Cory Stillman
Anyone who has tracked Marisa Abela‘s magnificent performance as Yasmin Kara-Hanani on HBO’s Industry over the course of its first three seasons is likely not surprised to find the young actress’ star rising so rapidly in Hollywood and beyond. With impressive turns in last year’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black and the more recent Steven Soderbergh spy thriller Black Bag (reviewed by Joey here), Abela has already demonstrated impressive range beyond her television breakout role. Even alongside a star-studded cast with such talents as Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, and more, Abela truly stole her every scene in Black Bag.
No wonder she is already attached to Soderbergh’s next project.
Of course, Abela’s work on Industry remains the most acclaimed of her career, even nabbing her a BAFTA Rising Star nomination earlier this year (the award eventually went to her Industry co-star David Jonsson for his role in Alien: Romulus.) As Abela continues to chip away at Yasmin’s ambitious and icy exterior, she also learns more and more about the young heiress and the cracks in her identity.
“The fun thing is when she falls into the slipstream of who she is supposed to be and what she is destined to say in certain moments,” says Abela.
Indeed, these questions of fate and destiny have become increasingly essential to Industry in its third season, which ups the stakes for its entire ensemble, but particularly for Yasmin, who faces unique pressures under the public eye. In a way, the character’s rise to infamy aligns with Abela’s own celebrity ascension, which is quite fortunately devoid of the controversy that mars her onscreen counterpart. But even as the young star recognizes those similarities between herself and Yasmin, she is committed to identifying other entry points into her performance.
“I think it’s always my job to find the points of difference first,” says Abela. “By the nature of the job, because I’m playing her, there will be points of similarity.”
Perhaps that philosophy explains the intriguing similarities between Yasmin and Clarissa, Abela’s character in Black Bag. Because both Industry and Black Bag concern themselves with sexuality and the ways in which it is weaponized both personally and professionally, it is only natural that Abela lends both characters a similar sense of confidence and seduction. Ultimately, she is drawn to the intelligence and emotional complexity of both women, and it certainly does not hurt to have such dense and articulate scripts at her disposal.
“You as an actor are deciding whether or not their verbosity is because they have a really good understanding of their emotions, or the complete opposite,” says Abela. “There is a lot of time and space to fill what you are saying with either the genuine intention of the sentence, or the subtext of what might be going on underneath it.”
Check out our full conversation with the talented Marisa Abela below!
Cory Stillman: Hi Marisa! The first thing i want to ask you about is actually not Industry, but rather Black Bag. I really mean it when I say you truly stole every scene in in that film, acting alongside some pretty major icons of the industry. What was it like for you to be a part of an ensemble with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett and the like?
Marisa Abela: It was amazing! I guess when I first heard about the project and the possibility of doing it, I was just kind of overwhelmed for that exact reason, like everyone that was attached to it – from David Koepp to Steven Soderbergh to Cate and Michael and also Tom Burke – I was just so excited to work with everyone. I was definitely nervous to step on set on day one, and my first day was our big dinner table scene so I knew I kind of had to bring it from day one but for me personally that’s the best way to go.
I was having this conversation with Michael when we were doing press and he was saying that he prefers his day one to be a scene where he’s not saying anything or he has to come in and say one line just so he can sort of suss out the vibe and say hello to everyone, but for some reason I’m the opposite. I feel really weird if I start slow so it’s great to just jump right in.
CS: Industry and Black Bag both feature scripts that are fairly dense and even rely on certain jargon. Is that something you enjoy as an actress?
MA: Emotionally articulate people are very interesting to play because as an actor, you are deciding whether or not their verbosity is because they have a really good understanding of their emotions, or the complete opposite. There is a lot of time and space to fill what you’re saying with either the genuine intention of the sentence, or the subtext of what might be going on underneath it. But I find it’s just as intriguing and challenging and nuanced to experience everything your character would be experiencing if they either don’t have the language to express it, or they don’t need to express themselves. Those are sometimes my favorite scenes as well and I really love playing intelligent characters, but that can come in all different shapes and size. That can be an incredibly emotionally intelligent and articulate person that doesn’t necessarily know how to put that to words. It’s a great question and I think that there are massive pros and cons to to both and I think it’s good to practice both. As an actor, sometimes the real skill is saying to your director or your writer “I really think i can say that line with my eyes rather than just saying it out loud.”
