint contemporaries. As the entry points into this financial world, their lives in and out of the London investment bank Pierpoint & Co. are the show’s primary focus. As such, we don’t know much about the external life of Harper’s boss, Eric Tao (Ken Leung). Audiences get bits and pieces about Eric’s home life throughout the first season, but his demeanor outside the trading floor is largely a mystery—until now.
In the fourth episode of Season 2, “There Are Some Women…,” Eric heads to New York to visit the American branch of Pierpoint’s operation in the wake of losing a major client. While there, Eric comes face-to-face with his past, including the ex-wife of his former mentor and many other factors. With his back against the wall, Eric makes a last stand against potentially getting pushed out from Pierpoint. The episode paints Eric as a cowboy, saddling up for one last gunfight before hanging up his holster. This metaphorical gunfight doesn’t go his way, and he’s promoted off the trading floor into a client services job.
Image via HBO
For Eric, who often roams the trading floor like a lion on the hunt, it’s a fate worse than death—as evidenced by the prison-like scaffolding on the exterior of his new office. For actor Ken Leung, the episode allows him to dig deeper into what makes his character tick. “When you remove the trading floor, and you’re actually in a new environment [with] new characters, it opens up a window to who you’re playing,” Leung tells Complex. “For me, it offers more rabbit holes to go down. I love that; that’s what makes it fun.”
In the wake of this big episode, Complex sat down with Leung for a wide-ranging conversation around Eric’s arc this season, the return of a beloved piece of clothing, what makes Industry different from other projects he’s worked on, his experience playing Commander Zhao on Netflix’s adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and much more. This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.
How much pressure was there for you to share the screen with that beloved purple Pierpoint hoodie?[Laughs.] I mean, I didn’t think anything of it. I was home. I was barbecuing. [Laughs.] It’s so funny that hoodie made such an impact. I don’t think we ever expected it to. I think because it looks like—my interpretation is that it’s a purple hoodie.
So in one sense, he looks like a little boy. He’s not in a power suit. Yet, you can still see the Eric in it. You can almost see him more in it because it’s not a power suit, and it gives it the purple hoodie kind of a new identity, which I think is why. [Laughs.]
I love how it’s become kind of this shorthand for Eric in moments of trouble. Like anytime we see it now, it kind of feels like a sign that he’s on thin ice.
Oh, that never occurred to me! That’s amazing. That’s true.
How much did Mickey and Konrad tell you about your arc this season ahead of time versus how much did you find out from reading the scripts?
They did give me a kind of heads up. We had a pre-season zoom chat, and they just wanted to give me a heads up that we would see Eric in other parts of his life. I think they might have told me that we’d be spending time off the trading floor. I don’t know if they mentioned that I’d be going to New York, but I got the sense we’d see his family more and that other things were gonna happen that did not happen in Season 1. But it was that vague. Beyond that it, it was script by script.
What was your reaction then to getting the script for this episode and realizing you were gonna spend all this time in New York, with your family, and getting to see more of Eric off the floor?
I love that. I love knowing my character more. Even within trading floor scenes, there are times when we try a different take or we try a different interpretation of a certain line or situation, and that’s what makes it a lot of fun. When you remove the trading floor, and you’re actually in a new environment [with] new characters, it opens up a window to who you’re playing. For me, it offers more rabbit holes to go down. I love that; that’s what makes it fun.
Can you give me an example of those rabbit holes?
The ex-girlfriend, Holly. I wouldn’t guess that he would have one. I wouldn’t guess that he would have something maybe unresolved—that’s what I mean to say. Also, my relationship to New York. I mean, things that would just not occur to me, even if you said, “Oh, Eric’s gonna go to New York.” I don’t know if you recall: but my friend in the restaurant who works there references the anti-Asian violence that has been happening. Eric kind of doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I love that. Because being from New York, I intimately know what he’s talking about, but to play the other side of stuff, I welcome that.
We learn that Eric’s relationship with his mentor was complicated. Do you think that management style rubbed off on how Eric treats Harper or how he treated DVD?
You mean because they’re both from New York?
Image via HBO
No, more so that if you have a mentor figure in your life who makes an impact on you as you navigate this new environment, how much of one’s behavior becomes modeled off of that person? I was wondering how much of that mentorship experience might filter into Eric’s perspective.
This isn’t what you’re asking, but how you’re asking makes me think of this—which I think is interesting because I’ve not consciously thought about it—when Eric realizes that it’s Danny coming to be a mole in plain sight. He seemingly is insulting the London branch. There’s a kind of ownership that Eric maybe unconsciously has started to embrace.
“You’re stepping into my world now. This is no longer New York.” Even something so small as a line where he says “behove” instead of “behoove” which is more of a British pronunciation of the word that he has unknowingly unconsciously adopted. So I think there are these tiny pieces of Eric—that if you really were looking for them—where he has embraced being in London and this new culture in a way he is protective of. So I know that’s not what you’re asking at all.
It does get to something which I wanted to ask: the betrayal at the end of the third episode. What do you think is running through Eric’s mind at that moment?
It’s mixed. I have a friend in real life who is of this world, and he was telling me about his mentor and how one of the things his mentor said was, “I want to train you such that you’re better than me. I wanna train you such that you can replace me.” So I think Eric has a little of that, where at the same time he’s betrayed, he’s betrayed with tools that he gave her. It’s mixed, you know?
He’s proud of her. At the same time, he feels betrayed. He’s proud of her because he did that. He’s the kind of person that will do that too. He will take a disaster and make it [seem like his] plan all along. That’s how he does what he does. He creates his own reality. I can clip my toenails [or] change my pants on the trading floor because this trading floor is not a trading floor. It is my bathroom. I can do whatever I want. That’s creating your own reality, you know? It’s not copying anybody. Nobody else is doing it. I carry a baseball bat around because I say it’s okay. So if Harper, if some of that rubs off on her, I don’t think he can help. But he’s a little proud of her [laughs].
