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Spoilers follow for Jerusalem, the season-two finale ofIndustry.
After a season of lows, Eric ends on a high.
The way the firing plays out doesnt feel like an Eric win.
Ken Leung, who plays Eric, certainly thinks so.
At the end he does this protective thing, he told Vulture.
It doesnt seem protective, but it is.
Konrad Kay and Mickey Downhave said they didnt write enough for you in season one.
Eric was a bold color.
With season two, we went underneath.
Eric was not in his element working from home, and his numbers reflect that.
That was all fun to play only because we had that first base of the bold color.
You cant go under something that you dont build, so the building of the foundational stuff was great.
The two seasons are so different and serve different purposes in the storytelling.
The boldest color on Eric is often anger.
How do you approach Erics angry scenes?I dont have an overall plan.
You take a scene and, for that moment, that scene is your whole world.
OnIndustry, we were good at trying out different things.
We would improvise and go, Whats fun to try?
I remember last season, a big question was,What did you say to Felims wife?
That was so hard to answer for completely invisible reasons.
Whats great about that is it creates this layering.
From that it’s possible for you to intuit the making of the choice.
In the elevator, before they come out, he says, Im doing this for you.
The way good shows are made is that the audience plays a part.
We give you these certain pieces and then you provide your own piece.
That makes it a kind of two-way thing.
Im not showing you something and youre sitting back folding your arms.
Together we make the story.
He loses that in season two.
Hes just lost his mentor who inspired him to have this reality creator mentality.
Pieces are falling away.
Its like,How do I get back to the thing I do?Success becomes about survival.
Theres a very telling moment for me personally when Eric goes into the elevator and theres Harper and DVD.
I dont think its obvious to the audience, but he has just come back from therapy.
He doesnt have to step into that elevator, hes obviously in a state, but he does.
He goes in with his crap and his messiness.
Hes damaged, but hes still trying to stand tall.
It comes from this place of wanting to get some of that mojo back.
She gives him something nobody else gives him.
He does it in such desperation and moral ambiguity that it reveals how lost he is.
Eric is so moved by seeing that office replicated that hes trying to smell him in the hat.
Hes trying to keep him alive.
Did Newman being a Trump supporter change how you looked at that relationship?I dont think so.
Erics love of Newman didnt have anything to do with his political beliefs.
Its a piece of him.
When youve lost somebody, any piece of that person, you dont judge that piece.
It just happens to be a MAGA hat.
The very fact that Eric accepts Harper to mentor is because he sees something in her.
Theres something about Asian men and Black women.
Unconsciously, maybe, that played a part in him taking her under his tutelage.
When Vulturetalked to Jay Duplassabout this season, he referred toIndustryas a brutal experience.[Laughs.]
I can see how one could say that.
I dont see it that way.
It wasnt brutal in the sense ofOh, I wish I wasnt here.
It fed into this mindset.
I like being in the zone.
I like trying to be a new person for a while and then leaving it.
It was a scheduling thing, no creative reasons.
It was this really kind of choppy experience.
Hes not written as a person.
Hes a cartoon!Right, hes literally a cartoon.
But were not making a cartoon, so you have to find the person in that.
That made it very difficult.
The thing aboutAvatarwas, its so beloved.
Why the baseball bat?The baseball bat is a perfect metaphor for Eric.
Its the whole character in an object.
Its threatening, its scary, its out of place, and yet it can easily be broken.
Is that why you chose the wooden bat?Thats exactly why I chose it.
I was given a selection, and it was the only wooden one.
The others were aluminum.
I felt an organic relationship with the bat.
It was also so out of place on the trading floor.
That dichotomy was interesting for people, but the bat is deeper.
Did you feel a certain swagger walking around with the bat?You cant not.
Its like your partner.
But the thing about the bat is,why do you need a bat unless you feel threatened?
The swagger covers it up.
But why do you need a threatening weapon unless you are afraid of being attacked?
Its a scary thing.
When he really cares about somebody, we see that.
