Myha’la and Ken Leung on Filming That Gutting Industry Scene—and Their Viral TikToks

Spoilers below.

If you were to judge purely by the tenor of their on-set TikToks, you might not guess that Industry actors (and self-proclaimed “besties”) Myha’la and Ken Leung are coming off of one of the HBO drama’s more upsetting episodes. In Industry season 4, episode 6, Myha’la’s Harper Stern and Leung’s Eric Tao secure a long-awaited victory for their risky joint venture, SternTao. After illuminating the lies scaffolding payment processor Tender—and its enigmatic CEO, Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella)—Harper and Eric watch as SternTao’s short against Tender finally pays off…and pays out.

But Industry rarely allows its characters to bask in good news for long. Midway through episode 6, Eric receives a startling text message, and with it video footage of his recent sexual encounter with “Dolly.” We know from an exchange between Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela) and Whitney’s assistant, Hayley (Kiernan Shipka), that Whitney has employed escorts (or former escorts, like Hayley herself) to film and blackmail people like Eric. Whitney seems to have done exactly that here, but there’s a further twist: A close-up on Dolly’s passport reveals she’s a 14-year-old girl. Eric hasn’t just engaged in something unsavory or unethical; he’s committed a crime.

He chooses, then, to dissolve SternTao as it currently stands. Without explaining why, Eric ambushes Harper in their hotel-room headquarters, where he transfers his stake in the company to her, asking only for the initial $10 million investment he put in (to create a trust for his daughters). His lawyer claims Eric wants to protect Harper from potential “reputational risks” that might render Eric a “faithless servant,” but Harper can only comprehend Eric’s cowardice. “Can you please tell me what this is about?” she pleads. “What are you protecting us from?”

But he refuses, claiming, “I don’t want you to remember me that way.”

In response, she jabs a finger at his face. “I will always remember you like this.”

As for the wider Industry audience, they, too, might remember Eric this way. As episode 6’s credits roll, we watch as Eric—his back to the camera—strolls away down the middle of a tree-lined Westchester road. It’s unclear if showrunners Mickey Down and Konrad Kay intend this scene as a goodbye for the beloved character, or if it’s simply a “see you later,” and Leung wants to leave the interpretation up to viewers. “It’s a very purposeful, deliberate walk,” he says. “And it’s not in a hurry. But it’s completely certain.”

Below, Myha’la and Leung break down their characters’ fraught professional breakup, and give a peek into their cherished dynamic off-screen and on set.

Was this one of the hardest scenes that you’ve had to film together as a pair?

Myha’la: It was hard for me to watch. It was hard for me to watch Ken suffer. Eric is doing the thing, but it’s still my friend, Ken. Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

M: When you love someone, it’s hard to watch them go through some shit. Even if it’s work and they’re safe, still, sometimes it’s hard. But it’s also really satisfying, because we have a [kind of] relationship where we can go to those places safely.

Ken Leung: I don’t see any scenes with Myha’la as hard. It’s all about, “How deep are we going?”

I love that line Eric says to Harper: “I thought I was incapable of feeling pride. I’m glad that you proved me wrong.” Our recapper pointed out this week how interesting it’s been watching Eric and Harper serve roles for each other that they couldn’t serve in their own families: the proud dad and the “undeniable” daughter. In your opinions, what does it mean for both of them that they now recognize they can’t play those roles for each other anymore?

M: I think Harper is kicking herself. Because this is the thing that she wanted to avoid in the first place. When [earlier in the season] he was like, “Let’s talk,” she was like, “No, it’s hard enough to make this work thing go when we already know our relationship is complicated.” I think she’s really, really pissed that she let it go to the place she knew it was going to go, and she’s upset. She’s hurt because there was obviously a glimmer of hope that maybe it wouldn’t go this way, and then it does. So I think she feels sadly validated.

KL: For Eric, it’s like unearthing a piece of humanity that you thought you lost— finding the human being inside this mask of a killer, everything you had to build in order to excel in this world that, necessarily, had to suppress some human parts of you. It’s being able to unearth that part…just to kill it. It’s a kind of death.

Ken, from your perspective, why do you think Eric is so resistant to telling Harper why he has to leave? Is it about protecting himself? Is it about protecting her?

KL: He’s ashamed. I think he thought Dolly was the one.

M: That bastard.

KL: Her having some agenda and being a plant or trying to entrap him is the complete furthest thing in his mind. Why did he think she was the one? Because he’s in a place where he’s like, “I want to learn how to be a person again. I’m tired of being retired. I need a new galvanizing mission. I don’t know how to talk to my daughter, but maybe I can learn how to through Harper. She listens to me. She’ll talk to me. She speaks the same language.” And then there’s [Dolly]. “Who is she? She is interested in me. Maybe this is different. Maybe this is not just another fling.” So he’s in a place of possibilities and unfamiliar territory. I think, for him, Dolly represents, for the first time, something real.

M: What a shame.

KL: Yep, what a shame.

Myha’la, you said that Harper feels disappointingly validated by this turn of events. In your opinion, do you think she has some theories as to why he’s leaving—why he has this potential reputational damage?

