SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains plot details from “Eyes Without a Face,” Season 4, Episode 5 of “Industry,” now streaming on HBO Max.
On “Industry,” heroes are hard to come by. But in the HBO series’ audacious Season 4, Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) is about the closest the show gets to one. Introduced in Season 3 as an entry-level employee at the since-collapsed bank Pierpoint & Co., Sweetpea fit right into the finance drama’s salacious intrigue, where sex is often just as transactional as the latest high-stakes business deal. In addition to her day job as an eager new analyst, Sweetpea had a side hustle on OnlyFans, where she sold pictures to the same older businessmen who talked down to her on the trading floor. Along with her name, Sweetpea’s extracurricular pursuits helped her quickly stand out even in a cast stacked with rising stars.
In Season 4, however, Sweetpea’s starting from a more vulnerable place. Her anonymous accounts have been made public, thanks to recently disgraced dirtbag Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia); now, the only job she can get in her career field of choice is working for Harper Stern (Myha’la), a Machiavellian striver who’s allergic to intimacy, and hardly a reliable boss. But beggars can’t be choosers, so Sweetpea follows Harper from Mostyn Asset Management to her independent venture SternTao. On “Industry,” however, underdogs are always the best motivated to succeed — and in the season’s fifth episode, “Eyes Without a Face,” Sweetpea finally gets her time to shine.
Harper had previously bet the fate of SternTao, a shorts-only fund that makes money when its targets fail, on the demise of Tender, a fintech start-up that’s suspiciously pivoted from facilitating porn payments to making growth-minded acquisitions in Africa. With SternTao’s short position squeezed by Tender’s stubbornly ascendant stock price, Harper agrees to send Sweetpea and Kwabena (Toheeb Jimoh), another SternTao trader Harper also happens to be sleeping with, to Ghana so they can take a look at Tender on the ground. There, Sweetpea puts her dogged investigation skills to use and returns with proof hard enough to save SternTao from ruin. Now Harper won’t have to commit fraud to secure more funding!
This being “Industry,” the win comes at a cost. On a quest to track down Swift GC, a company Tender acquired for an eyebrow-raising $50 million, Sweetpea goes to their office (it’s a PO Box), interrogates the M&A lawyer (his tiny office doesn’t scream “massive deals”) and interrogates Tender’s Africa chief Tony Day (Stephen Campbell) under the pretense that she still works at Mostyn. Day smells a rat and gives Sweetpea a blandly threatening phone call while she and Kwabena are kicking back a few beers on the beach. Shortly afterward, Sweetpea goes to the bathroom, where she’s assaulted by a stranger who breaks her nose along with her sense of security.
Rather than back down, Sweetpea resolves to “run a fucking train” on her adversaries. (She also sleeps with Kwabena to blow off some steam.) The men who look down on her for sex work are mostly faceless, but Tender offers a more specific target for her frustration. Luckily, a family friend of Kwabena’s provides the missing piece of the Swift GC transaction: Tender only said they paid $50 million for the company, which is little more than a decrepit office building. The falsely inflated acquisition was primarily a way of getting falsely inflated revenue off the books before prying eyes could apply real scrutiny. Having uncovered Tender’s house of cards, Sweetpea makes her triumphant return to London — but rather than accept Harper’s offer of a shoulder to cry on, Sweetpea flatly comes clean about the Kwabena hookup, makes clear she expects to be paid, and heads back to her apartment to break down in sobs.
“She believes that if she can see this through, then she is of some value that she feels she’s lost,” Petche says of her character’s motivation for seeing the Tender takedown through. A recent graduate of the prestigious Guildhall conservatory, Petche is, like Sweetpea, a relative newcomer who’s quickly established herself in a high-pressure environment. Petche spoke with Variety about shooting on location, how getting doxxed has affected Sweetpea’s mindset and what “Industry” has taught her about the art of making good TV.
Courtesy of HBO
This season is such a great one for Sweetpea overall. Headed into it, did you have a conversation with creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay about where they saw the character going?
I had a call with one of our producers much earlier on, specifically about Episode 5, before I’d even got the scripts for Episodes 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. So it was more just keeping that conversation alive and making me aware of what was going on, because this episode is so crucial — not only for Sweetpea, but for the arc of the season. I was like, “OK, I need to understand how she gets here. If she’s arriving here emotionally, what do I need to do, working backwards, to build up to this moment? If this is the peak of her arc, how do I plan every step before and then after?”
I assume that call was partly about going on location. Can you tell me a bit about filming in Africa?
We actually went to South Africa. We went to Durban in South Africa for, actually, a very short while. Most of the episode was filmed in Cardiff in the U.K. So there were only the shots that we couldn’t really — the ones that were necessary for us to be on location. For example, the beach shot, the moments when me and Toheeb are at the beach bar.
I mean, going on location is obviously so incredible as an actor, because you’re put into a different set of circumstances. But it wasn’t the entirety of the episode, which was a very interesting way to do it.
Chronologically, how did the Durban trip slot into the shoot?
It was at the very end. So we had done everything else and then, if I remember correctly, it was at the very end of that episode. It was pretty much 72 hours we were out there. It was a very, very, very short time. It was this whirlwind experience of wrapping up this episode.
After what happened to Rishi’s wife in the Season 3 finale, the possibilities for the show widened, and violent, scary things can happen. So as a viewer, the bathroom scene was quite alarming — I was curious what that scene was like for you to film as an actor.
I personally feel like that scene isn’t played for shock value. I think what matters the most to Sweetpea is this loss of control and safety, and how her sense of agency over the situation very quickly dissipates. And then from that moment on, she becomes different in her approach to Tender, to relationships. It really stays with her for a long time after that moment itself.
