Image via HBO
Spoilers for Industry Season 2 below.
Industry’s Yasmin (Marisa Abela) messed around and found out. In the Season 2 finale of the HBO hit show titled “Jerusalem,” the posh young woman decided to confront her wealthy father, Charles (Adam Levy), about whether or not he groomed their young nanny when they were both growing up as children. “I think that she is ready to stand up for herself, ready to stand up for what she thinks is right,” Abela tells Complex. “Yasmin is trying to be moral for the first time in her life.”
The conversation doesn’t go over well, with Charles quickly calling out Yasmin’s privileged life. In the wake of this conversation, Yasmin decides she doesn’t want her father’s financial support moving forward—and he calls her bluff, changing the locks at the swanky penthouse basement she lives in and freezing her out of her bank accounts. In a finale full of wake-up calls, this is one of the more severe ones and Abela’s fantastic performance anchors it all in an incredible compelling way. While we’re still unsure if Industry is getting a third season, the actress will star alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in next year’s hotly anticipated Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig.
Complex spoke with Abela about how she worked with Levy and the episode’s director Isabella Eklöf to bring that confrontation to life, how she has received the rollout of the show in the U.S. while living in London, intentional wardrobe choices, working with female directors like Gerwig, and much more. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How does it feel to have all of Season 2 out there now? What’s it been like to watch the reactions roll in?
It’s weird, actually, cause it’s not out here in London yet. I went to New York last week, and that was weird because I haven’t been in the place where it’s out in a long time. So to have people being like, “Oh my, God, I’m watching the show. I love it!” was really different. Obviously, I’ve been here [in London] and getting reactions online, but not in person. It was nice to be in New York and feel the excitement there. That was really nice. But I don’t go on Twitter; I’m terrified of Twitter. So I only get the messages that people send to me on my Instagram. I’m excited for it to come out here.
This finale is really the “Y’all fucked around and found out” episode, that it’s all about the consequences of everyone’s actions. What was it like for you, when you got the script, to realize the chickens were coming home to roost?
I was really grateful because I think there’s like nothing worse than—it’s not like everything’s getting tied up in a neat bow. I don’t need that. But I think consequences should be had, so I was really eager to see how everything was gonna play out. I was excited to see Yasmin finally saying to her dad, “Look, I want nothing more to do with you,” and then him being like, “Okay, let’s see about that then.”
We did the take of her knocking on her front door loads of different ways. I actually haven’t seen Episode 8 yet, so I don’t know which one they chose. There was one where she burst out laughing, one where I burst into tears. There was one where she had a screaming match with her dad on the phone. I was just like, what does that look like when Yasmin doesn’t get let in? My first take, I burst out laughing because I was like, “This is insane.” He reads her for filth at the bar and then locked her out of her flat—it’s insane. The one thing about Yasmin is that she does have a sense of humor. So even though it’s terrible, I think she can be objective enough to know she was kind of asking for it.
They went with a more shocked reaction, but it’s interesting you can play it in all of those different ways, and it works. Did you try that scene with Adam [Levy] a few different ways? Did you rehearse it all beforehand? Or did you, Adam, and [director] Isabella Eklöf figure it out on the day?
That one, in particular, we just sort of did on the day. Rehearsals were [about] figuring out the relationship [and] we’re at the very beginning of the season. We did exercises together that gave us a foundation for whatever it was we needed to do later down the line. We had this rich tapestry of a relationship to play with. On the day, we got on really well, so we had an understanding of “Whatever you want to do.” He would sometimes lift his glasses up, [and] looked me dead in the eye. Sometimes he was quite dismissive. He actually went to the same drama school, obviously not at the same time. But Adam trained at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), and so did I.
We do have a shared language of the way that we like to work, which is: what do we both want in this scene? If we don’t get it, what’s going to happen? If we both know what we want, what I want, and what he wants, then it’s always all to play for because your objective is always going to be the same. How you try and get to that place might be different every single time. So we’re both the kind of people that don’t love to plan it exactly. It’s more like having a conversation about the general objectives in the scene, and then let’s just play around with it.
Something I noticed in rewatching the finale was that Yas is wearing the same green blouse during her confrontation with Kenny and her Dad. I’m wondering if there was intentionality there because I’ve started to notice brighter colors as being a possible symbol in the show, like Eric wearing the hoodie as a sign of him being in trouble. Was that choice by design?