M: Not at all. I don’t think she even [fully understands] it’s reputational damage. She has no idea why he’s leaving, and I think she’s too upset to pontificate about it. And then, when she finally does try to reach out, he doesn’t respond. So, the only thing I can think that Harper’s thinking is, “What did I do?” You know what I mean? “After all of the pain, what did I do?”

First, she says to him, “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll help you…” But then, if he can’t even tell her, there’s no way she could have been like, “Oh, maybe he slept with a teenager.” There’s no fucking way she would ever know. And if she did know, she’d be like, “Get away from me.”

So, I think she thinks that he just doesn’t want to be in this scenario with her anymore. She’s not good enough.

Oh, God, which just makes it all the more heart-wrenching.

M: I know.

I want to rewind, Ken, and talk about the scene where Eric gets the video. We—and Eric himself—learn Dolly is a minor, and that their sexual interactions together were filmed. Can you walk me through what it was like to depict that moment? What was going through your mind as you were filming that scene?

KL: I think the room moved a little bit. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was letting it happen. That happens a lot on this show. The scaffolding is provided such that we can capture accidental things sometimes, and maybe “accidental” is not the right way to say it, but a lot of scenes play us. We’ve done it long enough to know what feels right, what feels wrong, but only directionally, and then the rest of it tells us.

I do know that you don’t see a preceding scene between Eric and his daughter, even though you do see her in the other room for a couple of seconds. We come into the space, and we’ve just had dinner. We’re talking in a way that we’ve never talked. She makes a joke about her mom’s new boyfriend, this and that, and then I [as Eric] get the video. So [the tragedy] comes after a kind of victory.

M: Did you shoot that scene?

KL: We did. We shot the scene [but it didn’t make the final cut]. So it’s not just the news [of the video itself]; it’s the news on the heels of the thing he longs for.

Myha’la, I want to ask about how Harper is approaching the Tender short. When I interviewed you back in 2024, we talked a bit about why Harper doesn’t see money as inherently good or evil. I’m curious, do you think she now views this Tender short as an ethical crusade, given Whitney’s depravity? Or is it solely about the financial victory for her?

M: I think it wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t a financial victory. However, she does think Whitney is a psychopath. She’s happy to say, “This guy is fucked up. He’s doing it wrong. He’s hiding this shit. He’s a bad actor in all of this.” I think there’s also a part of her that’s like, “He’s actually a bad person. I’m just doing a trade.” Do you know what I mean?

There’s a part of it that feels like, “People need to get off my ass. I’m doing the things I’m supposed to do. This guy is actually fucked, and this is a smart trade. This is an important trade that I’m doing, actually, to take down a bad actor in the space.” She, I think, feels vindicated and like, “There’s someone out there worse than what people think about me—actually worse—and there’s evidence.”

“He does suck, but also, he sucks more than me.”

M: Yeah. He sucks in a real way.

Ken, I want to ask about the end-credits scene where you’re walking away down the road. What was the discussion on set around that scene? Is it meant to be interpreted as a send-off?

KL: Well, again, we filmed a scene preceding it—that we don’t see—and so [Eric is] actually going somewhere from something. But the way that [the end-credits scene] lives [in the final cut] now, I think it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. Because we don’t see my face. The story is not about what Eric feels. The story is not even about where he’s going. The story is actually not about Eric. The story is the walking away. In that sense, you, the audience, have just as legitimate an interpretation as me as the actor.

Especially when “walking away” has proved so challenging for these characters over these four seasons.

KL: Yeah. Also, it’s not a meandering walk! It’s a very purposeful, deliberate walk. And it’s not in a hurry. But it’s completely certain. I love that it’s in the middle of a street where a car could, at any moment, say, “Get out of the road.” There’s a defiance to it.

Okay. I have one slightly more upbeat, fun question for you two before I let you go. You, of course, have now become very known for your TikToks.

KL: It’s all Myha’la. It’s all her.

What has been your favorite video so far?

KL: I love the one that we did…I don’t know if you posted it yet.

M: Which one?

KL: The one that we did on set. The one that you sent me last week.

M: If I sent it to you, I posted it. Which one? Was it the dancing one?

KL: The one where we’re on the set. We’re in SternTao.

M: Oh, oh! Beyoncé.

KL: Yes. Yes, Beyoncé.

M: “Crazy In Love.”

KL: Have you posted that yet?

M: Yeah, I did.

KL: Wait, where do I find that? That’s on TikTok, not Instagram?

M: That’s on TikTok.

KL: I don’t have TikTok.

M: Get one, bro.

KL: It’s not that I never have had it. I’ve had it, but it’s a rabbit hole.

M: Yes. It eats you.

KL: I don’t like how it eats me.

My husband showed me the Beyoncé one just the other night.

M: [Laughs.] I’m being so annoying on set all the time. I’m so happy that people are like, “Yay, we love this.” There’s so many people who are like, “I hope that HBO is running her a check.”

KL: It’s true, it’s true!

M: I was the most annoying person ever. I was like, “Time for TikTok, everyone!” It was obnoxious, and all of them are like, “We’re working. We are on the clock.”

KL: I know. They’re moving stuff.

M: They’re turning off the lights.

Myha’la is like, “Y’all don’t understand. This is the work. This is work.”

KL: It’s true. Now, we know.

M: I’m feeling vindicated. Thank you very much.

KL: Yeah, you should feel vindicated.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.