[This story contains major spoilers from season four, episode eight of Industry, “Both, And.”]
When Kit Harington watched the season four finale of Industry, during a group screening that the show put together, he found himself shocked by the plight — and the tone through which that plight is delivered — of his character Henry Muck. “I turned to the person next to me and said wow, it’s really tragic isn’t it?” he recalls with a laugh. “When I was playing it, I was having so much fun. Clearly, tragicomedy is a strain of acting that I enjoy.”
As the curtain closes on the final episode of the season, Henry is trying to avoid jail time in connection with Tender’s downfall, trying to avoid repercussions from Russian interests and embarking on a divorce from Yasmin. It’s not the first time that the ill-fated couple has found themselves in a bad place, but Harington is sure that this is the final down in their past of ups-and-downs. “She’s right to leave him, and it takes someone stronger than him to do that,” he says. “He has not listened to her at all. He’s not seen her, seen who she is. He’s been totally about himself to the point where at the end he’s like, but we were going to have kids. You were never going to, and you should have kids, for God’s sake. You two shouldn’t have kids. Hopefully this is a wonderful one-season burnout marriage, which I think it was always going to be.”
Here, Harington breaks down the episode and what it means for his character’s future.
Of all the tragicomic moments on the show, what do you most enjoy doing?
It’s never the scenes you think it’s going to be. There are certain lines they write where you get the script and just think, that’s glorious. In the final episode, I remember the line where I tell [Max Minghella] that he’s “a fucking peasant.” Henry says, “I’d rather die as me than run as you.” Amongst this complete downfall, he has this moment of real crowning glory where he says the most horrific thing to someone and yet it’s some kind of win for him. I love that about Industry. But also, the really enjoyable scenes are the ones with Marisa [Abela,] when we’re going through the scenes throughout the season and working out where they’re at, how bad the marriage is, how much they love each other, how much they hate each other, and just plotting out those long meaty moments.
In that moment when Henry calls Whitney a peasant, it also seemed to be one of the few — if only — instances in which Whitney is truly affected by something. It’s rare that anything anyone says can pass through the layers of narcissism and sociopathy.
It’s such a terrible thing to say to someone, but in my head, Henry gets away with it because of how badly he’s been treated by Whitney. In the previous plane scene earlier in the season, Whitney said the most awful thing to him, something about you are such a child and your mother’s tit. Whitney has sort of idolized in a weird way because of his status.
There was something else in that scene that I picked up on, which is that Henry says “fuck your poor boy civilian passport.” Does Henry have some sort of special passport since he’s an aristocrat?
No, he has a normal passport. I think it’s purely about the names, in his pompous way. He looks at the Lithuanian passport and sees that it has a normal name, and his title means everything to him. So he’s saying, you think I’d be this person?
It seems like, even though Henry put all of the couple’s money in Tender, he’s not actually going to contend with losing everything. But what do you think he would do if he did go completely broke? Who would he be if he had nothing?
I don’t think he ever will be. I think that’s part of the point of him, is that he can waste all the money in his bank account but he’s still got his godfather, he’s still inheriting an estate of God knows how many thousands of acres. He’s always going to be protected in a way that maybe no one else in this show is — not even Yasmin, who is at risk after her father wasted everything. Whitney is certainly at risk, and all the others need cash. It defines who Henry is, the fact that he’s always going to be monetarily okay.
How do you come down from the more intense scenes on the show, especially for something like the big fights between Henry and Yasmin?
I don’t know if you do. You’ve definitely got to preserve your energy, because it’s a full day doing a scene like that. You’ve got to give the other person the energy they need to do it and save a bit in the tank for when it comes around on you. But for me personally, the best thing is that I have my kids staying with me in Cardiff, so I come off set from one of those drug-taking scenes or what have you, and I have them to snap me back.
How much do you know about what’s going to happen to your character when you start work on the season?
On some shows you sign up for multiple seasons, but Mickey and Con sold this as one season to me, and same with the previous one, and they give me the rough arc of it. You only get episodes one through four at the start, and then it’s a process of continually talking to them and asking questions. They’re on set all the time and will give you clues even when they can’t give you the whole picture, so that you can know how to play a scene. I didn’t know how this season would end until we were filming episodes five and six.
What was the source of your biggest curiosity about this season?
The biggest question in my head was, can you empathize with this guy especially with who he is and how he speaks to people? There will be some people who just hate his guts and that was a challenge for me.
Who do you empathize with most on the show?
It changes. By the end of this season I’m rooting for Harper. I was always rooting for Rob, and then it sort of switched to Yasmin and now I’m just like, okay, let’s go Harper.
The show was just renewed for a fifth and final season; at this time last year, did you know that you’d be returning for season four? I’m curious how open or secretive they are about it.
I didn’t know. I think they mentioned towards the end of season three, something about we’ve got something we think could be interesting. But they are juggling so many things in their heads — they’re both going to have breakdowns after this is over — and as they’re filming this season they’re seeing what the next could look like. I think they’ve always had an idea of what the end is, or what the end goal is, and I assume they’re puzzle piecing all along the way. But I actually have no idea, I’m just talking shit (laughs).
Have you ever been tempted to ask them about it, whether you’ll be coming back or what that end goal might be for the show?
No. I never would, because it’s a) unfair and b) stupid. I once saw, during an unnamed show, an actor quiz the showrunners about his future and I was like, dude, don’t do that. You’ve just killed your future here and this is the last thing they want to deal with.
Do you keep mementos from the set of Industry?
This is a Henry shirt! So I clearly do. I rushed in to do this interview and was like oh, fuck, I’m wearing one of his shirts. I started dressing like him, which is really embarrassing. I sent someone — I think it was Marisa or maybe Mickey and Con — a video of myself the other day because I found myself in full Henry Muck in a playground with the kids. I had the wax jacket, the trousers, everything. I’ve also got a Lumi T-shirt that I work out in, and a Lumi babygrow [onesie] which I had one of my kids in. This show has my favorite merch I’ve ever gotten, the wrap gifts are gilets [vests] with “Pierpoint” on them, they’re pretty sick.