I think maybe subconsciously, it was a choice. It’s interesting. The conversation would go something like, “This is a day where Yasmin needs to feel brave.” It wasn’t necessarily that we wanted to do that in a—what’s it called, like the egg thing? Where you find something? It’s like a secret thing that’s placed in the show—
An Easter egg?
That’s it! [Laughs.]. It was more Yasmin needs to feel brave today. It might be that’s a power suit. She might work trousers, or she might wear a certain height of heel or whatever. Maybe with that blouse, it’s something that she feels protected in. It’s definitely an idea, but I don’t think we thought about it as literally as that. But it’s cool.
One thing in that confrontation with Adam is that deep, settling breath you take before you walk in. Was that scripted, or was it something you found playing around on the day of?
No, it wasn’t scripted. Similarly, in Episode 2 of this season, she meets her dad in a restaurant, and it’s when she decides that she’s going to ask him to come to Pierpoint. She’s inviting him into her life at that moment. In this one, she’s deciding that she could be walking out of here, asking him to exit her life. I think she has a similar moment before she goes and sits down in Episode 2.
Yasmin’s dad is probably the most complicated relationship in her life. So she just needs to compose herself before speaking to him. I think she finds it very difficult to win with him. You can find this with lots of powerful, rich men. It’s impossible to win. If they decide they’re right, they’re right. There’s nothing you can do. If they want to argue that the sky is red, there’s not really much you can do. The argument that Yasmin has with her father in Episode 8—in my opinion, anyway—objectively, she has a point. This is a young woman that [he] knew from the age of maybe 13, 12. She’s Maxim’s cousin, so it could have been from birth.
All of a sudden, he finds her attractive at 16, he’s saying. Yasmin doesn’t buy it. I don’t really buy it either. [Laughs.] That whole point that she says, “When did you find her attractive? And he’s like, “When she grew a pair of tits?” Yas is like, “Well, when was that? Because by that metric, I was a woman at 12-years-old.” I think it’s an interesting conversation. Her dad is just not having it. So Yasmin just knows she has to compose herself because if you have a relationship like that with anyone in your life—whether it’s your father or your boss—these men, if they decide, “We disagree, and I’m right,” there’s really nothing you can do. She was like, “I’m gonna find out for myself now.”
Do you think her decision to step away is something she hastily rushes into?
I think she is ready to stand up for herself, for what she thinks is right. Yasmin is trying to be moral for the first time in her life. She’s hoping that her dad is on her side and says, “You know what, you’re right. And it’s why I’m trying to come back into your life now.” Probably. That’s what she wants to happen; she’s not wanting to get cut off in any way. I also think that she spends most of her life—he lives in, let’s say, St. Barts and wherever—if she has an argument with him, I don’t think she thinks he’s going to cut her off and say, “You’re not allowed to live in my basement anymore.” She might be willing to take a relationship with him that is as face value as possible. I don’t think she ever thinks he’s going to cut her off in that way just because it’s so out of her realm of understanding what consequences like that look like. It’s definitely a spur-of-the-moment decision at the end when she looks at him and goes, “I want nothing more to do with you.” She had no idea she was gonna say that, as far as I’m concerned.
I want to talk about that little grin you give when you walk out on the bill—which, by the way: I haven’t been to the UK in a couple of years, but at what place can you spend 221 pounds on breakfast? Not even a brunch? Just like a Friday morning breakfast? That’s insane.
Literally. Oh, they got a bottle of champagne! They were having mimosas and like they were ordered a bottle of champagne. So yeah, hilarious.
Was that grin something you added? It’s such a nice touch because you think Yas has learned something, that she’ll have a moment of growth, and then she does that.
The smile was not scripted. But again, say what you want about Yasmin, she has a sense of humor. What it shows is you could have no money whatsoever, but if you grew up that privileged, the sense of entitlement that you have, it never goes away. What it shows me is that there’s still no consequences for Yasmin. There might be money, but she still is learning what it means to have a consequence because if someone catches her on the way out, she’s pretty screwed. She’s just like, that’s not going to happen. It’s going to take her a while to get used to it. It’s the same as when she cries to Robert and [then] she’s like, “I need 20 pounds for the taxi.” It’s a non-starter for her.
