Even Industry’s Max Minghella Isn’t Sure How Whitney Really Feels About Henry

This story contains spoilers for Industry season four episode six, “Dear Henry.”

Although he’s a veteran of Oscar and Emmy winning projects, Max Minghella calls his current run on Industry the most rewarding experience of his career. Through six episodes as shady businessman Whitney Halberstram, the Social Network alum has gotten plenty of juicy scenes and monologues, but nothing quite compares to the moment he channels pop history’s most famous Whitney during Sunday’s episode.

“When I read that in the script, I was probably the most excited of anything for Whitney, because I just thought it was genius and so to my taste,” Minghella says, of the moment when Whitney begins singing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” during a tense call with Harper (Myha’la). “When you unlock something like that, the magic of it being a Whitney track, and having the Halberstram/Patrick Bateman of it all, and then the lyrics themselves all coalescing in that way, it’s kind of a miracle moment. So I felt very grateful that I got to do it, and kind of amazed that they came up with it.”

Minghella has helped launch a new era of Industry. Season 3 said goodbye to some original characters and the main hub of Pierpoint, with season 4 introducing Tender, a platform originally intended to help reroute porn payments that is now being refashioned as a neo-bank by Whitney, its ambitious and scheming co-founder. We’ve seen Whitney oust his best friend and CEO, Jonah (Kal Penn) in favor of Henry Muck (Kit Harington), seeing opportunity in Henry’s family and political connections. But there seems to be a lot more to both Tender’s real business and Whitney’s interest in Henry.

In Sunday’s “Dear Henry,” hoping to finally reap the benefits of her Tender short, Harper goes public about Tender’s questionable activity. “The emperor’s clothes were shed some time ago,” she declares. “He’s naked, he’s afraid, as he should be.” As the market responds to these claims, Whitney goes into cleanup mode, trying to keep his associates quiet, including Tony Day (Stephen Cambell Moore) and Hayley (Kiernan Shipka), the latter of which is revealed to be an escort who Whitney hired to “exploit fragile people,” such as Henry and Yasmin (Marisa Abela). His evil plan also includes blackmailing Eric (Ken Leung) with a video of a sexual encounter with an allegedly underage girl; the episode leaves Eric’s future on the show in question.

Throughout the episodce, as the walls appear to close in on Whitney, he speaks to Henry in voiceover. “Dear Henry” concludes with Whitney giving a letter to Henry, revealing to him that they are now both implicated in Tender’s wrongdoings. “We are stronger together,” he writes. It’s fair to have questions about that “we.” Henry seems like an easy patsy, but this hour implies real affection from Whitney. In one early scene, Henry is showering, and, unbeknownst to him, Whitney approaches from behind with roses, before retreating back, just as Yasmin walks in. The two then later share an intimate night out, featuring some dancing and a glory hole.

Given the new developments in that relationship, we chatted with Minghella about the ambiguity surrounding Whitney and going Hannibal Lecter on Harper.

This season has really felt like a huge transition for the show. Did you feel any pressure in being such a driving force of that?

This is the favorite show of my closest friends, so I felt a lot of genuine pressure and intimidation about joining, because of what you’re talking about. It’s a soft reboot, and Robert (Harry Lawtey), who’s a beloved character, wasn’t gonna be there, and suddenly there’s all these new people. And especially that first episode when Whitney is taking up a lot of airspace, I was very nervous about making sure that he felt organic to the show and wouldn’t let down the people I personally know who are so invested in this. I didn’t want them to be like, “Oh, the show was great until fucking Max came along and ruined it!”

You’re not far removed from completing a six-year run on another celebrated show, The Handmaid’s Tale. What was the transition like into this polar-opposite world?

Stylistically, they’re so completely different. The Handmaid’s Tale was really interesting because the part I played is very kind of archetypal, at least in my eyes, and in a way that I thought was really fun. But it wasn’t a part that I approached naturalistically; it was very much a heightened character in my mind, and not necessarily grounded in reality. And this was the opposite. The style of the show, the way it’s shot, it’s very naturalistic, and the character I was playing felt very human, complicated and dimensional in a way that required an almost antithetical approach. So it was very different and exciting. I mean, I basically sort of blacked out anytime we were shooting Industry, because I just would let whatever’s happened happen. [Laughs.] It was not a premeditated performance by any stretch of imagination.

