Myha’la Herrold wants you to know that it was definitely not as easy as it looked. It may seem like the 26-year-old strolled out of Carnegie Mellon University and straight into the role of a lifetime when she landed the part of ruthless trainee banker Harper Stern in HBO/BBC finance drama Industry, but that would be ignoring all the hard graft that came before it. “There were thousands upon thousands of productions I auditioned for before I got this,” she tells Esquire on a Zoom chat from her home in New York. The ones that passed her by? 13 Reasons Why, an unnamed FX series, and...
“Can I say this?” she wonders out loud. “I’m saying it anyway: I was close on one of the Star Wars films, but none of that happened”.
The galaxy's loss is our gain. Rather than locking her into a time-consuming powerhouse production (which, for all the positives, definitely comes with its own costs) she’s now free to carve out a more independent and esoteric acting career on her own terms. She’s just appeared next to Pete Davidson in A24’s comedy-horror, Bodies Bodies Bodies (out 2 September in the UK), and is set to star in a Netflix adaptation of the dystopian tale Leave The World Behind.
We sat down with Herrold to talk about Harper going full Elon Musk and that Berlin breakdown...
We rejoin Harper after the pandemic, and it seems like she really enjoyed isolation of it. Why do you think that is?
Harper is really great on the business end of what she does, it’s the social and personal that she has a much harder time with. So of course, when she doesn't have to deal with personal interactions it makes focusing on work a lot easier. I think she just gets caught up and distracted by all of the insecurities around her in the office.
The two people she forges alliances with – Eric Tao (Ken Leung) and the millionaire pandemic profiteer, Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass) – are two older, powerful men. Do you think there’s a touch of daddy issues there?
Hmmm, not really. I think Harper is driven by her own needs and what she can get from relationships. It’s slightly by chance that the people she’s engaged with are very intense and potentially fruitful, business-wise, and they happen to be men because many of the people in those positions are men. If things had gone differently with Nicole, she could have had a similar relationship to her that she has to Jesse or Eric – however, she assaulted her, so that was not going to happen. She doesn’t think she can get what she needs, which is leverage and reputation and success, from the younger people.
How about Yasmin (Marisa Abela)? Do you think Harper regrets how she screwed her over in series one?
I think she feels a lot of shame in how it all went down. When we see her come back into the office on the first day it seems like she’s sort of hoping it’s all blown over and it’ll be like nothing ever happened. She knows that that’s probably not going to be the case, which is why she doesn’t want to go to the office in the first place. But she’s sort of saying: let me try and clean the slate by being honest with Yasmin and saying that I just want a healthy working place. But that’s a lot, coming from someone who has completely shattered a relationship.
In Berlin, Harper has a run in with somebody that ends in a load of crystal meth and disaster. There’s some terrible stuff spat at her – how do you think that made her feel? Does that drive her subsequent reckless behaviour?
For Harper, this is when we find out why she’s going so hard. She clearly has no family to go home to, because of the trauma that her mother put them through. We understand why she has been fighting so hard and the sort of life she’s been hoping to build. So when she’s rejected, it’s soul-crushing. We thought we saw Harper get hard before, now she’s completely alone. It’s demon time from here on in!
Then she heads back, almost dead-eyed, to the trading floor to make a mad deal…
It’s a soulessness. When you get hurt that deeply and enough times, Harper’s coping mechanism is to go to no emotion. It’s dog-eat-dog, 'nothing matters any more but me and what I want, and I will do whatever it takes to get it, I have no reason to redeem myself'. She doesn’t care what happens to these relationships. It sounds corny, but it’s like: Love is not real. It doesn’t exist for her anymore. She’s out there to make her money and stake her claim instead.
Has the system created a monster? Or would she have turned into one of them anyway?
I think the systems, social and otherwise, in a place like Pierpoint definitely create an environment for that potential. I’m not going to entirely blame the environment, as there are some people who make it out just fine – those are the people who are lucky and privileged enough to have an incredible self worth and confidence and strong personal relationships outside of work. Harper is vulnerable, and she was unfortunately an easy target for misogyny and sexism. She’s easily influenced as she doesn’t have a foundation.
The finance/trading jargon hits next level this series, especially the complex deals. Is it just me that has difficulty following it all?
We have consultants on set to explain it all to us when we have a massive trade scene. They’re super helpful, and Konrad [Kay]’s dad has come down a few times, and Mickey [Down] and Konrad are obviously always on set too. They really help us dissect what it is we’re actually doing and what that means for each character. They’ll say: ‘When Harper says this, that means what’s happening in the market is this. When she makes this trade, this will happen, and it will affect this person in this way’.
I feel like I could use that myself
They don’t treat us like we’re stupid, which is nice, except sometimes I wish they kinda did! They explain in technical terms, and we’re like, is this good or bad?
If I put you on a trading floor now do you think you’d be able to pull off a deal?
No. Hah! I’m acting! There’s no way I could do that. I’d panic, and be like: 'Are you kidding me? Why am I here? I’m going to make a mess'.
You've just starred in the A24 comedy horror film, Bodies Bodies Bodies. What was that like filming?
It was nuts. It was so, so fun and so physically demanding. We shot it during the pandemic at this haunted mansion in the middle of upstate New York almost entirely alone. I loved the material, it was super collaborative, we got to bring ourselves to the character and work on the script a little bit. It was the first time I'd worked with VFX or stunts or weapons on screen so that was great. I’m so proud of how it turned out. It’s really funny, which I wasn’t expecting.
How was it working with the man of the moment, Pete Davidson?
Pete is the man! I really enjoyed working with him. He sort of creates this image, it’s a mysterious one, ‘I’m a funny guy and I crack jokes all the time and I self-deprecate and that’s all that I am’, but he’s actually very sensitive and super respectful. He was, like all of us, so prepared to work and he’s a really generous actor and I was so happy and excited for people to see him in a role where he has more dramatic moments as he’s very talented.. like, scary talented.
What would be your dream role?
I want to do a film version of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. And I want to play Natasha. It's a musical, romantic period rock opera and I haven’t done anything romantic or soft yet and my background is in musical theatre. It’s one of my favourite shows and I would really love to make that movie.
Let’s put that out into the universe then! What else have you got coming up?
I just wrapped Leave The World Behind, a Netflix feature directed by Sam Esmail starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali.
Were you nervous at all working with such big names?
Of course, but I was mostly just excited to see how they work, being a veteran in the game. It wasn’t as different as I thought it would be. We all sort of do the same thing, they’ve just been doing it a lot longer than I have. It was really special watching the way that they intentionally, and with so much kindness, interacted with everyone on the set. There’s this image that all actors, when they reach a certain level of celebrity or fame, are untouchable – and that’s just not true. Every single one of them was grounded and kind and they cared about me and they respected my work, so it was a gift.
Industry airs on BBC One and iPlayer in September.
This interview has been edited for clarity
