Harry Lawtey doesn’t quite understand what makes his Industry character, Robert — a sad, striving banker with both mommy issues and an inferiority complex — so swoon-worthy to viewers. “My initial impression when I first read him was that he was a bit of a sleaze and very arrogant and kind of annoying,” Lawtey says, Zooming in from London. We’re talking on the eve of the biggest week of his career so far: Industry just finished its third season on Max, and his first major Hollywood franchise, Joker: Foile à Deux, hits theaters Friday.
But while Robert has always been portrayed as “a whole snack” — which is how co-star Myha’la refers to him in the pilot — Lawtey says it took some time to develop Robert’s emotional core: “It became a mission to try and make Robert’s heart visible in every scene. Ultimately he is a good person who’s doing his best and making ill-judged choices.”
Much to Industry fans’ dismay, Lawtey believes Robert and his colleague and roommate Yasmin’s (Marisa Abela) relationship is one of those choices. Personally, the actor is more inclined to romanticize stability than a cat-and-mouse situationship like the one on the show — in no small part because his parents met when they were 12 and have been together since they were 17. “My mom remembers seeing my dad in a production of My Fair Lady and thinking he was really cool,” says Lawtey, who was born in the UK and raised on a British military base in Cyprus before moving to London for acting school. “I’ve grown up with continuity, which is a real blessing because I don’t think everyone has that.”
So what’s Lawtey’s take on Rob and Yas’s turn in the season finale? Spoilers ahead! “They are two ill-suited people that love each other,” he says. “I do believe there’s a world in which that works and they could be very happy, but that’s just not the world that they live in.”
Below, Lawtey discusses the sub-dom dynamic of Robert and Yasmin’s relationship, his love of Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and starring as Harvey Dent in Joker.
I’m very eager to discuss the finale with you, but before we do, let’s go back to the penultimate episode. There was one line Robert said to Yasmin that felt so indicative of how far they’ve come in their relationship. He tells her: “Whatever vulnerability you’re feeling now, sit in it. Because we’re beyond the game.”
It’s funny, I definitely thought about that line a lot in the year since we filmed the scene. If I find myself in a slightly uncomfortable position, it’s a really useful self-mantra: “You know what? This is the way you’re feeling. You’ve got to experience it and try to engage with it like a healthy human being.”
Part of growing up is realizing you can’t necessarily control the things you feel. So I think what he’s trying to say to her in that moment is: “Who is this version of yourself that you’re playing? Who is it for? There’s no one else here but me. I know you, and I know what this is. So can we just stop pretending?”
Something that comes up time and time again with Robert is that while the rest of the characters hide behind walls, he’s the only one who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it felt very cathartic to watch him ask her to put her guard down.
I’m glad. I think you’re right that Robert doesn’t really have any walls. I think he’d like to have walls. But this season Robert reaches a junction when he realizes his emotional vulnerability is quite alarming for Yasmin, who lives surrounded by walls. He knows there’s no future for them unless they can break each other down.
I read that initially Robert was the more dominant one and Yasmin’s kink was validation, not control. Do you remember when the dynamic shifted, and why?
Oh, I didn’t know that. I suppose in the original script, the sub-dom dynamic of their chemistry was probably more equitable. It probably has more to do with the fact that — for good or bad — they ended up with me playing [Robert]. There are significant pieces of all of us in the work, and I think that very much informed that dynamic with Yasmin and her wearing the trousers.
Basically what you’re saying is you don’t bring the dom energy?
Essentially, yeah. [Laughs.]
The more melancholy Robert gets, the more Twitter seems to thirst for him. Why do you think the internet is so turned on by Sad Boy Energy?
I have no idea. I try not to really engage. One of my friends is watching the show weekly and routinely goes on Twitter afterwards and sends me his favorite memes, which I’m far from delighted about. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s that Robert’s the least robotic of the characters.
You’re beet red.
It’s all kind of embarrassing, to be honest.
Let’s talk about the finale. The scenes at Henry’s estate felt more dreamlike and romantic than anything we’ve seen on the show before.
It felt like making a whole separate movie. Everyone else had wrapped on the show already, and then we had two weeks where we were doing the road trip to Wales and then the country house straight afterward.