What were your early conversations with creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay like?

They sent me the first two scripts, and then I watched all of the show, because I’d never seen it before. I talked to Mickey and Konrad the day that I finished season 3, and we had a long conversation. I believe that Mickey and Konrad are generational talents, and, in the end, you cannot turn down an opportunity to work with people that incredible. But I was so trepidatious about not fucking up what they built and wanting to make sure that they felt I was the right person for it, because, when you respect something, the last thing you want to do is to tarnish it. It’s something I hold in such high regard, and I just wanted to know that it was going to work. And hopefully we got there. It was definitely the most rewarding experience I’ve had as an actor.

You’re British, playing an American character, on this very British show. Knowing the differences in the countries and cultures, how important a factor was that to the character and performance? Whitney even mentions in episode 6 that he should have never brought his business to the U.K.

“To this history project of a fucking island.” Because of the nature of who Whitney is, there was tremendous privilege in being a person who’s doing an accent. That’s just a very easy first step to get in the shoes of somebody who’s not totally authentic. And then the show itself is very interested in the relationship between America and England, culturally, and how they interact and view one another. As a British person who’s lived his life sort of half in each, it’s something that I personally am very concerned and fascinated by, so I share the show’s intrigue in that duology.

Mickey and Konrad have cited Michael Clayton as an inspiration for this season, but—and I swear this isn’t just because you’re in both—I’ve definitely also felt some Social Network vibes.

Weirdly, we talked a lot about Steve Jobs, another Aaron Sorkin movie. Specifically with the Whitney and Jonah stuff, that was in the ether. Mickey and Konrad are inspired by people, and they’re very inspired by Tony Gilroy, but I don’t think they have any interest in trying to emulate anybody. Like any great artist, I think they want to make their own statement.

We have to dive into this Henry and Whitney relationship. On one hand, you can see why Whitney would want Henry at Tender. He’s both a great asset to the business and a perfect fall guy. But, in this episode, there seems to be a real connection between them. How do you read that relationship, and has it evolved at all over the season?

It’s a really interesting question. When we set out to make the show, I think the intention was that Whitney’s feelings for Henry were very authentic. And now I don’t know. I think that evolved a little bit as we were making it. Everything’s been steered much more towards ambiguity, and I love how opaque that is. What is real there? Does he have feelings for him? Is he using his sexuality to manipulate this person? Is he using romance to make somebody feel vulnerable? I have no idea. But it’s so fun that the show doesn’t answer those questions in a clear way.

I’ve never been sure either, but the shower scene felt like the most authentic thing we’ve seen from Whitney so far, because it wasn’t a performance for anyone.

Totally. I would agree with you.

What do you think it is that Whitney sees in Henry? Because, to a lot of people, Henry is someone propped up by a name at this point.

Henry is of manor born, and Whitney’s not, and I think that’s something that he really admires and knows is tactfully useful, but he also wants to be proximate to that in some way. And then, for me personally, I found Henry to be deeply relatable as a character. And so that was very easy, because my connection point to that motivation was that this is somebody I sort of saw myself in.

Was it just as easy to find your dynamic as actors with Kit?

He’s unbelievable, and an amazing scene partner. I don’t know if I could have gotten through the shoot without him, because I was really intimidated by the whole thing and he made me feel really protected in the process. If he’d been a difficult or unkind person, it would have been hard. He was just an excellent actor and human being.

The “Dear Henry” device is used throughout the episode, building up to Whitney giving Henry the letter. What intrigued you about this storytelling device, and was there anything unique about how you approached recording those lines?

We talked about lots of elaborate things…and then we used the wild lines from set. We were like, “We could do this, we could do that,” and then we ended up doing the simplest version of it, which was me just reading [on set]. It was a really wonderful device, and, stylistically, very unusual for the show. Dramaturgically, they did so many interesting and different things this season. I just found myself feeling constantly grateful and amazed that I was getting to play this character and work with Mickey and Konrad. I’ve done this long enough to recognize when you’re in the presence of greatness, and I try to appreciate that in the moment.