It’s like that Anchorman line, right? “You’re not even mad. You’re just impressed.”
[Laughs.] Exactly. It’s both. It’s not one or the other.
Do you like having those moments as an actor where you get to experience conflicting, mixed emotions?
I love them because I can try different things. If we do two takes, I can try one where I’m not proud of her. It’s more playable. You can have different takes on it. Then, the people putting the show together will decide which one works, but as the player, that’s what you love. The things that are not so fun are “This scene is exactly about this. Do exactly this 10 times.”
I know you and Myha’la have a great relationship. I read a piece where I learned you’re neighbors—
By coincidence!
That’s crazy. How has the relationship between the two of you as actors evolved throughout the course of season two?
It depends on the scene. We’re very relaxed with each other. We can dispense with being polite now [Laughs]. It can be like, “This moment doesn’t work for me. Let’s try it this way.” Sometimes it even feels like—and this is not just with Myha’la—it’s kind of the show. It’s the space that they’ve created. I sometimes don’t feel like I’m doing a TV show. I sometimes feel like it’s a bunch of friends who got together and are shooting something. So then it kind of doesn’t; it doesn’t matter as long as you have a good time doing it.
We have that; me and Myha’la have that. The difference from Season 1 is I feel that our relationship is more even now; it’s more settled. Whereas before, she was kind of looking to me for advice or approval or whatever. I was looking down at her and barking at her and this and that. [In] season two, we’re more eye to eye. Having that foundation of ease was really great.
Is that kind of environment hard to find on projects?
I don’t think it’s hard to do, and I don’t know that it’s hard to find. I will say that I have more often not found it than found it. When I say that it’s not hard to do, it could be something as small as [this]: every director directs a block, and a block is two episodes. Three of them met with the main people individually for half an hour to an hour [and asked], “What works for you? What doesn’t work for you? You guys have lived the season with this show; I have not.” It just becomes a sharing. By the time we get on set, we have a familiarity, and we’re not starting from zero.
I don’t think that is so hard. It doesn’t take so much time. But to have that contact, to just say, “I see you, this is who I am, I’m not gonna take it for granted that I know where you are, even though you’ve done this and that. So where are you?” It changes so much. It creates a safe space. I’ve not come across that so much. Often, [the] first time you meet a director, [it’s] the first that they’re directing.
I don’t know if that’s an industry thing [or] if it’s particular to the UK’s culture of filming. I don’t know what it is, but it’s relatively new. I’m not gonna say I’ve never had it in other things. But it let’s say that it has happened on this show in a way that is unique. That stands out for me, for whatever reason.
I spent some time talking with Mickey and Konrad about that big trade in Episode 2, but I’m curious about what it was like for you to read that scene on the page, then actually get to film it. Could you tell it had the potential to be so special?
I think so, but reading it and shooting it are completely different experiences. I try not to predict how it’s going to go. Obviously, I’ll have a very basic image, but I try to go in as much in the “I don’t know” space as possible. But, for sure, that scene was written and plays like an action scene. Then with the music, you can’t anticipate that element.
I wanted to switch gears slightly and ask about what your Avatar experience has been like so far. I know that’s a beloved property for many people, and I was excited to see you join that. I’m not sure where you all are in it, but without giving away too much, what’s that journey been like for you?
It was very unique. I’ve never been on something where 80 to 90 percent of the faces in front and behind the camera are minorities, or either Asian, South Asian, East Asian, or First Nations. It was just the most diverse cast I’ve ever been part of; that was surreal, on top of it being such a surreal kind of production.
I did find it was logistically difficult because my scheduling was such that—and I don’t know if sharing this is useful or anything—but my scheduling was such that I would like shoot two days and be off for like a month. It was hard to build momentum, you know? If I’m working, I like to be working a lot because you build momentum. You’re in the soup of it, and I just like being in the zone of it. So to constantly be taken out of the zone and then have to reenter [it] took some figuring out.
On a practical level, it was difficult in a way that I can’t think of another project that was like that. I think part of it [is] cause the cast is so huge and also COVID and blah, blah, blah. And it was that character. Are you familiar with Avatar and the characters and stuff?
I’ve seen a few episodes. I will candidly admit that the show is a huge blind spot for me that I want to rectify here pretty soon. But I know the importance it carries.
I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know anything about when I was cast. I watched the first season, and the character is—we never understand where he’s coming from. It’s not part of the story. For me, the challenge was having a reason and embodying a reason that you’re never gonna get to express. So that was a little frustrating for me. As far as my experience, I come across a lot of roles that call for the inexplicably angry all-the-time Asian man. It’s gotten to the point where [laughs] it’s like, “What? Is this how we’re seen? What is this? What’s going on?”
I went in knowing it was this character, but because it was so beloved and huge and had made such a stamp on the culture, it was like, “Well, if there’s any project worth investigating this trope, it’s this.” I took it that way. I kept looking for spaces where I can break through a little bit; there’s a window to a person. Towards the end, I started to find some, so it was okay. Yeah. Interesting project. I may have already shared too much [laughs].
That ties back to Industry, though, because it sounds like part of the gift of this part is having the opportunity to continually look through those windows.
For sure. I feel like the way the character has evolved tells us that Mickey and Konrad don’t think of Eric as a trope, even remotely. They think of him as a person, and they’re thinking about him deeply. I can only assume that that will continue. It would be weird if we just kept seeing Eric wielding his bat all the time. [Laughs.]