Harper Stern is coming off two big wins at the end of Industry season two’s third episode. She’s successfully snagged Mr. Covid, a.k.a billionaire Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass), as her client at Pierpoint & Co. She’s also shepherded Bloom into a controlling stake of telemedicine startup Rycan, much to the chagrin of her mentor and frenemy (menemy?) Eric Tao (Ken Leung). But Myha’la Herrold, who plays the gutsy and self-destructive young analyst, doesn’t think Harper is necessarily kicking back and basking in the glow of her recent success. “I’m not sure that she will ever be satisfied,” Herrold says, “because the mountains she’s climbing just keep getting higher. She’s scaled Mount Everest with Jesse Bloom, and I’m sure she’ll be, Okay, what’s next?”

Herrold can answer that question about herself: She’s gearing up to film a project in the UK. “My lips are very sealed,” she says about the new gig over Zoom from her London hotel room. Like Harper, Herrold is coming off a recent one-two punch of wins: not just the second season of Industry, but also the debut of her A24 film Bodies Bodies Bodies, which opened in wide release over the weekend.

“Harper wants to be the best at what she does. And so do I, for my own self and for the work that I put out there,” Herrold says. But unlike Harper, there are lines that Herrold simply won’t cross. “The difference is she will do anything necessary. And I will not sacrifice my integrity, or I won’t sacrifice other people’s feelings or their position or whatever to get what I want,” she says. “Ain’t no silos over here, it’s all sweet.”

Harper’s duplicitous nature was on full display in this week’s episode, appropriately titled “The Fool,” which saw her use information she gleaned via eavesdropping to help Bloom make a strategic move that would potentially help him in the long run and destroy Eric, effectively tanking the other trader’s already tenuous relationship with his biggest client Felim Bichan (Andrew Buchan). It’s a risky move that thrusts Harper into an ethically grey area.

“Everything she does is pretty single-minded in the sense that she is out for her personal success, and she’s also playing by the rules of the bank,” Herrold says. “What she’s learned from season one is you can’t trust nobody, and nobody is safe, so she sees an opportunity with Jesse. She’s thinking, This will secure me here and secure me in life. She’s very much, Oh, you say I can’t do this? Watch me do it. Her mind is not, Is this morally correct?,” Herrold adds, matter-of-factly. “She’s not worried about none of that.”

For Herrold, Harper often operates out of insecurity—something that the relative newcomer in Hollywood finds relatable to a point. “Even on the days when I’m feeling insecure, I still do believe that I belong where I am,” Herrold says. “I believe that I’ve earned my place here in the world and in my life, and I’ve done my homework. I’ve prepared myself well enough to say, ‘Oh no, I’m being asked to do these things because on paper I’ve got what it takes.’”

Harper, however, isn’t quite there yet. “She’s riddled with insecurity,” Herrold says. “She’s [like], I know I’m the best, but they don’t know I’m the best, and so I have to prove myself, which means I can’t fail at all, and I can’t make a misstep.” Herrold pulls the lens back to herself to underline the point. “I don’t like failing, but I also understand that there is grace in the world. And I think [Harper] does not believe that. So we have similar desires, but I’m just not going to act crazy,” she says and then laughs.

Harper is beholden to no one in part due to her chaotic family, which season two explores more fully as Harper tries to track down her estranged twin brother. “Okay, well, no shit she acts crazy. It’s because she doesn’t have a really truly healthy relationship,” Herrold says. “And it gets even more complicated when you add relationships like Eric, and Yasmin, and Jesse. They’re all work relationships that somehow verge on becoming personal, which is always crazy. You keep your outside life at home. You keep work at work.”

Although Herrold believes in separating the professional and the personal, she admits that she’s lucky to have forged genuine connections with her castmates on Industry. Filming the first season of Industry was initially a “massive culture shock” for the California native, who was just 23 when she hopped across the pond for her big break. But according to Herrold, “We got lucky, and we all actually do love each other.”

Bodies Bodies Bodies was a similar experience, in terms of both cast camaraderie and playing a sometimes unsavory character. The crew, which also included Pete Davidson, Amandla Stenberg, and Lee Pace, “all loved each other” and “got on from day one,” which made being nasty to each other in the film that much more fun. “Amandla said this so well on Kimmel…. She said, We had to honestly and truly play some of the worst people. They suck.”

But for Herrold, that’s the appeal. “People ask me, ‘It seems like you [and your costars] are friends. But isn’t it horrible when you do horrible things to each other?’” She says. “And I’m like, ‘Honestly, no. That’s when we have the most fun.’”

In fact, the messier the character, the better. “I am drawn to characters who have a deeply chaotic inner life,” Herrold says. “Who are putting up a mask to the rest of the world, and they’re fighting so hard against that that it is obvious.” This search led Herrold to Bodies Bodies Bodies’s Jordan, a gun-wielding, cheating, and podcast-hating pragmatist who’s willing to take matters into her own hands when things go south at a party.

“I was at one of the opening screenings of Bodies, and there was a person there who was, ‘Oh, I’m a fan of Industry,’” Herrold recalls. “And I said, ‘Oh, thanks.’ And he said, ‘Do think you’re going to play anything other than these type-A prickly people?’ And I was like, Damn, read me for filth.”

Even though Jordan and Harper seem cut from similarly intense cloth, in Herrold’s hands there are distinct differences. Harper is less caustic, less brash, and less angry than Jordan, who fully loses her cool and composure by the film’s end. “I would call Harper...trigger happy,” Herrold says. “I think she’s anxious and scared, and then she just makes a decision. Jordan is very angry. She’s an angry person. I don’t think Harper is angry really. She probably is in some ways, but she’s a little more anxiety-driven.”

This somewhat subtle distinction is the bedrock of Herrold’s work, which she says is driven by her search for nuance. “I think the thing that links most of the characters I will play—I think all of them—which has to do with my style, is nuance,” Herrold says. “Some people on Twitter are like, ‘She’s so boring. She doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t even act. Nothing’s happening,’” she says, laughing off the haters. “And I’m like, Babes, it’s all in the eyes.”

Herrold honed this technique as a drama student at Carnegie Mellon, where she recalls playing a witch in Macbeth (which was “cute,” according to her) and the ditzy flapper Kitty in the musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone. “I did that my senior year, and that’s one of my favorite shows,” Herrold says of the Tony-winning musical. “The music is amazing. It’s undoubtedly so good and just a good time.”

If a lighthearted musical romp seems a little out of character for an actor who broke out playing calculating and cold businesswomen, Herrold’s the type of actor who can do it all—and wants to. “I’m excited to play something soft, something romantic, something young and full of life,” she says. “I would love to play somebody who is not that mad.”