Image via HBO
Published Mar 2, 2026, 9:00 AM EST
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[Editor's note: The following contains major spoilers for Industry Season 4.]The Season 4 finale of the HBO series Industry, entitled “Both, And,” saw Harper Stern (Myha’la) finally start to carve out a place for herself in the finance world, alongside Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche) and Kwabena Bannerman (Toheeb Jimoh). Finding her own voice as a leader is still a work in progress, but exposing Tender and its co-founder, Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella) for the frauds they are leaves Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Henry’s (Kit Harington) future hanging in the balance.
Collider recently got the opportunity to chat with Petche in-depth about immersing herself in the complicated world of finance, playing and exploring Sweetpea, and where it could all go next. During the interview, she discussed what she most connected with in the world of Industry, how much she enjoyed seeing Sweetpea outside of work in Season 4, that there’s an art to eating in a scene, shooting that horrible restroom attack, the choice to tell Harper about being with Kwabena, how Sweetpea feels about finally getting some recognition, fully committing to that funny finale moment in the office chair, and what she’d like to maybe see with Sweetpea in Season 5, which has officially been announced as the show’s final season.
Miriam Petche Fell in Love With the Relationships in HBO’s ‘Industry’
"As someone who isn't as in tune with the finance world, my way in was the relationships."
Collider: Even though I don’t understand the finance world even a little bit, I’m obsessed with the character dynamics and relationships in this series. Do you understand the world of finance at all? What is your key to finding the world and finding Sweetpea, every season that you have to dive into this?
MIRIAM PETCHE: Oh, my goodness, I’m definitely not fluent in the language of finance. To be honest, it’s a world that, previously to this role, I really had very few connections to. I think what’s actually been quite nice since the show has been out and my role was announced is that I’ve actually had people in my life who I’ve known through school or siblings who have reached out to me because they work in finance. It’s fascinating because they think I’m on the same level of understanding as them, and they know far more than I do. But it’s nice. It opens a conversation that I didn’t really have before.
I fell in love with the show because of the relationships. I appreciate the financial backdrop. It is a show about finance, at the end of the day, and what these systems do to people, and how they affect relationships and responsibility and power and ambition. But definitely, as someone who isn’t as in tune with the finance world, similarly with yourself, my way in was the relationships. I’m more attuned now to what’s going on, but then as soon as I get the next couple of scripts, I’m like, “Okay, yeah, maybe not. Maybe I’m still on step one.” But it’s nice. I like learning new things, and I feel that anything can be a lesson, if I put my mind to it.
In episode five, when Sweetpea and Kwabena went to Ghana, was it fun to do something like that, where you get to go off on your own and do a thing for a bit in a little bubble with a smaller ensemble within the ensemble, or does it make you feel disconnected from everything else that’s happening?
PETCHE: Personally, for me, looking at Sweetpea, I was really excited by the prospect of seeing what she was like outside the world of work. In Season 3, she’s within the structure of Pierpoint, or she’s in Harper’s office. Those are the realms in which we see her in. And so, to have her be slightly taken out of that world, you naturally see different parts of her personality. You learn more about Kwabena’s family, and you learn about Sweetpea’s family. It was great. I didn’t feel disconnected. A lot of the episode is done on the phone, so those are the only parts when I felt a little bit disconnected. But I had an incredible scene partner in Toheeb [Jimoh], so I was very lucky in that regard. It was a wonderful experience.
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I’m sometimes amused by the little details in a scene, and the scene in that episode with the two of you sitting with Tony Day and you’re asking him questions. Toheeb is sitting next to you eating while you’re trying to get answers. Were those details in the script? Do you come up with some of those details in the environment on the day that you’re shooting the scene?
PETCHE: It’s a really great question because the idea was that he was meant to be hung over in that episode. I’m not entirely sure if the line that clarifies that got cut, so then throughout the episode, he just looks like he’s eating a lot of food. It was just a really great detail that was partially in the script and partially Toheeb on the day. It’s great having those little extra quirks that are put in there.
You were probably also glad that it wasn’t you because it seems like it would be awful to have to keep eating, take after take.
PETCHE: I’ve learned that the hard way. There’s a scene later on in the season where I’m eating something, and I was really excited because it was so yummy, what they gave me. And I clearly did the wrong thing because I shoved so much of it in my mouth in the first take. All the actors around me were like, “Do you know you have to do that 50 million more times?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, that’s a really good point.” I was full at the end of that day. There’s definitely an art to it.
Sweetpea’s Attack Was Crucial to Her ‘Industry’ Season 4 Arc
"She's associated being in control with being safe."
