{"id":471586,"date":"2026-02-16T07:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/471586\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T07:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:57:08","slug":"ken-leung-on-erics-long-walk-and-unaired-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/471586\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Leung on Eric\u2019s Long Walk and Unaired Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Spoilers follow for the fourth season of Industry<\/a> through the sixth episode, \u201cDear Henry,\u201d<\/a> which premiered on HBO on Sunday, February 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eric Tao has literally walked into the sunset. The former Pierpoint managing director, who recognized himself in American striver Harper Stern (Myha\u2019la<\/a>), mentored and then sabotaged her, eventually lost his job at the British bank partially because of her scheming, and then went into business with her as one half of the short-only fund SternTao, has left the tumultuous world of finance behind. In Ken Leung\u2019s hands, Eric is one of Industry\u2019s most compelling, conniving, and sympathetic figures, a man who is always reaching for more without exactly knowing why. He\u2019s the wise elder who\u2019s desperately lonely but also incredibly relatable as a victim of the capitalist system he once championed so zealously. Eric ruined other people\u2019s lives during his ascent to the top, and he\u2019s devastated to realize he feels just as empty there as he did below. All he wants to do is win \u2014 until, maybe, he also wants to be seen, as a person and as a partner, and that\u2019s ultimately Eric\u2019s downfall.<\/p>\n

The circumstances of Eric\u2019s exit are, in typical Industry fashion, awful. The man has always had a problem lusting after younger women (so much so that he has to tell an amused Harper that he\u2019s \u201cnot a fetishist\u201d). In \u201cDear Henry,\u201d he ends up blackmailed by Tender CEO Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) for sleeping with Dolly Bird (Skye Lucia Degruttola), a character who isn\u2019t a 20-something, as Eric thought, but a teenager not too far off in age from Lily (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss), the daughter Eric can\u2019t seem to connect with. SternTao has just struck a blow against Tender<\/a> by revealing the aspiring bank\u2019s layers of financial bullshit, but once Eric realizes the information Whitney has on him \u2014 and breaks out of the self-disgust and shock it causes \u2014 he decides to keep the blackmail to himself. Instead, he signs over his half of SternTao to Harper with no explanation, resulting in a brutal scene in which a crying Eric begs Harper not to \u201cremember me that way\u201d and an equally teary Harper insists she\u2019ll always equate him with this abandonment. It\u2019s the most painful breakup Industry\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n

Leung has been a core component of the series from the beginning, and he\u2019s not sure if he\u2019ll somehow come back for a potential fifth season of Industry. No one\u2019s told him that yet. For now, he\u2019s treating Eric\u2019s walk away as a final exit, one that caps off an entire season in which Leung says he shaped his performance in response to one word he felt the character was telling him: help.<\/p>\n

How did you learn about Eric\u2019s fate this season: that he\u2019d be blackmailed, sign the company over to Harper, and then walk away?\u00a0
As the scripts came out. That\u2019s generally true on the show. I had a very broad overview of the direction they were taking this season. We had a little chat beforehand, and the main takeaway was that I felt the circle had been closed at the end of season three. We were kicking around, How do we open a new circle? If we\u2019re going to continue, where do we take it? There was mention of bringing my family into it and what was going on with my kids. I\u2019d never really gotten to explore that part; Eric, as a dad, doesn\u2019t explore that part of himself. Season four for me represented his journey with Lily. I didn\u2019t know what was going to happen. I didn\u2019t know how SternTao was going to play out. I just knew why I went into it and what Eric was hoping for through this new enterprise with Harper, vis-\u00e0-vis his daughter.<\/p>\n

Did you suggest the family angle?\u00a0
It seemed to be the obvious route because the system, everything he\u2019s learned in the business world, everything, collapses. Him throwing the bat at the end of season three<\/a> was a cool metaphor of being free of this thing that he devoted his whole life to \u2014 to climb to the top of this mountain just to feel basically the same. The obvious next place to go is, What does this mean outside of the office? You have a family, even if it\u2019s broken. You have kids.<\/p>\n

