SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains plot details from \u201cPoints of Emphasis,\u201d Season 4, Episode 7 of \u201cIndustry,\u201d now streaming on HBO Max. Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) is in the wind. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Harper Stern (Myha\u2019la) and her fellow short sellers, Whitney\u2019s fraudulent financial startup Tender has collapsed in on itself, leaving puppet CEO Henry Muck (Kit Harington) holding the bag. (Whitney and Harper had previously hooked up in an encounter that revealed his preference for, uh, penetrating interactions.) But before Whitney skips town, leaving his phone behind in an ominous sign of total abandonment, he tries one last audacious play: acquiring Pierpoint, the bank where HBO drama \u201cIndustry\u201d \u2014 created by former bankers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay \u2014 first established itself before the entire institution collapsed in Season 3. Whitney co-founded Tender with his Stanford buddy Jonah (Kal Penn), whom he pushed out of the company in the Season 4 premiere. Ever since, the entrepreneur has been on a mission to fake it until he makes it, covering the company\u2019s fraudulent balance sheet with inflated acquisitions in Africa and attempting to pivot a payment processor for pornography sites into a mainstream bank. Taking a run at Pierpoint is one last, desperate attempt at distraction from increasingly loud calls for an audit, and Whitney sells the hell out of it. \u201cWe want speed. We want scale. We want certainty. We want America,\u201d he tells a room of rapt shareholders. It\u2019s almost enough to convince them, and us, that Tender can survive through sheer bravado. But in the end, Whitney can\u2019t escape his fate, at least while staying in the spotlight. He may put on a brave face, but behind the scenes, he\u2019s being threatened by faceless Russian backers via his deputy Ferdinand (Nico Rogner), who tries to tell him running isn\u2019t an option. Whitney chooses to risk it anyway, abandoning both Tender and his obvious infatuation with the aristocratic Henry. The mix of aspirational invention and forbidden same-sex attraction puts Whitney in the same lineage as other fictional antiheroes like Patricia Highsmith\u2019s Tom Ripley \u2014 which is fitting, because Minghella\u2019s late father Anthony directed the 1999 adaptation of \u201cThe Talented Mr. Ripley.\u201d Minghella arrived on \u201cIndustry\u201d as a newly minted fan of the show, after nearly a decade on \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale,\u201d a radically different (though in some ways, equally dystopian) series. Minghella has the perfect background for a story populated by American strivers \u2014 including Whitney, Harper and Harper\u2019s mentor Eric Tao (Ken Leung) \u2014 trying to make it in the London financial scene. A native Londoner who now lives in the States, where he spoke to Variety about his time on \u201cIndustry\u201d from his home, Minghella has spent time on both sides of the Atlantic. He applied that perspective to a performance he characterizes as spontaneous and ambiguous in a conversation that touches on Minghella\u2019s inspiration, technique and approach to playing a fundamentally mysterious character. Courtesy of HBO<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve said you weren\u2019t familiar with the show before you became involved with it, but once you did become acquainted, what made you excited to enter this world?<\/p>\n
I knew a lot about the show, because truly all of my closest friends \u2014 people whose taste I trust \u2014 it\u2019s their favorite show. They had, like, a weekly screening of the show, and they watched together, and they loved it. I felt intimidated by that, that people I cared about were invested in it. I was also conscious of the fact that the season was going to be quite different. I view it almost like a reboot of the show in a way, so I felt tremendous responsibility.<\/p>\n
But Mickey and Konrad, from reading the scripts and then watching the series and talking to them, I truly thought I was interacting with generational talents. They\u2019re amazing, and they\u2019re operating at such a high level, and the writing was so to my taste. I\u2019ve since learned, having worked with them, that we really do share very specifically the same taste, and it\u2019s a joy when you get to work with people who share your taste. It\u2019s a very rare thing. It\u2019s a lovely thing when it happens, because it leads to a sense of joy and excitement in the process.<\/p>\n
Before this role, you were coming off of \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale,\u201d which you were on for eight years. What was it like for you to shift gears between these two shows?<\/p>\n
They\u2019re very different in style, and so my approach was radically different to each part. I always viewed, correctly or incorrectly, Nick Blaine as a sort of archetypal character. That show was very heavy, and I always \u2014 maybe this is an incorrect perception of what his purpose was in the show \u2014 but I felt like his narrative was there to provide a sense of relief and melodrama and break from the more intellectual aspects of the show. And so I didn\u2019t approach that part as naturalistically. I always saw it in a very specific way: embedded in a Bront\u00eb-esque literary history, something larger than life. I never approached it with naturalism. I always approached it within that context of something very heightened and almost like a soap opera, if I\u2019m being honest. And I really enjoyed that, but that was very much the approach for that.<\/p>\n
