Marisa Abela and Harry Lawtey on Industry’s Devastating Season 3 Finale: “It’s Kind of Tragic”

When the creators of Industry wrote the show’s third season, they didn’t know whether HBO would greenlight more episodes—so they made sure to throw everything they had into it. By the end of Industry’s season three finale, the stakes for the show’s beautiful fuckups—and for the bank itself—are fairly existential.

Yasmin (Marisa Abela) lands in the deepest water by the end of season three, literally and figuratively. While dealing with the scandalous aftermath of her father’s drowning, she finds herself locked in a love triangle between her lovelorn friend, Robert (Harry Lawtey), and Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington), a man with enough money and power to both protect her from the world and provide her with life’s not-so-little luxuries. “Robert really does make Yasmin feel very safe in a way that definitely the other men in her life don’t,” Abela tells Still Watching. “He really sees her and loves her, whereas Henry or her father or Eric—I don’t think she feels that they really see her.”

On the latest episode of Still Watching, both Abela and Lawtey stopped by to talk about their onscreen chemistry and their offscreen friendship. (Listen or read below.)

Vanity Fair: Your characters both had a very emotionally intense season. When you read the season three scripts, were there any moments or revelations that surprised you?

Harry Lawtey: Yeah, it’s par for the course now with this show. Every page is a bit of a surprise, to be honest. But I agree. In this [season] especially, a lot of the arcs and journeys of these characters are very much reaching boiling point. That’s certainly the case for Robert. I remember saying to Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay] a while back that he’s someone who’s been wanting to cry for about five years now, and hasn’t felt able to show his feelings in that way. It feels like once the dam is broken, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. It’s all on show now.

Marisa Abela: This was the first year that I felt it was really necessary to have a sit-down about what had happened, what was going to happen, where everything was heading. And that was very different to play, holding knowledge that was hers and no one else’s. And also, the relationship between Robert and Yasmin this season—it was the first time that it really, really mattered whether or not Yasmin knew what she wanted, and knew what she was getting into.

Your characters have been circling each other through the whole series, and Robert has been pining for Yasmin since the beginning. How do you see their relationship at this point?

Lawtey: The relationship has so much more substance and integrity than it did at the beginning. Robert’s attraction to Yasmin was always socioeconomically informed. He found the idea of a relationship with her aspirational…. They’re at a stage now, at the end of this season, where I think there’s very genuine love there. It doesn’t mean they can necessarily express themselves and share how they feel, but they know what’s going on. In the last two episodes, part of their journey is to try to get rid of all the nonsense.

Abela: Robert really does make Yasmin feel very safe in a way that definitely the other men in her life don’t. In episode five when she asks him, Can’t you just fall in love with me and make everything so much easier? I think she really means that Robert’s probably the only person that could, in that moment, say, ‘I love you’ to Yasmin, and she would believe that he really sees her and loves her. Whereas Henry or her father or Eric—I don’t think she feels that they really see her. It’s a really beautiful thing to feel seen by someone and loved anyway. But I don’t know that on the day to day [level], they could make the other person happy. That’s the fundamental flaw of their relationship. It’s kind of tragic.

Yaz has created this love triangle, and she chooses to have sex with Rob and marry Henry. Was that moment with Robert her last act of free will before she submits to being lady of the house?

Abela: It becomes clearer and clearer to her that Henry is the only feasible option that gives her a life that she can sort of understand. She’s craving that stability right now. So she’s in this big house with this person that could support her and she thinks: I don’t have a job. I don’t have a family. This is it.

I think that final moment with Robert, she’s testing her theory that she has to marry Henry. It’s not that [Robert] fails her in that moment, but just that it’s not enough. Being in love with Robert in his house in Finsbury Park or wherever isn’t gonna be enough for Yasmin. I don’t think she’s a particularly sensitive person, like I don’t think emotions hold that much meaning to her. It’s pretty bleak. But I think that I think that she can cut off from her emotions far easier than a lot of us would think that people can.

Lawtey: I think Robert kind of gets all that as well. He’s self-aware and objective enough about the bond that they have to know there are fundamental holes in their relationship which would stop them from making each other happy every day. But despite all that, he loves her. And that moment that they have towards the end of last episode, I think he has to believe that that was the beginning, that they were gonna try against their better judgment. He has to believe in the innocence and purity of that exchange, which makes it all the more painful a couple of scenes later [when she announces her engagement to Henry]. But I was struck by how quickly he comes around to acceptance. That might be the final severance he needs to make better choices for his own life.

Industry has had a pretty stable cast. What was it like when Kit arrived this season?

Lawtey: He was very aware that he was coming into a close-knit unit, and came in very generously and graciously. By this point in season three, I very much had a sense with Marisa and Myha’la and me that we sort of live here now—like, we’re flatmates who are hosting a house party. If people come for the house party, you want them to have a nice time. It was slightly different with Kit because he had such a reputation, but he was really just an amazing addition to the team. I spent my first week of season three with him working really closely, and it just clicked instantly. He’s a great partner to have in a scene, completely self-effacing and funny. There were plenty of pearls of wisdom to pluck from my time with him, but overall, I just remember having a really good laugh.

There’s a great scene earlier in the season where Robert and Henry are tripping. It seems to be a revelatory experience for Robert, whereas Henry comes to his senses and says, ‘We have to find a way to monetize this!’ By the end of the finale episode, Henry is the one who is trying to monetize transcendence.

Lawtey: As cynical as it sounds, he’s figured out the kind of capitalism that can work for him on a personal level. For me, the central thesis of this entire show for all of the characters is: can you be the person that you wish to be and do the things that you want to do? And so can Robert respect who he sees in the mirror and also be a part of this world and do this job? Ultimately that transcendent experience he has with Henry was certainly a turning point for him. Like, maybe there’s another way I can do this instead of being part of a system that doesn’t ultimately respect or protect me. It’s not like he’s some kind of white knight. He still wants to get ahead and make money and better himself. But it leads him to find a version of it that means he can sleep at night, basically….I think this season is ultimately just him realizing he’s not really made for that world.

You two and Myha’la have been the core of the show from the start. Do you hang out together off set?

Abela: Yeah, we do. We’d go off and live our own lives for a year or a year and a half, and then we come back and we’d exchange notes while we’re filming this very intense show in Cardiff for six months. And then it happens again. Each time one of us has some wild experience, and we come back and get to unpack it together. The show accrued a cult following in season one. In season three, it feels like the audience has become even bigger. We were all experiencing these things at the same time, and it makes for a sort of singular relationship between the three of us. We’re this unlikely trio.

Lawtey: The three of us have been really really close since like, the second week. This is a kind of kismet. Socially, I don’t think we’ve ever fully made sense to people, even the crew. But like Marisa says, we’ve just grown up together. This has been five years of our lives, you know?

HBO announced that the show was renewed for a fourth season. Are you both coming back for that?

Lawtey: I don’t know whether we’re allowed to commit to anything yet…

I’d love to see where these two characters end up after the heartbreaking parting that you have in the finale.

Abela: It’s heartbreaking and also the most mature thing either of them—well, at least Yasmin!— have done, the way that they deal with that. It’s not like they have some big dramatic screaming row with one another. They just allow the other one to feel pain and get on with it. It’s very British, actually.

Lawtey: It’s the most dignified way to break someone’s heart.

This interview has been edited and condensed.