Take me back to reading \u201cDear Henry\u201d and what your reactions were.
The main thing was the girl in the hotel that he hooks up with, Dolly, it\u2019s written like any other fling, and I felt that that maybe wasn\u2019t the case. I wanted to just imaginatively look under the hood of that a little bit. Eric has always been the creator of his own reality. In season four, that shifts, and he\u2019s in a place where he\u2019s willing to look at, What is reality? Who is my kid? I have no channel to her. Maybe I can learn about her through this person whom I do have a channel with, which is Harper. And I think when Dolly comes in, maybe he has true love in his mind. He\u2019s totally oblivious to where she comes from, her agendas, but she\u2019s a young woman he has an in with, and he\u2019s in a place where he\u2019s hungry for that. What is the language? How do I engage with young women in a way that I can learn and then use that to reach my daughter, whom I cannot reach? And who, alarmingly, is starting to take on all my bad qualities<\/a>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a thing that didn\u2019t make it into the show that is right after the first phone call, where Harper introduces this idea of, Can we do something together? He makes a call to his daughter and realizes the trouble that she\u2019s in. He gets two phone calls in quick succession that pull him out of this stasis that he finds himself in, hiding away in this conservative retirement community, doing nothing and being bored. So there\u2019s an emergency. And when that betrayal happens, it\u2019s not any betrayal. It\u2019s a deep betrayal. That was my first impression of what to do with the Dolly relationship. It\u2019s funny, because we don\u2019t go into that aspect of it. But I took it that way, and that informed how the rest of it went.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t see how they first met, right?\u00a0
We used to. It was scripted that there was a scene of them in the bar, and we see them outside of the bedroom. But that didn\u2019t make it into the show.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s such a focus this season on pornography and how sex can be used to fulfill us in a way that nothing else can. Were there any discussions with Konrad and Mickey about Eric\u2019s use of sex this season?\u00a0
No, we don\u2019t discuss so much in general. When I have questions, they\u2019re very specific, pointed questions. Mickey and Konrad make themselves eternally accessible, so that\u2019s very helpful, but talking about it doesn\u2019t help me so much. It puts me in my head. With Eric, I like to listen to him more than play him. Over four<\/a> seasons<\/a> and six years, he\u2019s a really complicated guy. I get more mileage out of following his lead. After a while, I developed this facility with recognizing what feels right versus what feels wrong. Mickey and Konrad have said that Industry as a show has an intelligence of its own that comes more from the alchemy of its parts than from conscious design. Speaking for myself, the playing of Eric doesn\u2019t come so much from a conscious plan as the alchemy of everything he\u2019s been through, of everything I\u2019ve played up to whatever point it is. I try to listen to him more than I have him figured out.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re listening, what did Eric say to you this season?
He\u2019s in a lot of pain, and he doesn\u2019t know what that is. He doesn\u2019t know what to do with that. He needs help. \u201cHelp\u201d is what he said. That\u2019s the polar opposite of where he used to come from. He used to come from, \u201cI\u2019m the help. I dictate what help even means.\u201d Then it all fell apart. Then he threw it all away. Then he went into a kind of fugue state, into a no-man\u2019s-land. He couldn\u2019t have been further from his daughters. He finally has time to spend with them, and he couldn\u2019t be further away from them. He\u2019s on Long Island with a bunch of people who remind him of Newman, who\u2019s long dead, because that\u2019s what he knows. That\u2019s what he\u2019s been taught and told himself, that this is what you work for, this endless vacation, and he realizes, Well, this is it. This doesn\u2019t do it for me. And now this person\u2019s in trouble. That person\u2019s in trouble. I\u2019m in trouble. Help.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this moment in \u201cHabseligkeiten\u201d<\/a> where you and Kenny are getting on the elevator, you apologize about firing him from Pierpoint, and he says to you, \u201cIt\u2019s not the worst thing anyone\u2019s ever done.\u201d You have this expression on your face of pain, regret, and melancholy, and it made me think, Does he think about Adler<\/a>?
He\u2019s haunted by it. You know, we filmed a scene where he is visited by Adler\u2019s ghost.<\/p>\n

