TheIndustrystar is just as ambitious as her junior-banker character.
I dont act crazy.
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They did some acting exercises and communed with sheep.
Youre the best actor in the world, and I literally love everything you do.
Shed needed to hear that.
The days before shooting had been a strange purgatory for Herrold.
The psychological vertigo she described came from an acute case of impostor syndrome.
She could have spiraled or choked or panicked, but that night at Dunhams, Herrold remembered herself.
I mean, Im an Aries.
You aint gonna tell me nothing.
She realized Dunhams advice was a truth she already knew, then she relaxed.
They cast me for a reason, she says.
one of Herrolds castmates asked, saying out loud what they all were wondering.
I was like,Whaaaaaaat?!
she says, laughing.
This is the focus she brings to herIndustrycharacter controlled, calm, collected.
While all the characters are willing to go to great lengths to succeed, Harper goes the furthest.
Shes a budding Machiavelli, but she hasnt developed all the cunning necessary to stick the landing.
When Herrold first met Harper on the page, she didnt quite understand the way she was written.
She was kind of shy and sweaty-palmed and apologetic.
Because we cant do that.
Theyre not going to, you know what I mean?
That is just not realistic to me.
Whatever you have, fill it.
So I just filled it with me.
Herrold brings a certain physicality to Harper.
It was just the two of them during Herrolds childhood in San Jose, California.
What she does talk a lot about is hanging out at Water Rituals, her mothers salon.
She would come over after school and do her homework or make little potions out of different hair products.
Often, she would sit and talk with her mothers customers.
All her clients were obsessed with me, she says.
As for the rest of her childhood?
The weather is great, she says.
Shes growing out a Kelis-red dye job and gestures to her eight months of roots.
But as in most origin stories, feeling like an outcast was useful.
Her mother never once asked if she had a plan B.
She was never concerned about a job, Herrold says.
She just believed that I was going to make it happen.
I do attribute that confidence and love for myself to her completely.
When it came time for college, she auditioned for the ten best schools.
I had a reckless abandon about me, she says.
I got into quite a few schools that I applied to, which was very nice.
She slurps a noodle in defiance of the humility women are expected to display to downplay their achievements.
And then I told everyone who didnt think I deserved it to kick rocks.
She decided to study musical theater at Carnegie Mellon.
She found her people, friends whom she still sees for Friends-giving, Halloween, and birthdays.
I was also like,The paycheck is cute.
That obstacle was actually an opportunity, shed realized.
She started auditioning for TV gigs.
A week later, she had the job.
Industryis a showabout money, but its also about control.
Its essentiallyCluefor Gen Z and has the ingredients to be a buzzy career booster.
Herrold stars alongside Lee Pace, Rachel Sennott, and Pete Davidson.
The shoot required Herrold to act in a storm simulator with giant sprinklers and fans that generate 40-mph winds.
Herrold has been learning more about control in regard to her professional life.
He slid into her Instagram DMs to congratulate her on the show; she DMd him back.
They Zoomed for almost two hours and kept talking hours a day for a month.
Im corny as hell, and Im here to tell the tales, she says, laughing.
I was really afraid of being seen as the American diva, she explains.
When I came in, there were so many people who were like, Here comes No.
Oh, she must be a diva, but I realized I was my only advocate.
If I didnt speak up for myself, no one was going to go out of their way.
She also firmly requested the kind of pubic hair she wanted on her genital prosthetic.
I made them add more hair.
I was like, Thats not enough bush for me.
You better be able to braid it or I dont want it.
Ultimately, though, it didnt matter.
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