Popular on Variety<\/p>\n
Then for this, it\u2019s obviously something hyper-real. And so it was much less methodical. I would say it was much more about \u2014 I would almost black out shooting the show, because I would just let anything happen. I didn\u2019t go in with any kind of plan or agenda of how I wanted anything to go. I would just let each take happen, and whatever happened in that take happened, for better or worse. It was very freeing and very different. It felt right for what the material was, and also the character, who I wanted to feel dynamic and unconstrained. I didn\u2019t want him to feel like somebody who was deciding when to sit and when to pick up his mug.<\/p>\n
This character, for obvious reasons, is fuzzy and unreliable in terms of what his background is. In your head, do you have a more definitive backstory, or did you prefer to keep it ambiguous on your end as well?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a really relevant question, I think, to this character and to our process. I tried to be as honest as I could in the scenes themselves and at the same time, when I look back on it now with time, I lean probably a little bit towards the manipulation over the authenticity, or any kind of earnestness in his emotional state. My understanding, especially in how things come together in the edit and all of that, it gives you a new perspective on things. And with some distance, I consider him somebody so purely Machiavellian in his intent. But that could be wrong! That\u2019s a Mickey and Kon question for sure.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of HBO<\/p>\n
I feel like whenever there\u2019s a con man who\u2019s sexually obsessed with his mark, the spirit of Tom Ripley has entered the room. Were there any influences like that that you were looking to when you were formulating who this person is?<\/p>\n
Obviously, I noticed that. And there\u2019s other characters \u2014 Steve Jobs in the Aaron Sorkin movie \u2014 that Whitney sort of resembles. Tom Ripley is tricky, because Tom Ripley doesn\u2019t share any of the personality traits of Whitney. Tom is, in such a beautiful way, so openly sensitive and vulnerable and fragile. Whitney is the opposite of that. Thematically, I love those kinds of stories. I\u2019ve always been drawn to those kinds of stories, for obvious reasons, I suppose. I don\u2019t know how applicable that is to Whitney.<\/p>\n
There were real people in the world, pretty inside baseball people, I guess, that we talked about. But they articulated on the page such a clear person and such an extraordinary role to get to play. I was very conscious the whole time of how unique it was to get to say these words and play somebody this multifaceted and complicated. It\u2019s just very rare, and so I will endlessly be grateful to them for giving me this chance.<\/p>\n
Before Whitney and Harper are set on this collision course with each other, they have a sexual encounter where you learn about Whitney\u2019s proclivities. What do you think that scene, which is intimate on multiple levels, reveals about who Whitney is?<\/p>\n
I would lean on there being some honesty there in that scene. If only because of the scene that happens later in Episode 6, where he says to Harper, \u201cI wonder if that\u2019s why I showed you so much of myself so quickly.\u201d Which is alluding to that. To me, that feels like an admission of sorts. Because it could be interpreted easily that he\u2019s planted that [strap-on] there to give Harper this moment of empowerment. Maybe he could subconsciously read whatever Freudian desire that she\u2019d been harboring, that she sort of actually states earlier in that episode. It could be that.<\/p>\n
What I like about these questions about Whitney is, I actually don\u2019t know the answers. Really. And I didn\u2019t find that prohibitive in playing him, because he is somebody who, however you interpret him, is a performer. That was enough for me to go off.<\/p>\n
Watching Episode 7, it really hit home for me just how much the Whitney-Henry relationship is kind of this bizarro version of the Harper-Yasmin relationship. How did you and Kit Harington work together, and work out this dynamic between these two very different people?<\/p>\n
I think it was different for both of us. First of all, I\u2019d say that Kit was just a really important person to me in this whole process. He\u2019s just so good, really lifts you up as an actor, but he\u2019s an incredibly kind person and generous person. I was very nervous, intimidated by the whole thing, and kind of out of my depth, I think. And then he made me feel so safe. He was so supportive. It was unbelievable. I couldn\u2019t have done it without him. So I was endlessly grateful to him on a personal level.<\/p>\n
On the approach, the character dynamics, I\u2019ll say this. I think, not to speak for [Kit], that [Henry] very much saw Whitney as a father figure, as a paternal figure, and leaned into that a lot in his thinking. For me, I related to Henry more than any other character in the show, in a kind of profound way. I found Henry so close to where I was at in my life, doing the show, going into it.<\/p>\n
That was so great for me, because obviously Whitney, whether it\u2019s authentic or not, is interested in this person. That was so easy for me, because I felt he found him so relatable. And that was really great.<\/p>\n