Like Hamlet style?\u00a0
Like Hamlet style. That was incredible to play. It seemed like a different show \u2014 now, that\u2019s hard to say because the show is such that anything can happen. But he wakes up, there\u2019s a wind coming in the curtain. We see that he goes to check on his wife and daughter, whom he\u2019s invited to stay over, and he has this very sweet moment, just watching, maybe imagining what life used to be, could have been. And then he goes back to where he was lying down on the couch on the other side of the hotel room. Before he reaches the couch, he sees a figure in a suit standing on the terrace, right beyond the waving curtains. He goes up to it, and then it\u2019s gone. He\u2019s like, Is this a trick of the curtains? Is this a trick of the lighting? What is it? That\u2019s what motivates him to say, \u201cI gotta get a grip on what I know, what\u2019s real.\u201d And that\u2019s when he calls Dolly. In the final cut, we see the glimpse of his family and then we go right to the call for Dolly. But in between, there was a visitation by Adler\u2019s ghost. So yes, capital Y-E-S, I think he\u2019s haunted by what he did, how it went down. That is what he\u2019s running away from. He\u2019s not thinking, Let me get as far away as possible from my kids. He\u2019s like, Let me get away from the shadow of Bill.<\/p>\n

That unlocks a lot for me. I want to ask about a few other scenes in \u201cDear Henry\u201d and what Eric was telling you in those moments. The first is the showdown with Whitney on CNN after Eric learns he\u2019s being blackmailed. He insists to Harper that he go on CNN to debate Whitney about Tender. I saw it as Eric\u2019s last stand. How did you understand Eric\u2019s decision-making?
I didn\u2019t articulate it that way to myself, but that feels right. It was my only scene with Max for the whole season. Max was so great at the table reads and he plays such a significant part in the season. Before Eric sits down, he whispers something from The Art of War to Whitney, and I thought that was very old Eric. That\u2019s the Eric we know. He\u2019s marshaling all his Eric-ness to do this final pitch, this battle, this last stand, as you say, to save everything that\u2019s important to him now. It\u2019s kind of a heroic scene. I was excited to play it.<\/p>\n

I spoke with Charlie Heaton<\/a>, and he told me Industry is filmed almost guerrilla style, and there\u2019s not as much of an emphasis on continuity as there is on the actors doing what feels right. What energy did you want to bring to this moment, aside from all the Eric-ness?\u00a0
For that scene, it was a very formal setting. I didn\u2019t play it as if Eric was so used to being on talk shows like this. He\u2019s like, \u201cWhat is this thing? I guess this is what the gladiator arena looks like today.\u201d That scene didn\u2019t feel so much like what Charlie\u2019s talking about. There are moments where you\u2019ll be going through something, or find something that maybe you didn\u2019t plan for, and they just will keep the camera running to see what happens. And what happens, you don\u2019t even know \u2014 and that\u2019s thrilling. That\u2019s because you\u2019re in a lived space. You\u2019re more than making a show; you\u2019re trying to capture something ineffable. That happens all over the place, but not so much for the CNN scene because it\u2019s such a set piece. There\u2019s a certain way you have to sit and behave.<\/p>\n

If not in the CNN scene, where do you think that happened this season?
The scene when I\u2019m eating and Harper comes in. We have this exchange, and she slaps me with, \u201cWhat do you think this is?\u201d I say something like, \u201cIs that all I am to you, a business partner?\u201d And she\u2019s like, \u201cWhat else do you think it is?\u201d And having come into this season the way we were talking about previously, that was like a bucket of cold water on me. She storms out, and in that moment, that\u2019s a cold reality. Everything is saying to Eric, You\u2019re no longer making stuff. Stuff is happening to you. And I had a breakdown during that, after she left, that I didn\u2019t expect to have. That was one. And then the final moment of signing over the business to her, another breakdown I didn\u2019t expect to have.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that we don\u2019t see it. It makes me curious about where the performance ends and then the making of the show begins. Sometimes you\u2019ll go through something really intense and it doesn\u2019t quite fit in the show. Maybe it\u2019s too much; maybe we\u2019ve not come far enough to know the character this way. But you as the actor have gone through something real. You carry that with you, regardless of what makes it into the quote-unquote show. It\u2019s almost like there\u2019s a show, and then there\u2019s a shadow show. Maybe because that\u2019s in the DNA, we feel something, even if we don\u2019t see something. And I love that. I don\u2019t know any other show I can talk about this way. I think it\u2019s unique to Industry.<\/p>\n