Image via HBOPeople tend to live in extremes on this show. Sweetpea goes from this high of unraveling the truth that Tender is a con to getting attacked in a woman’s restroom. I found that attack particularly terrifying because you have this imposing man standing in a space that’s supposed to be safe – the women’s restroom – blocking her exit, and he doesn’t say anything to her. There are so many things that are just terrifying about that moment. How did you feel when you read that? Did you have a lot of conversations about how that would play out?
PETCHE: There were a lot of conversations in regard to the safety of the scene and the safety of approaching the stunt so that everyone on set felt safe, myself, who I’m working with, and the stunt coordinator, who was brilliant. It becomes choreography that you work through, step by step. And once you have that choreography in place, then you can fully commit to the scene because you’re like, “Okay, everyone’s on board. Everyone’s in safe hands. Now, what do we need to communicate?” That scene is not necessarily about shock, but it’s a real loss of agency for her and this control that she assumed she had over these situations.
She’s associated being in control with being safe, and at that point, that idea is staring back at her in the face within her own mind. She’s like, “Maybe me being super in control won’t always keep me safe.” I think everything that she does after that moment is trying to recover a sense of control, not only with her external circumstances, but within herself. Her nervous system is completely thrown, and it’s completely flooded, filled with adrenaline and cortisol. She’s hyper alert. This lid that she keeps on so tightly is now loosened, and it really drives her. From that moment forward, she doubles down. She doesn’t say, “Let’s go. Let’s get a plane home.” It ignites something within her that was ready to go all along. It was a very crucial scene within the episode.
She starts that interaction by verbally escalating and still doesn’t fully realize how bad the situation is, until he grabs her by the neck and licks her cheek. Was it scripted that way?
PETCHE: It was definitely a part of it because it had to be a part of the conversation before we entered the stunt. Moment by moment is covered. It was meant to feel very invasive, and it was meant to feel that the lines were becoming a bit blurred with what the attack was. It was supposed to become confusing ground of, “Where is this going?” So there was definitely a conversation beforehand that took place with that.
With the violence, and then the moment after when she spits out the blood and puts the towels up her nostrils, I wondered about what would go through your mind with something like that. Did you think about how she felt? Do you think she just had an internal switch that she just turned back off again?
PETCHE: It’s a great question. On the day, you have to imagine what it would be like within that certain set of circumstances. I imagined that, in certain moments, she disassociates. She maybe disassociates with the lick, and then she’s a bit numb. And then, there’s a moment when she comes back to herself and she fights back. There’s a state of shock and numbness and confusion, and then adrenaline and not knowing what to do with your body and not knowing how to hold yourself and just letting those emotions that come in as an actor guide you, as well as what you assume maybe that person would have been feeling in that moment. It’s just an amalgamation of things. And also, on the day, it’s about how your body responds to that.
She also really switches gears after that, having been attacked and then asking Kwabena if he saw her tits and whether he liked them. What do you think that was about? Do you feel like she was deflecting by changing the conversation to sex?
PETCHE: I don’t know if it was deflecting. I feel that from that moment onward, she’s trying to gain some sort of sense of control and almost trying to reconnect with her body, after feeling very disconnected from it. Those moments feel more like agency. Particularly with that intimacy moment they have together, I’m not entirely sure if it’s more agency or just trying to feel that she’s in control of her body again.
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Do you think Sweetpea thought about Harper at all, before she ended up in bed with Kwabena? Do you think she thought Harper just wouldn’t care?
PETCHE: I think she was probably in a state, emotionally, that she hadn’t been in before. I think she was still in shock. She definitely doesn’t have the same processing factors and the same way of processing and dealing with things, if her nervous system wasn’t in a complete state of shock. Her nerves are frayed, and she’s not processing things with the same level of thought that she would, normally. That’s why the next day when she speaks with Kwabena, she says, “Let’s forget this. Let’s move on.” She’s clawing back some sense of self and sense of control, but it takes her a while to get back there.
Because she is the one that decides to actually tell Harper about having been with Kwabena, do you think that was a decision she made in the moment, or do you think that was something she had thought about ahead of time at all?
PETCHE: After that scene, she goes upstairs and is really violently crying. So, I feel like, in those moments when you’re really emotionally at the end of your tether, you’re like, “I need to do everything in my power to be left alone and to have my own space.” I think she was trying to get back on track with everyone and be back to her normal self, and her best way of moving forward with Harper is honesty. She’s honest about how she wants to be paid. She doesn’t want to be pitied for this. She willingly chose to go and to do this. She wants to be seen as a serious worker. And she wants to establish a level of honesty that she’s always wanted with Harper. I think it’s interesting that she relays that back to Harper, but Kwabena doesn’t. It shows how they both viewed the situation differently.
