Henry Mance, right, in season two of Industry, opposite Jay Duplass. Photo / Simon Ridgway, HBO/BBC
OPINION:
I had just given a forgettable talk at a book festival (think of a small crowd, then halve it) when I received the most surreal offer of my professional life. It came in the form of a Twitter message from one of the creators of the HBO/BBC show Industry. "Bit of a strange one," he wrote, "but would you be at all open to being in season 2, essentially playing yourself?" And so this is the brief story of how I ended up with a bit part in the golden age of TV.
Trust me, I have had many thoughts about what to do in my career. Appearing in a primetime drama had never come up. I am not a good actor. My previous theatrical high point was having a jug of water thrown over me in a primary school production of Bugsy Malone (and even then the water somehow missed).
In contrast, Industry, which centres on fast-living trainee bankers in London, is proper telly. The creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, had channelled their failed City careers into a show whose first series was funny, gripping and credible. Their search for authenticity, which I had written about for the FT, is why they thought of me for the second series. "We wanted to give the whole thing some reality," said Down.
This is also what appealed to me, because most depictions of journalists on TV are ridiculous. My bugbear is when a fictional journalist accuses a politician of corruption at a press conference, and the whole scene descends into uproar. In real life, such a blunt question would be easy for any politician to steamroll. The press conference would emit a collective yawn. Yes, I had sometimes thought I could do better. Now I had a chance to prove it.
I suppose I remembered, too, the tales of amateurs who became surprise stars playing themselves. Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, a convicted murderer in Baltimore, was cast in The Wire after one of the actors spotted her in a bar. Phyllis Smith is one of the great characters of the US version of The Office, but was only spotted for the role because she worked for the show's casting director ("I was probably honing a craft that I didn't know I was honing," reflected Smith, who initially didn't give up her day job). Even if not everyone has a novel in them, surely everyone has the ability to act themselves?
My excitement was tempered, however, when the creators asked me to record a brief video of myself reading a scene. I fully expected to fall at this hurdle. A friend who works in TV gave me some advice: "Don't try to act." This proved invaluable. I fumbled with my iPhone, and desperately tried not to act.
Not acting is harder than it sounds. It's like when someone tells you to act normal — what the hell is normal? My scene involved me interviewing a fictional titan of finance on stage. I do similar things in my day job at the FT. But it's one thing to be yourself, using words that you have thought up, and it's another to be yourself, using words that (excellent) scriptwriters have thought up for you. The script said: "Do you not worry about the reputational risk? People casting aspersions?" I don't think I'd ever before used the word 'aspersion'. Even "Snoop" Pearson was told by Wire creator David Simon to improvise as little as possible.
Let's just say that recording the clip took me several goes. Rejection seemed certain. But no, HBO approved me. The casting agents asked if I had a theatrical agent (obviously not). It was only when they offered me a contract involving actual money and a union agreement that I was confident this was not a practical joke. I was also reassured that the contract specified: "Nudity/Simulated Sex: No."
It was the Covid-infused summer of 2021, so the producers sent a car to take me from London to Cardiff, where Industry is filmed, despite my protests that I could take the train. This is pretty much the opposite approach to travel expenses to the one taken by the FT. Soon I was being shown to my trailer and offered free food. Briefly I was talent, even if I only had two lines.
I'm sure the glamour wears off quickly. They say your first day on set is the most exciting day of your life, and your second day on set is the most boring. One reason that the production offers to drive you everywhere is so they can control where you are. (Director Danny Boyle apparently prefers to drive himself around set for this very reason.) And my trailer was really a third of a truck, with an uncomfy sofa from which you couldn't see the TV. And the en suite seemed big enough only for a child actor. There is also a lot of hanging around on set.
But for me it was dreamland. At the costume fitting, I tried on more suits than I did for my actual wedding. Never before has my appearance seemed so important to someone else, and never again. There was one awkward moment in the green room, when a couple of actors — not aware I was a journalist — chatted about how much they disliked doing publicity interviews. "Can't I just say, read the internet?!" said one. A part of me died as I remembered how many hours I had put into researching and writing celebrity interviews.
Meanwhile, my TV friend had more advice. "People on set might be pissed off with each other. Impenetrable politics. You're Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," he texted, overestimating my understanding of Shakespeare. Actually people on set were not pissed off with each other. They were surprisingly nice. When I struggled to do my lines initially, the director, Birgitte Stærmose, asked if I'd ever interviewed someone intimidating. (In TV, unlike in film, the director is not the key ego.) I started telling Stærmose about some of my interviews with the boxer Tyson Fury and the billionaire Richard Desmond, before realising that she wasn't interested in the details — she was nudging me into the mindset for the scene. Because I had a speaking part, I was treated gently, like a beloved pet, while the extras were herded around like cattle. They seemed delighted nonetheless.
My scene was with Jay Duplass, the American actor who plays the hedge fund titan in Industry with delightful humanity, inspired by two encounters that he had with Jeff Bezos. I'd loved Duplass in the show Transparent, and here I was just chatting with him between takes. He writes and directs, as well as acting, and made it clear that acting is definitely the easiest of those jobs. He glided through the scene. I did not. For starters, I was completely thrown by how quietly Duplass spoke — the microphones mean you don't have to project as you would in theatre, and a lower voice allows more emotion. My main concern was not ending up like Joey in Friends, when he is given a big break as a "butt double" for Al Pacino, but ends up being fired for putting too much emotion into his buttocks.
I did not get fired. It seemed to go . . . fine? Or well enough for me to be asked to stay for the next scene. This turned out to mean mostly standing silently for five hours, but it felt like a privilege. My friend predicted that I would be cut from the filmed version. "You'll be asked back in to re-record your dialogue and it will all be played off the back of your head."
In fact, much of my dialogue was cut. But I was invited back to do another scene in a later episode — as a talking head on a CNN talkshow. Again the direction was so polite: "I like the smile, but maybe let's try it without." The key challenge was the cold, filming in December in a large metal hangar. In the seconds between every take, and every different camera angle, the crew brought us jackets and hot water bottles. When you see how fragmented filming is, it's even more impressive that actors manage to keep their focus.
There is no comparison between me almost being myself and those real actors who don't just manage to be someone else but also stretch our understanding of human nature. "On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Twas only that when he was off he was acting," as the playwright Oliver Goldsmith wrote of David Garrick.
I do appear in episode 8 of Industry season 2, but I know that my time as an HBO/BBC actor is over. No one will ever again ask me to put them in touch with my theatrical agent, or whether I would like my coffee brought to my trailer. When it comes to who should play me in the film of my life, I am sticking with Chris O'Dowd.
• Henry Mance writes features and interviews for the FT Weekend, as well as a weekly satirical column on politics and culture. He was previously a political correspondent and the FT's media correspondent.
Written by: Henry Mance
© Financial Times
He was meant to say something completely different.