The news that Harry Lawtey would not be returning for the fourth season of HBO’s “Industry” left fans of the show set in London’s ruthless world of finance feeling less than chuffed. For three seasons, Lawtey played Robert Spearing, the Pierpoint banker with working-class roots who evolves into one of the show’s most empathetic characters: a banker with a conscience.
Mickey Down, who created “Industry” with Konrad Kay, told TheWrap that scheduling conflicts and Robert’s arc reaching its natural end led to the decision for Lawtey not to reprise his role. Lawtey stars in the upcoming film “Mr. Burton,” in which he plays young Richard Burton, and as the actor noted in a recent piece in The Telegraph, he will soon shoot “The Billion Dollar Spy,” a Cold War thriller starring Russell Crowe and directed by Amma Asante. (Production on “Industry” Season 4 begins this week.)
“We love Robert as a character. We love Harry as an actor. We think he’s going to go into massive things — he already has done,” Down said. “And it was, I think, a sort of mutual decision that we couldn’t make it work for the time that we had, but also that we had reached the conclusion of the character. And I think Harry reached his own conclusion.”
Robert ends Season 3 saying goodbye to Yasmin (Marisa Abela), the colleague he has pined for since day one, and leaving Pierpoint to try his luck in Silicon Valley. Over eight episodes, he becomes more cognizant of just how dehumanizing high finance can be and makes the choice to extract himself from a toxic environment driven solely by profit.
“When the character feels like they’ve had some sort of redemption, or they’ve found the light at the end of the tunnel, there is sort of no more to say,” Down said. “I’m sad we couldn’t make it work. But Harry had an amazing ending at the end of episode 8 of Season 3. And we gave him the redemption that I think a lot of the audience was craving because we put him through the ringer in Season 3.”
Down and Kay would welcome Lawtey back if Robert’s return made sense for “Industry.” “Creatively, we both felt like his story was done, but also, we were very much of the mind that we should leave the door open for him to come back,” Kay said. “He didn’t die of an aneurysm. He’s just doing his own thing over here while the relentless world continues. And, you know, we’ll see what happens with this story going forward.”
“We’re hugely grateful for Harry for his work on the show,” Down said. “He’s a fantastic actor and I can’t imagine he’s gonna have trouble finding a huge role and then having a massive, massive career.”
“Industry” is now streaming on Max.