The moment at the dinner table, where everyone disappears, is one I’m particularly proud of. I knew that when they cut the scene together, they were going to use tight close-ups of us. So I asked [co-creators] Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay], “Would it be OK if all the other cast were not in the room for those? So it could feel like me and Marisa have this stillness that we can make the most of?” And just before we were about to do it, I think it was Mickey who was like, “We might just do this, we might have everyone disappear.” Which is not very Industry. There are a few throw-some-dice moments in this season that were stylistic departures from what we’ve done before. But it genuinely came out of me and Marisa trying to ask for something that would logistically help us with the performance.
It’s such a beautiful but devastating scene, to watch Robert realize he’s lost her to Henry in real time. Do you think Yasmin is really in love with Robert? And do you think Robert thinks so?
When we did the scene on the bench outside, the intimate scene, someone asked me, “Does she know what she’s going to do at that point?” All I can speak for is Robert, and in that moment, he thinks: This is it. It’s happening. We’re happening. I don’t think he would’ve [had sex with her] if he didn’t believe that.
I think she is in love with him but chooses money and practicality over that.
I think I agree with that, if I had to pin my colors to the mast.
And Yasmin is making that choice in the wake of extreme trauma, and to some extent, you can’t begrudge that decision. It leaves Robert by the wayside, but I think it is something he accepts — that he is not really made for this world, and he’s not made for her. The sooner he realizes that, the sooner he stops trying to aspire to be someone he is not, the happier he will be.
You seem to have an affinity for love stories. I’ve read that Alain de Botton’s The Course of Love is one of your favorite books.
I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite book, but it’s certainly a book I feel passionate about. I read it in the wake of a breakup that was difficult. I wouldn’t say it’s a self-help book, but there are nonfiction portions to it. It flips back and forth between a narrative story and the author speaking candidly as himself, using the story as a jumping-off point to talk about life, relationships, and love.
What are some of your favorite books?
I read Cleopatra and Frankenstein [by Coco Mellors] while we were doing Season 3. I thought that book was so delicate, intelligent, and nuanced. Everyone felt incredibly three-dimensional, and it didn’t go anywhere I expected it to go. I knew after two chapters, before Googling it, they were definitely going to make that into a TV show.
It’s a shame you’re too young to play Frank.
I feel embarrassed to be so self-interested but that was one of the first things I thought about.
How does your parents’ long relationship inform the relationships you have?
I don’t know if I’d ever thought about whether that’s had much impact on me. They know each other really, really well. I’ve grown up looking at my mom and dad as a really functional, successful team. They equalize their differences. They’re very different people in lots of ways, but they work really well together.
Filming [Joker] in America, I would send my mom and dad a voice note in the evening, then they would wake up to it, listen to it, and send one back. Then I would listen to it when I woke up. I was so excited to be making the film, and I really wanted to share that with my family. In a way, I felt more connected to them than I do sometimes at home because we had this lovely yo-yo of communication. I look back on it as a really precious part of the job.
What were some of the other most memorable parts of filming Joker?
It was a treasure trove. Seeing Lady Gaga sing — that’s pretty iconic. And the first time I ever saw Joaquin was in a scene where he was walking into the room. The [footage] we were going for was essentially my reaction to him walking in. So when we rolled cameras for the first time on my face, that was the first time I ever saw Joaquin in the flesh. It was utterly surreal.
There have been many iterations of Joker, and as such, many of Harvey Dent. Were there any past takes on the role you drew from?
There’s a lovely heritage to these characters that is almost Shakespearean. There is something of a Hamlet or a Macbeth in Joker in the sense that these are very complex characters that you are given license to inherit and take in the direction you wish. And within the comic books, there are so many different incarnations of these characters, so it’s kind of baked into the culture that there is no fixed ideology of who these people are.
That’s a really great thing I don’t think enough people pay attention to, because I think a lot of people worry about the toxicity around the genre and the sort of possessiveness of fandom. But in actual fact, the source material is almost anti-possessive. There’s a myriad of different backstories for Harvey Dent, for example. I was able to go and have a look and pluck out the ones that I felt served me and served the story. It’s very unique to this world.
What excites you most about having Joker out in the world?
I realize how much my parents have sacrificed to bring me to this place and let me go train [and attend acting school in London] at 13. I don’t mean this in any kind of heroic way, but a lot of what I do is for them now. They’re going to come to the premiere in London, and I’m just so glad that they’ll see it. So much of my aspiration now is about them seeing stuff. They come on set for every job I do, they have a great day every time they do, and by default, I have a great day.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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