Industry follows a gang of scheming and depraved stockbrokers in London’s financial world. How did you come to direct that series?
– When my feature film debut Holiday came, it got the attention of a bunch of American directors, probably because it premiered at Sundance. Darren Aronofsky is flatteringly a huge fan and even Sean Baker and M Night Shyamalan liked it. Also released Limit, which I co-wrote with Ali Abbasi, almost at the same time and added to the hype. I guess I became indie cool – in the US above all, but also a little in England. Shyamalan offered me to direct two episodes of Servant, which he produces and is showrunner for. After that, the company heard Bad Wolf who produces Industry of himself. They seem to have as a business idea to take in up and coming people who are kind of cool, but maybe don’t cost that much.
What appealed to you about the project?
– 98 percent of all the suggestions I get are really bad. Especially the ones from Los Angeles – it’s insane how disconnected they are from reality. So I turn down a lot of stuff. But Industry stood out because it has a very intelligent and perhaps above all educated dialogue. They dare to include a lot of difficult financial terms that are not necessarily explained and the script is full of literary references from right to left. I’m probably missing half of them because I didn’t study English literature at Oxford, but that’s exactly what the guys who wrote the series have done. They have that background and I have to admit I admire it. I’m a bit of an anglophile that way.
You would have directed two episodes of the second season. How did you end up doing a full four episodes?
– During the work on season two, covid came and one of the other directors had to drop out – illness in the family, I think. In addition, the conceptual director, i.e. the one who directs the first episodes and thus sets the artistic tone for the series, had done some sort of nordic noir of the whole thing. Everything was blue, dark and slow. Both myself and the photographer I was working with felt it was wrong for the series and we’re both a bit of anarchists, so we simply decided to do the opposite. We reformed the style and made it fast, impressionistic and fun. And then they offered me to be the conceptual director for season three.
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The article was originally published Published September 16, 2024. and is written by Oskar Sonn Lindell.
