Industry’s Ken Leung Talks Eric’s ‘Chaotic’ Transition in Season 3 Premiere: ‘His Life Is Falling Apart’

The world of finance moves at breakneck speed, and thus, so does HBO’s Industry , which returned Sunday to kick off its electric third season. While the season opener wastes no time delivering a major development — Eric Tao finally makes partner at Pierpoint — the stress of the promotion causes him to crack, leading to one very shocking decision by episode’s end.

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“From the way he responds to it, [the stress] is considerable because he makes partner relatively late to what I think he expected,” Ken Leung tells TVLine. “I think the way he answers Bill Adler’s suggestion that he fire somebody, it tells us where he’s at with making partner because he does it in an almost desperate, ‘Who? Who can it be? I don’t wanna fire this person.’ It’s in this antsy, nervous way, whereas we might guess that having made partner, it’d be the reverse. That he would be in this kind of ‘finally made it,’ controlled way [of thinking], and it’s not that at all. His life is falling apart. He’s in this chaotic point of transition.”

When the new episodes pick up, Eric is separated from his wife, dating and doing recreational drugs, all while a major Pierpoint IPO looms over his head. Adler’s suggestion of showing the higher-ups his teeth only adds to the pressure, but when it’s suggested that he axe Yasmin (who’s struggling with some real life drama of her own), Eric skips over her and a grieving Robert (more on that in a sec), and sets his sights on the man who helped him through his separation and subsequent drinking problem: Kenny.

“It happens in the moment. He meant to fire Robert,” Leung says. “But then he sees Robert in this weird moment of vulnerability. Something about it draws him to wanting to help and fix [him]. Then he needs to go somewhere else. Of all the people, Kenny has helped him the most between seasons. Eric has developed a drinking problem. Kenny has similar problems so he takes Eric under his wing. I think something that may be true throughout the series is that the closer you are to Eric, it becomes a double-edged thing where you’re almost the first to go, i.e., Harper.”

Meanwhile, Robert has a traumatic experience one night when his client Nicole shockingly dies following another salacious hook-up. This is what leads to Robert’s “moment of vulnerability,” though when he tells Eric why he’s crying on the floor, he only says he “lost a client.” Eric takes it as a chance to inject his young protégé with confidence and machismo. He pulls Robert aside and (in one of the premiere’s best and most rewatchable scenes) forces him to repeatedly scream: “I’m a man and I’m relentless!”

“I think I started off getting into it too soon because I remember being directed to take my time with it and actually allow myself to amp up to it,” says Leung about filming the almost unhinged scene. “Sometimes you have an image of how something should go and then it works against you because you’re sort of chasing that image. But then I got this great direction of, ‘Forget all that and kind of find that ,’ and I remember that relaxing me and paradoxically, the relaxing of it helped me actually get to the level that we wanted.”

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And in quite the detour for Industry , Leung’s Eric shares zero scenes with the recently fired Harper (played by Myha’la), who is now off and working as a desk assistant for Anna Gearing’s FutureDawn Partners.

“It’s weird. I remember it being [weird] for Myha’la, too, if I can speak for her,” reflects Leung. “I think she even dropped by our first day or two to just be there. But despite not having her, the weirdness of that, the imprint that she left, she was still kind of there.”

He teases: “For Season 3, my relationship to Harper is the reverse of everything it’s been. She is now my nemesis, somebody who I would have predicted would not be in the business anymore. She’s doubled down and Eric takes that personally that she’s almost coming after him. As the season plays out, it’s not far from the truth.”

What did you think of Industry’ s big return? Grade the episode below, then light up the comments!

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