You also never know how anybody is going to react in this series. These characters could react in any number of ways, so it’s interesting to see what choices are made.
PETCHE: Exactly. It’s reflective of complicated human beings. None of us follow a rule book for how we respond to everything. To be changed by circumstances, by pressures, and by relationships is what makes complicated characters on television.
Miriam Petche Would Like To See 'Industry’s Sweetpea and Harper as Friends
"I think they could be good for each other."
Image via HBOYou’ve previously said that Sweetpea doesn’t know how to have a female friend that goes beyond the workplace. Do you think if she did, she’d want Harper to be that friend?
PETCHE: I think she does have female friends beyond the workplace. She probably did in Season 3 when she references her friend Treacle. I imagine that after the OnlyFans leak, she feels a level of shame around herself. I feel that she has a form of not self-punishment, but that she is only allowed to focus on work, and she’s only allowed to get herself in a better position, so I don’t imagine her socializing much. Particularly in that episode, we see that she doesn’t cut herself a lot of slack. There’s a lot of internalized shame there, and there are a lot of ways of dealing with things that are like, “If I’m responsible for my successes, then I’m responsible for my failures as well.” I would love her to have a female friend, and I would like that friend to be Harper, wherever their relationship goes. I think they could be good for each other.
It feels like Harper needs somebody other than Yasmin.
PETCHE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That friendship just doesn’t seem like it should happen on any level.
PETCHE: Yeah.
I love the moment when Harper tells you she can order whatever she wants from room service, and she orders caviar, French toast, and Pringles. Did you have a conversation about what she would order because that order felt very specific to her?
PETCHE: That’s a great question. I could be wrong, but I believe (creators) Mickey [Down] and Konrad [Kay] directed that scene. They came up to me and individually kept adding things on for me to say because they thought it was funny. They added on caviar, and then chips, and then Dom Pérignon or champagne. It was very improvised. We were just coming up on the spot with funny things. That was completely on the day, and it was really fun to do. It came from their brains, and they know the characters the best.
Even asking them to go to McDonald’s was quite funny.
PETCHE: Exactly.
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The season finale for the eight-episode series set in the cutthroat world of finance airs on HBO on Sunday, March 1st.
There’s also the moment when Harper hands Sweetpea and Kwabena the two million quid each. Sweetpea makes a joke about how she could have made more selling pictures of her feet, but what do you think she really felt in that moment? What was it like for her to actually get something back that she worked for and to have somebody really recognize that?
PETCHE: I feel like it’s a bittersweet moment, in that it’s a life-changing amount of money for her, but at what cost? She’s aware of what she’s been through, and she’s now reached that point of being compensated for it. And only now, once she’s compensated, does she probably sit down and reflect and think, “What have I done to get here? What have I put on the line, in order to be in this position?” I imagine there’s a multitude of things going through her brain, which is why she makes a comment like that. Like most things in Industry, it isn’t one or the other. It’s a mix of things. It’s a mix of feeling pride and confusion and shame and leftover feelings from the beginning of the season. It was a really interesting note to end on.
How does possibility feel to Sweetpea? Standing in the office space with these two other people – Harper and Kwabena – how does she feel about what that could mean and about being with them?
PETCHE: Personally, as an actor, I’m very intrigued to see where this relationship goes forward. Sweetpea is in a completely different position than she was at the beginning of the season, not only financially and within her world of work, but within herself. She’s gone to very dark places within herself and now moving forwards, she knows that she’s capable and that she can do what she sets her mind to. It would be interesting to see maybe what characteristics she adopts if, for example, in the future, she has more power, or she’s given more opportunities, and she’s not on the back foot. Essentially, what I’m saying is that I’m interested to see where this relationship goes. It’s a very interesting dynamic that the three of them have.
I loved the moment when you just rolled by in the chair, holding your phone above you. Was that really you? What was that like to shoot? Was that hard to get exactly right?
PETCHE: You do not even know the amount of times we did that and the amount of times that I was being pushed on the chair. Myha’la and Toheeb were having quite an intimate conversation about going to Paris, and in the background, they were counting the chair down. We had to do it so many times because, most of the time, I’d go too quickly, and I’d hit a wall, or I wouldn’t lift my hand up in time. After five or six tries, I was like, “Guys, is this going to work?” Mickey and Konrad were like, “No, it’s going to happen. It’s going to work.” And it did in the end. I’m really glad we committed to it because it was a great moment, but it was a lot of hard work. Someone was there, pushing me on the chair, moment by moment. It was fun. It feels very Season 3 Sweetpea, which I liked. It felt like a bit of her whimsy was back.