It’s gonna take some time for her to realize. I’m sure when she ordered that bottle of champagne, she didn’t even think about it. What’s a bottle of champagne? How much even is that? It’s like someone asking that famous thing of: “Do you know how much a carton of milk is?” If you asked Yasmin how much a bottle of champagne was, she’d be like, “Who cares?”
I read an interview where you were talking about your hopes and wishes for Yasmin, and the thing I keyed into was your desire for her to have more of a sweetness to her. We see some of that in how she treats Rob, but otherwise, it’s pretty compartmentalized. Do you think that could be possible for her in the future?
What’s happened to her now will force her to be nice to people because her actions will just have more intense consequences. You can even see that in [how] she took Venetia out for lunch and apologized to her. If her dad didn’t kick her out, she probably never would have done that. She might have done something nice for her at the office, like brought her coffee one day, [as] like, “That’s water under the bridge now.”
Yasmin is learning that her actions do have consequences and that she is going to have to have more people on her side if she wants to just lead a happy life as well. She’s not going to be able to go to the Members’ Clubs with the old friends that she was going to Members’ Clubs with, spending hundreds of pounds every night, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on breakfast. She’s gonna have to become friends with Harper and people that she can keep up with. She’ll be nicer to them. But who knows? At the end of the day, the same thing with Harper, these aren’t inherently warm, fuzzy people, and they just need to find people that accept them for that. They’re slightly repressed. They’re not incredibly emotionally gifted, lovely, and empathetic. That’s not where they shine. You either love them, or you hate them. That’s why, at the end of the day, Yasmin and Harper love each other and have a lot of respect for each other because they function the same way. Their natural instinct isn’t one of empathy.
Some people are just like that, though. They’re complicated, nuanced people. I think that what’s great about the show is that it gets to the heart of that nuance in a really interesting and compelling way. Is that nuance hard for you to tap into? Or do you enjoy having things slightly grayer?
I love that. I love it. I love a show that doesn’t tell the audience how to feel. I think that it’s really refreshing and nice. What it means is that the fans of the show, the people that enjoy it, have incredibly different opinions. I’ll meet some people, and they’ll be like, “I liked Yasmin in season one, and she’s such a bitch in Season 2!” Then I’ll meet other people who are like, “I’m so glad she’s not a pushover anymore.” It just is what it is. I have my own personal opinions. As an actor, I can’t judge Yasmin as harshly as maybe an audience member might; I have to try and understand where she’s coming from and why she does what she does. It’s easier to play a character who was portrayed as a villain or a nice guy if they just do what they do. It’s up to everyone else to decide how they feel about that.
Okay, a couple of quick ones for you: We don’t know quite yet if there’s going to be a Season 3, but if there is, Mickey and Konrad are probably going to throw another language your way. If you have the choice to pick one, which would it be and why?
Ohhh, that’s so cool. Probably, like Cantonese or Mandarin. Feel like we haven’t gone there yet, and it’s time.
We’re getting close to that with Shogun. We’re closing in on that larger Asia area.
Maybe if like Yasmin has something to do with Eric at any point. We’ll see. That could be cool.
Which scene was the most challenging for you to do this year?
Maybe the scene where Kenny gives her the stapler in the jelly because I was laughing so much that it was just impossible for us to get through. It was like at the end of the day, and everyone thought it was gonna be really quick because it’s just like a silly little dance. But it took forever because we were laughing so much.
That’s the David Brent dance, right?
Yeah, exactly. Too good.
I don’t know how much you can really talk about Barbie, so I want to approach that in a different way. You’ve had a chance to work with a lot of really fantastic female directors, whether it’s Lena [Dunham, who directed the Industry pilot], Isabella, or even Greta. So I’m curious what it means for you to have these opportunities so early on in your career to work with them.
I just feel so inspired by the women that I’ve been around. I’m very lucky in that the glass ceiling, these women are pushing it as possible. To just be in their presence, I feel like the sky’s the limit. That is what representation is all about. For everyone, no matter what representation you’re talking about.
If you’ve been surrounded by people that look, sound, [and] feel like you and they have money behind them, they have resources, and they’re incredibly powerful, smart, intelligent, cool women, you can’t help but [have] that rub off on you and be like, “Well, if they can do it, maybe I can do it.” If nothing else, it’s just shown me how much representation matters. Being around that, for everyone, is so important.