I asked the creators of @industryhbo (@mnadown and @konradmkay ) about writing lovable, sociopathic characters; the audience’s internalized misogyny; and whether they ever cater to us to make us sympathize with the worst human beings of all time!!!
#industryhbo
An hour with @mnadown and @konradmkay the fiercely talented creators behind the adrenaline-fuelled TV show “Industry”.
Like the characters in Season 4, Down and Kay’s lives have altered significantly since they began writing Industry in their mid-20s. They are now in their mid-30s. Down is married with children, Kay lives with his girlfriend. In 2024, they signed a deal with HBO worth many millions of dollars, securing Industry’s future, and theirs, until 2027. Much has been made of the pair’s early and brief careers in the financial world that their show depicts – they worked in separate London banks, a recent professional history that convinced the British producer Jane Tranter to employ the pair as writers. But “plainly, the autobiographical element of the show ended in season one,” they told me, when I brought it up. They have known each other since studying together at Oxford university. On set they are considered such a symbiotic creative duo that they are often referred to collectively as “MK”.
@lamornaaash met the pair before Christmas at Sam’s Café in Primrose Hill where they talked about high finance, City jargon – and skewering the rich.
Read the full interview at our link in bio.
Photographer @jeremy_liebman
The fourth season of Industry is now on the BBC and available to stream on iPlayer.
