Cory Stillman
“Before Eric’s wife left him, I thought a lot about their sex life,” says Industry star Ken Leung. “And I had a very specific idea of their relationship, that she was the so-called ‘pants wearer’ in that relationship.”
Leung’s Eric Tao has been a formidable force on the Pierpoint trading floor since the HBO series’ debut in November of 2020. But in a show so sexually charged, Eric’s own sexual proclivities remained largely irrelevant. Of course, that did not stop Leung from filling in the blanks of his character’s private life, and that imagination paid dividends in the show’s miraculous third season, which expands upon Eric and the entirety of the cast in ways both expected and shocking.
Perhaps Eric’s most striking moment of season three comes in the privacy of a bathroom stall, where Eric masturbates to completion after drunkenly harassing (and being rejected by) his mentee/employee Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela). As Eric unravels both personally and professionally, his sexuality emerges as a particular wound, much like the rest of Industry‘s troubled cast of power brokers. From a performance standpoint, however, Eric hopelessly pleasuring himself in such a confined space was no more vulnerable for Leung than any other sequence in the character’s season three downfall.
“The vulnerability should always be an engine,” Leung explains. “Sometimes you show it, sometimes you cover it up, sometimes it comes out in the form of masturbating in a public bathroom.”
That notion of vulnerability is a uniquely fruitful topic in a show like Industry, where characters are often patching up their vulnerabilities with sex, money, power, drugs, etc. Leung acknowledges the logistical vulnerability of shooting a scene like the one in the bathroom stall, but his emotional perspective on the scene was one of shame rather than openness. After all, Eric’s role has often been to squash any signs of vulnerability both on the trading floor and beyond. It’s part of what drives him to fire Kenny, rather than Yasmin, early on in season three.
“I don’t think it was a protecting Yasmin, it was a killing of anything vulnerable,” says Leung. “Any sign of weakness, certainly anybody shining a spotlight on his vulnerability.”
Eric’s emotional honesty may render him a wrecking ball at the center of several of Industry‘s most compelling and explosive conflicts, but Ken Leung was fortunately very open and considerate in our conversation for Awards Radar. Check out the full discussion below to hear more of Leung’s thoughts on Eric, as well as his understanding of the complex financial world in which the character resides.
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