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Myha’la Herrold, the star of HBO’s new series “Industry,” discussed her experience with culture shock and with playing a Black woman in finance in an interview with The Daily Orange on Wednesday.

The series takes place in London and follows a group of graduates competing against one another for limited positions at Pierpoint & Co., a leading bank in the city. As the characters are thrown into the business world, they also form friendships and are faced with the reality of working in a highly competitive environment. The show first aired Nov. 9, and all eight episodes are now available to stream on HBO Max.

“Industry” is the first television show that Herrold, a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, has acted in. Like her character in the show, Harper Stern, Herrold felt the culture shock of living in a new country when she moved to England to film the series. Her castmates helped by teaching her British slang and cultural norms.

“It was nice to be able to navigate that while Harper was navigating it,” Herrold said. “Oftentimes, there would be all kinds of jokes that were connected to cultural things that I just simply did not understand.”

Herrold was excited to be cast in a show that followed the story of a Black American woman in the finance industry. The experiences of Black people are varied and unique, Herrold said, and it was exciting for her to portray an experience she hadn’t seen before.

“I liked that I was seeing a Black woman character do something that no one expected her to do,” she said.

Myha’la Herrold plays Harper Stern in “Industry.” Courtesy of Amanda Searle

Throughout filming, Herrold connected with her castmates over being relatively new to working on a show of this scale. She described the filming process and working with her castmates as a “massive learning experience.”

Herrold had an especially strong relationship with Ken Leung, who plays Eric Tao in the series. The two are the only American actors on the show, a similarity she attributes their bond to. She also spoke with David Jonsson, who plays Gus Sackey, about what it’s like in their respective home countries to be Black. Herrold and Jonsson are the only Black actors in the show.

Her character is the only graduate and staff member at Pierpoint who is a Black woman, which makes her experience different from the other characters in the show, Herrold said. Her character comes into the job with fewer privileges and less status than her white counterparts.

Herrold and her character are very different in their approach to finding themselves in their respective industries, she said. Herrold’s goal is to be someone who’s pleasant to work with and is a good collaborator, while Stern has a habit of burning bridges. She found some of Stern’s actions unacceptable, such as lying and going behind people’s backs.

“Harper sort of is like, ‘if I put enough money on paper, you can’t fire me,’” Herrold said. “It doesn’t really work that way in my industry I don’t think, or at least not at this level. That’s not really how I want to play it.”

But one thing that connects the two is their “hardcore confidence,” she said.

“Industry” can resonate with young college graduates who are establishing themselves in their careers and experiencing the anxiety that comes with that transition into the working world. Herrold imagines that anyone who’s at the beginning of their career and is starting at the bottom or has been through this experience can relate to “that very visceral, emotional feeling of desperately wanting to belong and prove yourself.”

Published on December 9, 2020 at 10:37 pm

Contact Gavi: gavi@dailyorange.com | @gavi_azoff