With Whitney coming clean to Henry, do you believe that he long thought that he could get away with this, or did he know that this was a house of cards? When he’s rushing to beat Sweetpea (Miriam Petche) to the meeting with Tony Day, it’s the first time we’ve seen him sweat.

Maybe I’m wrong — and I could be wrong — but I always thought that Whitney thought he was gonna win. So I think that he is kind of surprised. He’s somebody who has so little concern about the micro, like the little things do not bother him, and he really is very macro in his thinking, and so he just assumes that most things are sort of cleansable. I interpreted it as a bit of shock when things started to slip away.

What did you make of the Harper and Whitney relationship? We have that great phone call between them in 6, and he talks about showing so much of himself to her after their first meeting, a reference to his sexual interests. Why do you think he felt comfortable opening up to her, and then why does he feel the urge to call her in this troubling time?

I really saw that scene very much like a Clarice and Hannibal scene. Or, in In the Line of Fire, there’s a scene where Clint Eastwood’s character calls John Malkovich’s character. Those are the two scenes I looked at and thought about the most. It felt like a classical kind of movie scene of two characters who mirror one another, reflect one another, they’re both not of this world, hyper-ambitious, struggle with empathy, and just totally driven by personifications of ambitions. So I think there’s a lot of overlap between these two people, which is why they have so much disdain for one another. It’s sort of the Batman-Joker thing. In a show that felt pretty naturalistic, that felt like we were having a bit of fun, and there was a bit of a nostalgic brush going on.

Harper isn’t Whitney’s first call; he initially tries Jonah, who is not receptive to talking to his old pal. Before he threw it away, did that friendship feel like the one genuine thing about Whitney?

Completely. To me, the early scenes with Jonah are when you’re seeing him at his most authentic in the show. It’s not really until he turns to Jonah [while firing him] and says, “I haven’t seen you in some time,” that he sort of switches into Whitney mode. I think there’s some humanity sort of still struggling away at the top of episode 1.

Honestly, I think we all have that regret, too. The moment that he left, we were all like, “We fucked that up.” [Laughs.] He should have been in a bunch more of the show.

We get the confrontation between Hayley and Whitney in this episode, and then she comes clean to Yasmin, revealing that she’s an escort hired by Whitney, and he’s apparently put her and her cousin in some dangerous positions. Was that a reveal that you were surprised by, and what do you think it says about how Whitney is operating? It’s one thing to cross a couple slightly unethical lines, and it’s another to be going about things like this.

I don’t think it was a surprise. Going in, I understood the relationship with Hayley. And I think what’s always fun to play with Whitney is his impatience with things that we as human beings care about and get invested in. He doesn’t think like that, and he finds it rather tedious, and so it’s completely unrelatable to me. But sometimes there can be something quite fun to play about somebody who’s so disconnected from humanity. And I try to find humor in it. Like, my instinct with that stuff is, it’s tremendously dark what’s happening, but there’s something kind of funny about how unable he is to think on those terms.

I would have loved to see more Whitney and Eric, but we did get the big scene between them on the CNN broadcast. Were you chomping at the bit to get some screen time with Ken?

I look up to him so much, and getting to do a scene with him was such a dream come true. I definitely wish that I got to do more, but I also wasn’t expecting that I’d get to do something so substantial with him, and so it just meant a lot. His performance in the show is unbelievable, and it’s so cool when you get to work with heroes like that.

And it might be Whitney’s fault that Eric is gone from our lives!

Man, I found that hard. For me, what he did to Eric was the hardest thing in the whole show. Like, I could kind of deal with a lot of his behavior, but that was really tough for me, because I care so much about Eric.

Now that Henry knows Whitney’s secret, how would you tease the final two episodes of the season?

There’s more journey for these two characters, but this show is about Yasmine, Harper, Eric and Henry. And I think the last episode does a really good job of recentering itself and refocusing on the anchors of Industry and the characters who, hopefully, will continue to tell this story. Mickey and Konrad do so many things in a very unconventional way, but it was so clever how they shaped episode 8, and it finishes feeling so Industry, in such a great way.