Who doesn’t want to do something like that in a big open space like that?
PETCHE: Right?! We all want to do that. We say we don’t want to slide around on those spinny chairs, but we all do, really. It was 100% me. It was great. I had the best time. That was the final scene I shot for Season 4, so it felt very on the nose. I had my family there as well, and they were like, “Is this what you do all day long?” I was like, “No, guys, I have a really serious job. I promise.” It was great. It was a great final scene.
Although 'Industry’s Sweetpea Admires Harper, There’s Also a Sense of Frustration
"The idealized version of who she would like Harper to be gives way to the real person."
Image via HBOSweetpea feels like someone who knows what she’s capable of, which must have made it frustrating when she was applying for jobs and wasn’t able to get hired before Harper’s offer. What does she think of Harper as a leader? Are there ways that she would do things differently from how Harper does them? Does she even know yet what kind of leader she would be?
PETCHE: There’s a mix of admiration and frustration that Sweetpea feels towards Harper. She joined in Season 3 when Harper had left, so she had only heard stories of Harper Stern. Sweetpea, in my imagination, would very much admire a woman who is uncompromising and intelligent and driven. That’s why when she’s asked to work for Harper, she grabs that with both hands. When they’re then working with each other, the idealized version of who she would like Harper to be gives way to the real person. There’s a frustration there.
There was a scene that was cut, in which Sweetpea very much directly says to Harper, “I’m here. I want to work with you. But I don’t feel that we’re on the same page.” So, there are things that Sweetpea would do differently, but would she get the same results as Harper? Sometimes you have to take a risk, and I don’t know if Sweetpea has that same appetite for risk. She has the appetite for follow-through, but I don’t know if she has the appetite for risk. It’s an interesting one. When they work together, they are a formidable pair. They’re excellent. But I just want them to keep working together and I hope they don’t work against each other at any point.
They get pared down to a trio by the end of the season. Eric Tao was a little bit of a crutch to Harper in some ways, so without him being there moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see how that changes the dynamic.
PETCHE: It will be very, very interesting. I’m also very intrigued to see where that goes.
Can this trio make it work, working together? This seems like a world where everybody gets torn apart at some point. Do you think they could be the exception to that?
PETCHE: Do you know what? Never say never. I think it could go brilliantly. It could go terribly. That’s just the world of Industry. It’s up to whatever happens. But you never know. You never know.
It feels like they have a better chance than a lot of the other characters because they’re willing to do or try things that are a little bit more outside the box.
PETCHE: Yeah. There’s a level of honesty there, I believe, and a level of respect there. So hopefully, with that foundation, they can follow through. But you never know in this crazy world.
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When I spoke to your show creators, they told me that they had an idea for Season 5. When you do a season of this series, do they give you hints about what would come next, or do you hear nothing until scripts are ready for you to read?
PETCHE: That’s completely up to them. I’m definitely not involved in those conversations. This is their show. This is their baby. They need to be given that space to figure out where they want to take it. And whenever they send me a script, if they do, I’m there, and I’m ready.
Miriam Petche Is Curious About the Future for Sweetpea Golightly in Season 5 of ‘Industry’
"There are lots of things I'd like to see with her."
Image via HBOIs there anything that you would still like to see and explore with Sweetpea?
PETCHE: There are lots of things I’d like to see with her. I would like to see her in a position of power, and I would like to see how she handles herself. Maybe she adopts some characteristics that she saw in other people and didn’t necessarily like. I’d like to see her put in more uncomfortable situations to see who she becomes. Does she become like mentors that she’s had previously? Does she lay out a new way of working? I think seeing her in a position of power would be very interesting to me.
Because this show is so well written and well done, does that just raise the bar for everything else that you then want to do?
PETCHE: I just feel so grateful for this. I feel so grateful for what I’ve had, and I feel so grateful for the experience of this level of writing and nuance and creativity and humor. The acting that I’ve been able to witness, as a young actor, is something I am extremely grateful for. I definitely take that gratitude, going forward. I feel extremely lucky to have been a part of this show for two seasons.
It definitely feels like a show that could make you want to go do a comedy where you can laugh a lot.
PETCHE: That’s what your personal life is for. You can hang out with friends and family, and then you can bring the seriousness to work.
Release Date November 9, 2020
Network HBO
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Marisa Abela
Yasmin Kara-Hanani
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Harry Lawtey
Robert Spearing
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Industry airs on HBO and is available to stream on HBO Max.
English (US) ·