Industry season 3 update teases 'bigger world' plus new characters
Industry series 2 spoilers follow.
Industry series 3 is set to make the bankers' worlds much bigger as one of the creators has shared a big update about the BBC and HBO co-production.
The show, which follows a host of budding investment bankers, ended its second series with the investment prodigy and erratic genius Harper (Myha'la Herrold) being discovered for faking her college credentials and was ousted by her former mentor Eric (Ken Leung).
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, writer and consulting producer on season 3 Joseph Charlton said: "We just finished the writers' room for series three. We're casting it at the moment. I’m really excited about the casting conversations that are happening at the moment."
Joe, who joined the production in series 2, added: "The world is bigger in a way that I think… audiences will find surprising. The show isn't just repeating itself. It's going into new places, and I think it's seeing the entanglement of finance and sectors in other parts of the world and politics in a way that I think is really novel and interesting."
Explaining how the show has evolved from the start to series three, Joseph said: "We're kind of expanding out, and the frame's getting wider, and you're starting to see, the bosses above those people, and then those bosses' bosses, and then how a big investment bank fits into the hierarchy of society more broadly than that."
Series 2 of the show reflected more of the real world, with the return to the office from the COVID pandemic playing out, plus all too familiar government plots to privatise the NHS. There's a host of issues they could draw on to ground the new series, from the cost-of-living crisis and Russia's war on Ukraine to the UK energy crisis.
Joe added: "I think it's fair to say the series won't shy away from acknowledging the real world, and things that are present in the news. I think what's unique and good about the show… in the first series, there are references to Brexit. In the second series, there's COVID. In the third series, there'll be contemporary issues, too."
The show was created by Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, who drew from their own experiences working in the bottom rungs of investment banking, but the stories are also informed by some insiders.
Joe added: "We've got really good, anonymous advisors on the show who have worked in finance, whose identities are protected. It just means that we can get really realistic details into the show that informs the storylines in a way that I think is hopefully interesting to audiences, and just about accessible, to really understand what's going on."
Beyond Industry, Joseph also worked on the hit play ANNA X with Emma Corrin from The Crown, as well as another play, Brilliant Jerks, about Uber-style taxi apps, which is being turned into a TV show.
"I guess what I write has a decent kind of overlap with Industry. I'm interested in dramas in the corporate world. I think Mickey and Konrad – obviously they worked in banking. I worked in journalism covering lots of sectors, but I think working with writers who have done a job before, I like a lot. It's people who want to get into the detail of real, everyday working life, as opposed to people who have only worked writing creatively. I just think there's a certain respect for the workday of non-writers and non-creatives that we share."
But will they be able to make those self-entitled, wealthy, Industry-types likable during a cost-of-living crisis – especially in a show some critics have dubbed 'Tory Skins'? Joe thinks they will.
"We are kind of in a moment of television at the moment where we are very compelled by seeing characters that, you know, quite boldly say terrible things, and act reprehensively, be it in Succession or Industry, and I suppose that kind of matches some of the characters you see in real life. Obviously, Trump's a big example.
"But I think drama calls for big characters that match their narcissistic egos on the actual world stage. I think probably the third series will go even further in that direction of inviting empathy in difficult places."
Industry airs on HBO in the US and BBC Two in the UK.
Tickets are available for Brilliant Jerks at London's Southwark Playhouse from 1-25 March 2023.
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