‘Industry’s Sagar Radia dishes on Rishi’s literal downfall

Just when you thought Industry was done putting Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) through hell, the series keeps finding new ways to make him suffer.

Season 3 set the bar high with “White Mischief,” a heart attack-inducing hour reminiscent of Uncut Gems. It went even further in its finale, when Rishi’s debt collector Vinay (Asim Chaudhry) shot his wife Diana (Emily Barber) right in front of him. Season 4 has delved into the ruins of his life since then, hinting at a media circus between seasons that left Rishi as a suspect in Diana’s murder. Unable to get a job, he’s resorted to doing Harper Stern’s (Myha’la) dirty work. He’s also forbidden from seeing his young child, now living with Diana’s family, for more than a few minutes at a time.

Sounds like rock bottom, right? But somehow, Industry makes things even rockier for Rishi in Season 4, episode 4, titled “1000 Yoots, 1 Marilyn.”

The episode sees Rishi cozying up to FinDigest reporter and Harper ally Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton). They wind up doing drugs together in a seedy apartment, and the night only spirals from there, ending with Jim dead, the police arriving, and a panicked Rishi leaping from the apartment balcony and shattering his legs. It’s a shocking moment in a show full of them, not to mention a very involved stunt.

“It was the first time I got to be part of a stunt on that type of level,” Radia told Mashable in a video interview. “There’s a million things going through your head when you’re dangling over a balcony like that.”

The stunt involved wire work, and Radia remembered splitting the sequence into three sections: running up to the balcony, leaning over and getting his legs over the balcony, and then the jump itself.

Makeup for the aftermath of the fall proved equally involved, with a prosthetics team creating Rishi’s bloody, broken legs. It’s one of Industry‘s goriest images yet, along with Diana’s murder.

Radia recalled lying on the ground around one o’clock in the morning, preparing to shoot the injury sequence. “I think we had probably 10, 15, 20 minutes to get that last bit done, and [the makeup and prosthetics team] were pouring all the blood on, and the camera is trying to position itself in the right place, and we were running out of time, as you always do in this industry, and we’re just trying to get the shot,” Radia said.

The final effect is gruesome, injecting more horror into a scene that asks, “What could possibly be next for Rishi?”

For Radia, Rishi’s final scene in “1000 Yoots, 1 Marilyn” felt like a synthesis of the character he’s been playing for four seasons.

“From a character perspective, it’s Rishi doing what he’s always done, which is just trying to run away from the problem, trying to get away from the situation that he’s gotten himself in,” Radia said.

But now that Rishi can quite literally no longer run, he has to confront himself, creating a kind of catharsis for him.

“It’s a really poignant moment in the story,” Radia said. “He’s been struggling with so much guilt and grief from what’s happened at the end of Season 3 that it all catches up to him, and he doesn’t quite know how to process the emotions that he’s carrying. Actually, I think what you see at the end of that episode is a sense of relief. It’s a sense of going, ‘I think this is the right thing that’s happening, albeit not in the greatest of circumstances… Everything that’s happened up until this point leads to now, and it’s the right thing.’ For once, I think his moral compass is in the right direction, and he feels like, ‘Yeah, this is what should be happening.'”

New episodes of Industry Season 4 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.