The scene where Eric signs over the partnership, I was very emotional watching that. When we cut away, I wondered how he was feeling, what he was doing.\u00a0
He disintegrates, to the point where he has to tell the lawyer to leave the room. Myha\u2019la checked in on me for the week following, asking \u201cAre you okay?\u201d [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

How did you prepare for that?\u00a0
That is an amazing question, partially because it\u2019s so beyond words. I don\u2019t prepare for the scene. I prepare to be as supple as possible. I prepare to be ready, and as naked as possible. Depending on what side of the bed you wake up, that can take some doing sometimes, and other times, you\u2019re there already. It\u2019s something you can only prepare for that day. You can\u2019t prepare for days in advance. You can\u2019t even prepare for it hours in advance. You have to only prepare for it right before it happens, and that\u2019s really beautiful about acting, because it\u2019s not even something you can learn. It\u2019s an agreement. It\u2019s, Do I say yes to now or not? And it\u2019s not a brain yes. It\u2019s a body yes. To be in a field where that is even a question is a miracle.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that<\/a> Eric sees Harper as a version of the younger him, which made me wonder in this scene, is Eric saying goodbye to a portion of himself? Did you and Myha\u2019la talk about that scene beforehand?\u00a0
No, we didn\u2019t talk about it. And that\u2019s not to say we didn\u2019t talk, but we were very gentle with each other before that scene. We\u2019re very in tune with each other as actors. I know when to be playful and when to joke around. But that was a very fragile scene.<\/p>\n

Did you have to do a lot of takes?
I have to say, I couldn\u2019t, because I looked different. My face was puffy after that scene. I couldn\u2019t do it that many times. I do remember I was given the option for my coverage to be first or for her coverage to be first, and I chose to be first. Because if you\u2019re going to say yes, then say yes right now. I\u2019m not going to say yes in 10 minutes. I\u2019m going to say it right now. I was glad for that.<\/p>\n

Was it the last thing you shot?\u00a0
I don\u2019t think it was the last thing I shot. The last thing we shot was me and Dolly in the bedroom, which is hilarious, because that day happened to be the table read for the final block, which I am not in. Everybody was around. After the scene with Dolly, I have this awkward modesty thing strapped under my pants. I opened the door, I\u2019m about to wrap, and everyone is there. Everyone is there. There was this amazing, beautiful moment with everybody.<\/p>\n

The walk away was one of the final scenes. There were a lot of scenes with Serrana that didn\u2019t make it, which despite the logic of the show and whatever reasons they have, I feel is unfortunate, because she is amazing. I would love the world to see more of Serrana. It created a lot of shadow scenes that inform what we do see. Before the walk, I have this moment with her. I notice that she wears a nose ring, and I blow up because it reminds me of Harper. I immediately regret blowing up, and my wife is there, and I say, \u201cI\u2019m going to go get a pack of cigarettes,\u201d just to extricate myself. My daughter runs away, and then I turn around and I leave, and that\u2019s the walk.<\/p>\n

Did you know the Joni Mitchell song \u201cBoth Sides Now\u201d would be playing over that? Did you have any input?\u00a0
No, I thought it\u2019d be in silence. I pictured it in silence. And it was a long walk! We don\u2019t even see it all. We did it a few times. I was told to take my time and walk in a straight line. It was a really beautiful, meditative thing. It was always from behind. The story wasn\u2019t about what he\u2019s feeling, or even where he\u2019s going. The story of it was that he\u2019s walking away.<\/p>\n

