On HBO’s hit show Industrythere is a boisterous character, Rishi Ramdani, played by Sagar Radia.
He was a confident, often aggressive trader on the Pierpoint floor who loved to make a quick buck.
But what started its arc with a merchant shouting “nonsense” took a dark turn when season three ended.
But in season four, things got worse to a point where HBO executives asked the creators to include a few disturbing scenes of him.
In an interview with GoldDerbyMickey Down explains, “The decision to bring back Rishi has always been driven by our love for Sagar and his performance, just like everything else.”
He continues, “In Season 1, he was a secondary actor who came to life through ADR, which we did after we shot.”
“In season 2 we gave him his own storyline,” says Down.
“And in Season 3 we gave him his own episode to see if he could carry it – and he could.”
“He’s a fantastic presence, one that felt very organic, but also quite new for television because it’s a brown man who behaves depravedly.”
Season 4: Rishi in decline
Then, in season four, his financial world collapsed.
“By Season 4, he was out of the financial game. We made that huge decision at the end of Season 3.”
However, the character like Rishi, who has ‘sociopathic tendencies’, does not come back from his mistakes.
‘What does someone like that do to make quick money? Probably sells drugs.’
“Would he be a little smug with his wife? Probably not, given who he is,” Down notes.
HBO told the makers of Industry to tone down Rishi’s scenes
In season 4, a few of Rishi’s scenes were so deeply uncomfortable that even HBO executives had trouble watching them.
Down says: “HBO told us it was incredibly unpleasant to watch, especially in the director’s cut version which was fifteen minutes long.”
His co-creator Konrad Kay reveals that the network executives asked them to shorten those scenes or tone them down to some extent.
Regarding this request, the creator joked that he had cut a negligible frame from the scene, and assured them that the cuts had been made.
“They kept trying to get us to take a timeout, and we kept cutting two frames out of it and saying, ‘There you go!’
Industry is renewed for season 5, which will be its last.
