Many frightening forces converge in the financial drama “Industry”: the screams of the bosses, the bad bets of the market and the relentless pressures. But perhaps scariest of all, at least to their superiors, are the fighters in their 20s willing to take down their elders.
Generational tensions between the old guard and the hungry youth in the HBO show’s second season, which begins Monday. The series about junior bankers at the fictitious London firm Pierpoint & Co. he channels this discomfort into the character of Eric Tao, played by Ken Leung. In the waters of the commercial market, the 50-year-old managing director of cross product sales is both shark and shark bait.
“Youth scares him,” says an up-and-comer, “unless he can control it.”
What makes the show even more troubling is knowing that its characters and stories come from real life, with creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay incorporating the headlines, their own short financial careers, and interviews with financial executives into the scripts The initial inspiration for Eric came from a person once in their banking orbit: a financial executive who they said was not yet aware of the connection to the program.
The world is coming out of Covid on the show. At Pierpoint, bosses have no patience for subordinates who want to keep working remotely. The drama revolves around meme stocks, the real-world operations that gained a huge following on social media. Eric’s white-tablecloth business breakfasts and clubby investor weekends don’t fit into a disruptive landscape shaped by brash newcomers, including a billionaire profiting from the pandemic.
The new season raises a question: If experience isn’t always useful and the value of antiquity is no longer a given, what good is an Eric?
Actor Ken Leung, who plays senior banker Eric Tao, said friends who work in finance say his character gives them PTSD.
Photo: Simon Ridgway/HBO
“It’s a very young person’s game,” said Mr. Down, 33, formerly of Rothschild & Co., echoed what industry insiders told him about his experiences in finance. “It’s a place where youth and drive and that first flash of ambition is really rewarded.”
The show finds Eric fighting for his job against three rivals, all of whom he hired. This includes his protégé at the next desk, Harper Stern, played by Myha’la Herrold.
Writers looked for generational tensions and found them around issues like wealth. A cut line from an early script caused Harper to break what Mr. Down calls the cardinal rule of the finance job interview: Don’t say you want to make money. Harper says it plainly. It’s what some in finance call a “safe-the-bag” mentality, or a straightforward attitude about the pursuit of wealth and success.
“The big hedge fund managers we talked to said that millennial recruits were nervous about saying, ‘I want to make money,’ it was seen as a little flashy, a little uncool to have that mindset,” said Mr. Down, referring to conversations he and the team had with executives while researching the program. “Gen Z recruits now have no qualms about saying they want to succeed. They say, ‘I want to make money.'”
The financial world has moved over the decades toward greater diversity and inclusion, and the show’s casting reflects that. But the series also argues that the industry will never change.
“It’s not illogical to think that in a structure so proud of its hierarchy, there wouldn’t be the most Darwinian relationship with power possible,” said Kay, 34, formerly of Morgan Stanley. “Of course, they’re going to go to their most basic animal instincts: ‘How do I get the power?’ Who keeps it for me? How do I save it myself?”
As the story picks up, Eric’s charges are making money, but he’s not. Like his boss, Eric argues that the team’s successes are his too. But he’s been told he’s only as good as his last deal.
“He talks on the show about, ‘Think about everything I’ve accomplished,’ and his boss says, ‘None of that matters, what matters is what you did this week,'” Mr. Leung, 52 years old. he has to find new muscles to exercise. It’s a season of ‘finding yourself’.”
At one point, Eric is “promoted” to a corner office that he likens to a coffin.
“It tells you something about how youth-obsessed the culture is that we’re talking about a 50-year-old man as if he’s a dinosaur,” said Jami O’Brien, 48, a writer and executive producer of the series
Eric is both the voice of the establishment and, as an Asian man in a historically white world, an outsider. He hunkers down with a baseball bat at his desk, but fights for his team’s raises. A creature of the commercial market, he cuts his toenails in a trash can as if in his own bathroom.
“A lot of my friends who are in finance say it gives them PTSD,” said Mr. Leung. “And then there are other people who say, ‘I would die to have a boss like you.'”
Before university, Mr. Leung worked briefly as a Wall Street temp feeding financial documents into microfiche machines. He was startled by the noise and heat behind the cold exteriors of the financial district buildings.
A key resource for the actor: his son’s carpool to elementary school. A father who works in finance held morning meetings with his team over the phone while driving. With permission, Mr. Leung listened from the passenger seat. “It gave me an organic sense of the texture of this world,” he said.
Mr. Leung, a native New Yorker of Chinese descent, played Miles Straume, a volatile medium on the ABC television drama “Lost.” His film credits include roles in Brett Ratner’s “Rush Hour,” Spike Lee’s “Sucker Free City,” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old.”
The actor shows Eric struggling with his priorities in the world back at the office.
“He was motivated to win and be good at his job,” said Ms. O’Brien. “The pandemic has made him ask, ‘Was that a good enough reason?’ He has a bit of an existential crisis at the age of 50”.
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