I have to ask whether it\u2019s the end for your character.
I don\u2019t know that. Whatever happens, I do feel that it\u2019s an end. There\u2019s no clearer punctuation to that than the way it happens.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s helpful to know the scene that came before the walk, and that there was more of Eric trying to figure out who Lily is, and how he can relate to her.
And failing, and then sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The moment when he realizes what Whitney has on him, Lily is in the middle of saying something to him.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s saying \u201cI love you.\u201d\u00a0
Yeah. And this is what he wants! A perfect opportunity! If you want to know her, then at least look at her when she says, \u201cI love you.\u201d But he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment in \u201cEyes Without a Face\u201d where you and Harper are talking about Tender\u2019s tactics, and Harper says, \u201cWhy are we holding ourselves to any ethical standard when they have none? We\u2019re gonna lose the war because they are willing to fight dirty and we\u2019re not.\u201d I was curious watching that scene what Eric\u2019s ethics or moral code are at this point.\u00a0
This is the part of Harper in which he recognizes a younger him. It\u2019s almost like I\u2019ve taught her too well. At a time where I\u2019m trying to be a different kind of person, or learn to be a different kind of person \u2014 a.k.a., father \u2014 she is going all in with what resembles the old me. I can\u2019t blame her. I did this. Eric would take all the credit for it. It\u2019s that kind of discovery for him.<\/p>\n

Do you think his ethical or moral code changes over the series?
Yeah, he\u2019s shocked by the effect he has on people. Sometimes it\u2019s like, I didn\u2019t mean to do that. I meant to do this. To talk about my daughter again, I\u2019m not present, and still, she learns lessons from me as if I was present. This season, he starts to see that kind of mirror, whereas before, he never looked in the mirror, or knew there was a mirror to look into. As far as morality, he was taught a lot of this stuff. He was concerned with the morality of making it, and what it takes to get ahead for a person of color in this kind of cutthroat business. Well, I was taught a certain way. I had to absorb a lot of racism and whatever treatment to even be here. In his mind, I think it\u2019s a fluid thing. It shifts.<\/p>\n

As you said earlier, Eric is so haunted by Adler. He feels the impact of his actions. In the season premiere, Harper says, \u201cWithout an economic function, society buries you before you\u2019re dead,\u201d which made me wonder what\u2019s next for Eric. Are you an actor who thinks about what might happen to your character after your time playing them has ended?
I love this quote, I try to live by it. Different people have said it in different ways. The quote is, \u201cWalker, there is no path. The path is made by walking.\u201d That is where I would leave Eric. It will be revealed by his next step. That\u2019s part of what I\u2019ve been talking about when I say \u201clistening\u201d to how to play him versus \u201cdeciding\u201d how to play him. To think about, or predict, or imagine where he would be after the show is antithetical to that. So I don\u2019t know. I do know he\u2019s an addict. Harper and him are both addicts of a certain kind of thrill, a certain kind of action. I would hope that he sees through that, but it\u2019s equally easy to imagine that he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Similar to that, if this were the end of you being on the show, is there an overarching observation you would want to make about playing Eric Tao?\u00a0
I never imagined I\u2019d get to play a character where I could play him this way, and have the kind of freedom to listen to how I play. I\u2019ll never forget it. I don\u2019t really think of it in the past. I\u2019ll carry him inside of me, to some degree, I think forever. It\u2019d be easy to say, \u201cI\u2019m thankful, I\u2019m grateful.\u201d I think it\u2019s beyond that. I think it\u2019s part of me, and I just feel really lucky. You can be an actor your whole life and not get a role like this.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\n Newman was Eric\u2019s racist mentor at the controversial hedge fund\u00a0Long-Term Capital Management, toward whom he holds complicated feelings of affection and resentment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spoilers follow for the fourth season of Industry through the sixth episode, \u201cDear Henry,\u201d which premiered on HBO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[91110,88,106221,7263,218858,138534,8901,92,10677,19665],"class_list":{"0":"post-471586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-a-long-talk","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-exit-interview","11":"tag-industry","12":"tag-industry-season-4","13":"tag-ken-leung","14":"tag-spoilers","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-vulture-homepage-lede","17":"tag-vulture-section-lede"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}