CS: I actually spoke to both Sagar Radia and Ken Leung for the site as well and I asked them this same question because i do find this interesting…When you first join a show like Industry and especially as you now enter its fourth season, how has your understanding and relationship with the show’s financial jargon evolved over time?
MA: I guess you get more and more comfortable with it as you go along, whether or not that’s the actual language itself or the kind of sensory relationship to this world that you understand. At the very beginning in season one, I didn’t really understand what someone’s physical and emotional relationship to the world of finance would be, let alone understand all of the jargon. You know, it’s exclusive for a reason. It definitely takes a while to just be confident enough to say it at a lick, to just really come out with it. It’s like speaking a foreign language in a way…you can practice it over and over and over again, but if you’re not really confident with what the words mean and what you’re stressing, then it’s always going to sound slightly foreign in your mouth. You just have to be quite confident with it and the truth is that if you say something that’s maybe not what someone would say in the real situation, most of the audience are willing to forgive that. It’s mostly about the sentiment behind what you’re saying and the confidence with which you say it. I’ve definitely grown more and more comfortable with the world of finance as I’ve done this show for for such a long time now.
CS: I wanted to ask you about your relationship Marisa with Yasmin. This is a character whose celebrity and profile we have seen rise within the universe of Industry as the show has gone on, and I think it is safe to say that’s been true for you as well as the series has gone on. I’m curious how your relationship with the character has grown over the show’s first few seasons?
MA: I think it’s always my job to find the points of difference first. By the nature of the job, because I’m playing her, there will be points of similarity. I might say a line as Yasmin that I read as funny, whereas someone else might think of it as deadly serious, so just by the nature of playing her there will be moments where there are parts of Marisa that kind of seep out in her, but I think that that’s why when I’m doing the work I’m really striving to find the points of difference so that she really feels different to me. In season one, it was just so important that she felt authentic and she felt like a real person in this world. I was more concerned with her intentions at each point than I was with really wringing every drop of what this whole rounded human could be. At this point now in season four, I’m really making those choices every time because I’m hellbent on audiences not feeling like they know exactly who she is at each moment, and how she’s going to respond to things. As the seasons go on I would say Yasmin has become a bit more bold, which can sometimes slot you into a sort of arch character or an archetype of a person, and I think it’s my job to try and and fight away from that because humans don’t want to feel like an archetype. So i think that would be what Yasmin is doing, but the fun thing is when she just falls into the slipstream of who she is supposed to be and of what she is sort of destined to say in certain moments. I’m filming right now so there are moments in my head that are coming up where she is really fighting becoming this person that I think, if you watch season three, you sort of can see she’s going down the path on. It’s just as fun to watch her fight against that as it is to watch her really lean into it.
CS: I think it is fair to say that season three really pushed the creative envelope and broadened the show’s ambition and scope. Was that evident to all of you as you were making it? Is it something you are sensing on season four as well?
MA: Yeah definitely! I definitely felt the show expand and get bigger, not only in terms of story but also in terms of casting. More and more people were joining the show and the show felt bigger and bigger. It definitely felt epic. [Showrunners] Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay] have always been really ambitious, but it felt like they had the confidence not just in themselves, but the confidence of HBO maybe as well to really go for it in season three, so I could feel it. Also my storyline in particular felt so outside of the world of Pierpoint. As desperate as Yasmin was to keep her job and and stay afloat, the main bulk of what I was doing was this insane story in Mallorca.
Season four feels the same way. Season three ended in quite a big way and and this next season is jumping off from that point. Mickey and Konrad are directing episodes one and two and sometimes when we’re filming, I’ll look at them and be like “do you remember season one? Do you remember what that was compared to this?”
CS: Lastly, are you also a polyglot like Yasmin? Can you speak all those languages as well?
MA: I wish! I think I probably lied in my audition but I’m a hard worker so I tried to make it sound as fluent as possible.
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