THE JOURNAL
Industry’s Mr Harry Lawtey On Why Brunello Cucinelli Is His Off-Screen Style Choice
“Surreal” is a word that Mr Harry Lawtey has found himself reaching for a lot recently. On his first day on the set of Joker: Folie À Deux (he plays the assistant district attorney Harvey Dent), which was filmed at the Warner Bros lot in Los Angeles, Mr Joaquin Phoenix sidled up for a chat. “He wanted to know how I was approaching my character and my accent,” Lawtey says, shaking his head. “He’s the sort of actor that I would speak about with my friends at drama school, and all of a sudden he’s just… there."
The catering was another thing, “I’d take photos of my lunch every day and send it to my mum and dad. It made me a bit emotional. It’s been slightly overwhelming and confusing and… surreal.”
At 28, Lawtey is one of the most exciting young British actors around. Soon after graduating from London’s Sylvia Young Theatre School, he scored the role of Robert Spearing in Industry — the much-lauded HBO/BBC drama that depicts the frenetic and often reprehensible world of a fictional multinational bank. Over the course of three seasons, Robert becomes something akin to the show’s emotional and moral core, a hard-charging wide boy floundering in a shark tank; a lost soul trying his best to keep up.
“I think the person I was initially confronted with is, I believe, the same person in season three,” Lawtey says. “But shed of all his extroverted baggage, machismo and faux confidence. I think part of what singles Rob out in that environment is that he had this gift-of-the-gab, maverick quality, because there wasn’t much else to suggest that he should be there. He wants to be liked and to be valued. Those are universal qualities and ones that I suppose I can relate to.”
Industry co-creator Mr Konrad Kay recalls Lawtey being visibly nervous during the audition process. “He came in with quite a rigid performance and we gradually stripped him back to a naturalism we liked more,” Kay says. “Harry the person very much informed Robert the character: conscientious, heart on sleeve, sympathetic — we rewrote Robert when we cast Harry towards these traits and ended up with a far more interesting character than the vanilla fuccboi we started with.”
During the early throes of niche recognition for Industry, Lawtey would occasionally be approached by young men who thought, and possibly hoped, that the actor was as hedonistic in-person as he was on their TV screens.
“People would see me in the pub and expect me to be a sesh head,” he says with a laugh. “I felt like I was inevitably going to disappoint them. But that’s one of the joys of long-form television, when you’ve been playing a character for so long, the line between you and them becomes a bit more blurred. You get to go on that journey together.”
“There’s a language to the clothing in that world. Every choice telegraphs something”
But it’s not just the characters that Industry gets right. It is also the attention to detail paid to the slick world of high-pressure finance, down to the period-accurate uniforms of Oxford shirts, bank-branded gilets, sensible chinos and box-and-papers Rolex GMTs and Day-Dates.
“There’s a language to the clothing in that world,” Lawtey says. “Every choice telegraphs something. I don’t think I dress much like Rob, but I do love wearing suits now, they feel a bit like armour – and I prefer proper shoes to trainers.”
That sort of eye for detail and sartorial language feels right at home in the world of Brunello Cucinelli. The Italian label’s 2025 cruise capsule, which Lawtey wears in the images and is now exclusively available at MR PORTER, offers up a seasonal palette of wine red combined with the brand’s signature neutral tones, including timeless staples such as a supple suede trench coat, cashmere knitwear, jerseys and, of course, gilets.
“If I have a philosophy around fashion, then [a brand] like Brunello Cucinelli fits it,” Lawtey says. “The more I learn about the brand, [the more] it feels synonymous with a certain level of quality and style. The detail and genuine love and affection that goes into each piece of clothing is admirable. It’s something to believe in.”
For his next act, Lawtey will take on the sizeable role of Mr Richard Burton in a biopic of the legendary actor’s younger years. He wrapped filming in Wales over the summer – and he was thrilled to receive the blessing of both Burton’s daughter and granddaughter. “I remember before I started, Marisa [Industry co-star Ms Marisa Abela, who you can see donning Brunello Cucinelli’s exclusive womenswear line over on NET‑A‑PORTER] told me that, ‘It’s a different kind of job,’ and she was right.
“People have a frame of reference and a right to an opinion about a character that existed in real life. He meant a lot to a lot of different people, so that was nerve-racking. He was someone who had a lot of demons. Flawed and incomplete, but a genius as well. He and Elizabeth Taylor basically invented the modern concept of celebrity.”
We’re sat on the balcony of a big and very white apartment near the Barbican. As the autumn sun dips behind the city’s skyscrapers and brutalist architecture, Lawtey reflects on his journey.
“I feel lucky that all of this has happened quite organically,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, probably since I was 10. My parents sacrificed a lot for me to be here. I was in drama school with so many talented people – more talented than I am. I don’t think I ever expected it, but I’m happy with how it’s panned out.”
