‘Industry’ Season 3: Ken Leung talks Eric’s ‘obsession’ with Yasmin

One of the elements of Industry Season 3 that most intrigued Ken Leung was the brand-new dynamic between his character, Eric Tao, and Marisa Abela’s Yasmin Kara-Hanani.

“Before we shot anything, I was told that something would happen between Eric and Yasmin,” Leung told Mashable in a video interview. “For everything that happens on the show, and things that I could imagine or predict, that kind of came out of nowhere. Up until then, Eric has nothing to do with Yasmin, and suddenly they were going to come together in some way, so I was most curious about how that was going to happen.”

The catalyst for Eric and Yasmin’s sudden proximity in Industry is none other than their shared connection to Harper Stern (Myha’la), Eric’s former protégé and Yasmin’s frenemy. When Eric fired Harper at the end of Season 2, that left Pierpoint & Co. with a huge seat to fill — and who else should fill it but Yasmin?

However, it’s clear right from the Season 3 premiere that Eric and Yasmin’s relationship won’t be anything like Eric and Harper’s. He’s unsympathetic towards her status as tabloid fodder and unimpressed by her performance. In his mind, Yasmin is devoid of Harper’s drive and hunger, hampered by external forces that make her a liability to Pierpoint.

The difference between Harper’s and Yasmin’s respective backgrounds and approaches to work were key for Leung’s understanding of how Eric would view Yasmin. “Harper is a known entity. The reason Eric is attracted to her is that he recognizes something in her of himself. Yasmin is the other side of that,” Leung explained. “She is a complete unknown. She’s not your typical grad. She has personal wealth; she doesn’t know why she’s there, or what she wants — or it doesn’t seem like she does. So she’s a big question mark.”

Yasmin’s “unknowable” qualities begin to reveal themselves to Eric later in the premiere, during the pair’s impromptu cocaine-fueled night out with Yasmin’s lawyer (Fiona Button). The HR violations pile sky-high as Yasmin, rocking a barrister wig, bares her soul to Eric. She confesses she finds Eric terrifying, while Eric says he feels like they’ve “just skipped several awkward stages of a relationship.” Pierpoint’s HR department should be bursting into the room any second now, right?

At the crux of this coked-up conversation is the sense that Yasmin and Eric can be equals now on the trading floor. “Let’s try to remember that feeling when we’re sober,” Yasmin implores Eric.

She holds Eric to that request in episode 2, after he reproaches her for manipulating rumors about Lumi’s IPO launch. “Why don’t you just talk to me how you talked to me last night,” she tells him. “You know, like I’m a human being.”

This is the exchange that truly changes Eric’s mind about Yasmin, according to Leung. “Lo and behold, she steps up to Eric in a way that we maybe don’t expect. She has the wherewithal to say, ‘Drop the bullshit. Stop this show you’re putting on all the time,’” Leung said. “In that moment, Eric sees that this unknown entity has an element of known. It pulls him in gradually to the point where she becomes an obsession.”

That Eric’s “obsession” with Yasmin coincides with his separation from his wife is no accident. Eric has leapt back into the dating pool, is having casual sex (including with Yasmin’s lawyer), and has started using drugs again. Basically, he’s acting like the young grads all the way back in Season 1, even as he joins the ranks of partner at Pierpoint.

“With Eric’s struggles with aging out of this young man’s business, [Yasmin] represents something new and something young,” Leung said. “She represents everything he’s desperately trying to recapture and hold on to.”

Industry is now streaming on Max, with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.