Industry star Harry Lawtey says major season three death ‘was a shock to me’

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*Warning, major ‘Industry’ season three spoilers to follow*

Industry star Harry Lawtey, who plays party boy Robert Spearing in the popular finance drama, has addressed the shocking character death that occurs in the first episode of the show’s third season.

HBO’s hit Succession-esque series about a group of recent college graduates fighting for a limited number of spots at London’s top investment bank returned last week on Max.

Toward the end of the new season’s first episode, titled “Il Mattino Ha L’Oro in Boca,” Robert pays a home visit to his predatory client Nicole (Sarah Parish), where she welcomes him in, and the two have sex. Afterward, as the two are enjoying a drink together, Robert confides in Nicole about his financial woes and professional insecurities.

“Why do you stay after you f*** me?” Nicole asks, with Robert quipping: “Here’s me thinking we were making love. I don’t know why I’m still here.”

“You desire me. We get each other off. You’re you with me,” she answers for him before he adds: “I don’t need this toff CEO to say ‘well done’ to me.”

“Yeah, you do. That’s all you’ve ever wanted,” Nicole retorts, “Validation of your betters. And functioning codependencies with someone as f***ed up as you are.”

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The next morning, Robert is seen waking up to find Nicole lying dead with her head on his chest. As he abruptly gets up her body rolls off the pool chair the two of them fell asleep on.

In a new interview with Vogue about Nicole’s death, Lawtey revealed: “It was a shock to me absolutely when I read it.”

Speaking about the impact of her character’s sudden passing, he added: “It sees the end of a really significant relationship for Robert – one that in itself is very confusing and wrapped up in all sorts of ideas around power and motherhood and consent. He has this absented figure of a mother who he is clearly trying to replace in the most ordinary way, by latching onto someone significant, someone older, who he feels like he can be nurtured by either professionally or personally.

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“But then he is put into a position in the previous season where he is forced to rethink whether his gateway to that relationship was consensual, whether he was coerced, whether he was a victim of an abuse of power, and whether that is even possible for him. It’s something I don’t think – in his fairly one-track masculine psyche – he’s ever really pondered,” the 27-year-old British actor continued.

In season two, Nicole inappropriately came on to Robert in the car after their client dinner. She previously did the same thing to his co-worker Harper (Myha’la Herrold) in the first season. Harper, however, declined her advances.

“I suppose the byproduct of that maelstrom of ideas is just to keep on returning to [the relationship] in the hope that he will figure it out,” Lawtey said. “And then the one night he does, she’s gone and he’s left with the grief and confusion. We’ve seen him lose a lot of people over the course of the show, which is why he is getting to the point he’s considering whether he is cursed. He’s been put through the wringer.”

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Lawtey praised his co-star Parish, saying she’s “been such a fantastic addition to the show from the beginning. She has, in a very short amount of screen time, always made such an impact.”

Industry creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay recently confirmed to IndieWire that Nicole’s death was caused by a cardiac event, sharing that they decided on this manner of death because “it felt realistic.”

“Her slipping and bumping her head or Robert knifing her to death would’ve changed the tenor of the show,” Kay said. “For it to play the way it played was really important. We definitely went for shock value – not in a cynical way.”

Explaining the reason for killing off Nicole, Down said: “There’s the practicality of having something quite interesting and exciting happen in the first episode to a character that we’ve spent so much time with.

“But it also catalyzed one of the most important arcs of the season, which is Robert’s relationship to death, mortality, his ambition, and the fact that everyone around him just seems to die. Female figures of influence always die around him, which brings back memories of his mom and the trauma he had from the relationship with her.”

Industry season three airs each Sunday on Max in the US. The third season is expected to be available to stream on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK at a later date. Seasons one and two are available to stream on Sky in the UK.