With the practical part, you want to make sure everyone is safe and everyone feels happy. We had stunt coordination. Everyone was checking in with one another. It’s like choreography, like anything that needs to be done with care. You go through it step by step, moment by moment, making sure everyone feels that they know what’s happening. Once you understand the choreography, you can then effectively communicate the scene to the audience. Once you have those steps in place, you can then really engage with the scene.
You speaking about Sweetpea feeling a loss of agency and control reminds me of how she must be feeling in the wake of this horrible violation and doxxing that she’s experienced. Do those feel like similar mindsets to you?
I think that in Episode 5, the stakes for her are quite existential. I think she pushes through these extremes, not because she feels admirable or she feels heroic, but because these stakes are so existential for her. This is her career, her credibility — and really, at the end of the day — her sense of self-worth. She believes that if she can see this through, then she is of some value that she feels she’s lost. It’s the lengths that she’ll go to to prove herself, and as seen at the end of the episode, what it costs her to keep going. But I think that loss of agency is implemented at the very beginning of the season, like you said, with the OnlyFans leak. I think this is her grappling with having a sense of control over her own narrative.
Courtesy of HBO
When Sweetpea and Kwabena talk about if there needs to be a “why,” I agree your character doesn’t need one for pursuing sex work. But in terms of her motivation for being in this incredibly cutthroat industry and working as hard as we see her work this season, what do you feel like propels her in this financial world?
I think that she is a person who believes her worth has to be proven, and that’s why she’s drawn to this high stakes environment. Because if she does these things, and if she’s brilliant enough, and if she’s useful enough and indispensable enough, then she can survive anything, even if it costs her emotionally or physically. She thinks that her brilliance is her safety. And I think what specifically this episode shows us is that it doesn’t keep her safe at all. In fact, it kind of collides with everything that’s going on. At the end of the episode, when she breaks down, I feel like that moment is the price of her composure finally being paid off. I wanted that moment to just feel like a relief and a letting go of everything from this season and the episode.
This episode also moves the Sweetpea-Harper relationship forward. On the one hand, Harper gives Sweetpea this job where no one else will. But at the same time, Sweetpea seems very clear-eyed about Harper’s faults and says no to her coming upstairs. What do you feel like Sweetpea’s attitude toward Harper is?
Their relationship is fascinating to me, because when I go back to Season 3 in my mind, when Sweetpea joins Pierpoint, Harper has already left. So all she has is these stories of Harper. I think Sweetpea admires Harper and sees her as this uncompromising, extremely intelligent, self-driven woman. So when Sweetpea has the opportunity to work with Harper, she grasps it with both hands. But then when they’re working with each other, the idealized version of someone gives way to the real person, and you realize what they’re actually like. There’s a frustration from Sweetpea that Harper, particularly at the beginning of the season, isn’t operating at her highest level for the entire team. And it frustrates Sweetpea, because she sees how brilliant Harper is, and how brilliant she can be.
She’s never really had an issue in saying that to her, or being quite blunt with her about how she feels. When she sees Harper not working for the team’s best interests, there’s this mix of admiration but frustration. When you want someone to be different, it’s a very interesting dynamic. Particularly in Episode 5, when Sweetpea comes back and says, “I want to be paid.” She’s putting up these walls to protect herself from what’s been taken on that trip away. She’s sort of protecting herself from the world.
There’s also a fascinating contrast between your character and Toheeb’s where Sweetpea comes straight out and says, “I hooked up with this person you’re also hooking up with,” and he doesn’t take the opportunity to be honest. You see that streak in Sweetpea where she’s able to be very straightforward, very blunt. Where do you think that tendency comes from with the character?
Funnily enough, when I was thinking about who she was in Season 3, I think she observes people around her. I think she observes how people succeed. I think she observed how people succeeded within the world of Pierpoint. She’s aware that it’s a very cutthroat dynamic. And I think that she psyched herself up to say, well, if I want to succeed, I have to be like the people that I’ve seen be successful before me. I have to be cutthroat. I have to be honest. I have to have an opinion. And maybe part of that confidence initially is bravado. Initially, it’s fake it until you make it, and then as time progresses, and particularly within this season, she is a lot more upfront with her genuine opinions and feelings. That bravado has given away to this woman who actually really wants to be very good at her job. So yeah, it’s a mix of learned behavior and also innately what was already there that she’s now giving space to as well.
Courtesy of HBO
Harper has become so compromised, and in contrast, Sweetpea is incredibly easy to root for. As the person who plays her, are you worried at all that over the long term, she will become a little more corrupted?
I am worried for her! I am worried for her, but it’s also one of the things I love about the show. These characters aren’t straightforward. They are morally complex, like human beings can be. They can change over time, and they can be one way one year, and a completely different person the year next. That’s what I really liked when I watched the first two seasons, before I was in the show — that you could be rooting for a character, and then the rug would be pulled from underneath you, and you think, “Oh, no, why did you do that?” That’s what I found endearing about the show. So I suppose, as much as I personally want the best for Sweetpea, I think that in line with the show, if she finds herself in some more complex situations or doing some more compromising things, I would understand why the character might have gone in that direction.
Like a lot of other people who have come into their own on the show, you’re very early in your career. What have you learned from being on this particular show that you hope to take forward with you into other projects?
I learned how TV is made, to be honest with you.
That’s important!
It really, honestly is. I like to know everything that’s going on. I’m like Sweetpea in that way. And honestly, it’s really helpful as an actor. I went to drama school, and you’re prepared with technique and emotional insight and all of these things. But I wasn’t taught about how a show is made, what it means to be a part of a season, how a set works. I’ve learned so much from this show, not only just technically as an actor, but just professionally.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