Because Whitney, in many ways, possesses tributes I don\u2019t have, and wish I did. But he\u2019s so far away from who I am as a person. He\u2019s got this confidence that\u2019s amazing, this articulation that\u2019s so impressive. It\u2019s fun to pretend to be somebody who could do things you can\u2019t. But at the same time, I was very grateful for how much I connected to Henry, who\u2019s much more of a fool.<\/p>\n
Without getting too personal, what did you find relatable about Henry as a character \u2014 who is in life circumstances I think most people do not find relatable?<\/p>\n
In the broadest terms, I think he\u2019s a very stunted person, and I consider myself, openly, a very stunted person. I don\u2019t know if I dislike that about myself, but I would say I\u2019m definitely frozen a bit in time. I\u2019m not much different talking to you now than I would have been 22 years ago. There\u2019s something interesting about that to me, in the character, that I really identified with. There\u2019s other more personal things I identify with, but it was lovely. And also part of what I loved about this season. Episode 2, which I wasn\u2019t really in, that\u2019s my favorite episode of the season. It\u2019s very much focused on Henry, and I was amazed by what the boys came up with on that one.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of HBO<\/p>\n
This is also a great episode in terms of the sexual interest that Whitney takes in Henry. Do you read that as Whitney letting the facade slip, or do you see it as another manipulation tactic?<\/p>\n
My answer to all these is, I don\u2019t fully know! I think that was very much the initial intent. I could say that. When we first were talking about this and we first started shooting the show, I think it was completely intended to be authentic. I do think things have changed as we shot it. That\u2019s now become much more opaque in a really interesting way. A lot of these things that in the script are maybe a little bit more prescriptive became much more ambiguous. That\u2019s another thing I share with Mickey and Kon is an interest in stuff that\u2019s not didactic. So every time there was a shift towards ambiguity, it was always delightful to me.<\/p>\n
Maybe authenticity isn\u2019t the right framing. Whitney is clearly interested in Henry in that way. What do you think draws him to this person who he can clearly see the failings in, but is also pulled toward?<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know the reality of Whitney\u2019s story, but I know that he is not to the manner born at all. He\u2019s an autodidact. He taught himself everything. So I think that\u2019s what it is, you know? He wishes that he had that confidence, the actual innate confidence or comfort of somebody who had a silver spoon in their mouth, even if it was a toxic one. He probably finds even the toxicity rather glamorous and unattainable.<\/p>\n
This episode, you also get the car confrontation scene, which unlocks aspects to Whitney we haven\u2019t seen before. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve seen him backed into a corner and panicked and not sure what to do. What was it like to play the character in that mode after him being relatively in control for most of the season?<\/p>\n
It was really fun. It was all really fun to me. But again, my approach was so consistent, which was, whatever happens in this space is going to happen in this space. And it felt very freeing to approach it like that. It was all quite exciting and unpredictable and also scary, because I didn\u2019t feel a tremendous amount of control over the performance. It sort of felt like it was controlling me a bit. That was nerve wracking, I suppose, but I really enjoy doing that.<\/p>\n
I also found it funny. I found it funny when he was so pathetic and I didn\u2019t really know what he was doing. Every time I watched it, I was like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s what he was doing in that scene!\u201d, if that makes sense. When I saw how pathetic he is when he gets out of the car, he just looks so vulnerable and fragile in a way that I found just very humorous.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve played American characters before, and you live in America. But Whitney is an ultra-American archetype, which plays into his whole Pierpoint spiel and certain things he says in the premiere. As someone who didn\u2019t grow up here, was it interesting for you to step into that kind of person?<\/p>\n
Well, I don\u2019t know that Whitney is American.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a good point!<\/p>\n
So I didn\u2019t necessarily treat it that way. I treated it as somebody who\u2019s pretending to be something he\u2019s not. And inherently, by me not sounding like me, that\u2019s a very easy way to immediately be like him, right? We don\u2019t know if he might be from Lithuania or somewhere else. We don\u2019t know anything about him. That just never becomes explicit, anyway. So I just assumed he might not be. There\u2019s even little, very subtle things I try to do with the accent to maybe raise that question. Probably in a way that just causes confusion more than anything else! But<\/p>\n
I just thought he should have an undefined accent. It should maybe sometimes slip between regions in a way that\u2019s a bit confusing. That was something I thought could be interesting.<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n
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