{"id":357705,"date":"2026-02-26T17:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/357705\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:34:10","slug":"kiernan-shipka-on-her-surprising-turn-on-industry-season-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/357705\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiernan Shipka on Her Surprising Turn on \u2018Industry\u2019 Season 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Kiernan Shipka is telling me about \u201cthe novelty of a martini.\u201d Her voice is raspy \u2014 she\u2019s been in New York for a week of nonstop press for season four of Industry, and last night, she was out late with friends at People\u2019s, a speakeasy in the West Village\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but she\u2019s more than ready for what\u2019s in store today. This afternoon, we\u2019re taking a private martini-making lesson at Damballa, a sleek bar situated between Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, and while the 26-year-old actor is more of a margarita girl, she\u2019s soaking up the opportunity to learn something new. A good stiff drink, she says, \u201cI can always get down with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our instructor, a broad beautiful bartender in his 30s, tells us that what we\u2019re learning is a \u201clife skill,\u201d a sly smile on his face. \u201cSomeday, you\u2019re gonna throw a dinner party and you\u2019re gonna want to know how to make this,\u201d he says while showing us the difference between a Hawthorne strainer and julep strainer. Shipka assures him she\u2019s up for the challenge, and as he begins to hand us bottles and glasses, she hangs on to his every last word. \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference in flavor profile between a shaken and stirred martini?\u201d Shipka asks. (Shaking a cocktail like James Bond, it turns out, is only necessary if you\u2019re adding citrus.) \u201cI am still trying to be the person who loves a martini,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Shipka, who was born in Chicago, got her start in commercials. At 6 years old, she asked her parents, who work in real-estate management, if she could move to Los Angeles. They obliged, and she quickly landed a role that would go on to define the next decade of her career: Sally Draper on Mad Men. An only child, Shipka didn\u2019t go to regular school while filming the Emmy-winning series, but she took dance classes with other kids. \u201cAll my friends were my age and they weren\u2019t in the business,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI think that\u2019s probably a reason why I didn\u2019t get burnt out, because I didn\u2019t really feel like I was \u2018in the biz.\u2019\u201d By the time Mad Men aired its final episode, she was 16. \u201cI started so young, when it wasn\u2019t a job,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about having team calls and agents or anything like that. I was just having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, she starred in Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa\u2019s Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It was Shipka\u2019s first time at the top of a call sheet.\u00a0Before then, \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about my career in a really strategic way,\u201d she says. \u201cFrom like 14 to 18, I was sort of just figuring stuff out on my own and, and then Sabrina was this totally new, exciting world.\u201d <\/strong>Sabrina offered a foray into elevated teen material, but it wasn\u2019t until she reached her early 20s that Shipka really started to play against type. She snagged parts in Osgood Perkins\u2019s horror film Longlegs and Gia Coppola\u2019s The Last Showgirl, in which she plays a Vegas dancer. But her roles on Sabrina and Mad Men are what really got the attention<\/a> of HBO casting director Julie Harkin, who knew that when fans saw Shipka\u2019s performance on Industry, a raunchy corporate thriller, they wouldn\u2019t see her as little Sally Draper anymore.<\/p>\n

Industry has held a small but steady fan base since its debut during the COVID-19 pandemic. The stakes \u2014 and the viewership, which went from 300,000 to 800,000 between seasons one and four \u2014 are higher than ever. In seasons three and four, actors from beloved franchises were brought in to be obliterated by finance bros. Last season, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington joined the ranks as Henry Muck, a depressed aristocrat and wannabe businessman. This time, Shipka joined the cast alongside Stranger Things\u2019s Charlie Heaton. She opens the first episode, introducing us to Hayley Clay, an assistant at Tender, a payment processor with (you guessed it) shady dealings. It\u2019s been a slow burn, but her story line descends into something truly grisly by the finale.<\/p>\n

For Shipka, joining the cast of Industry was exciting. She wanted to have \u201ca fresh start\u201d playing a more grown-up character but was initially anxious about getting into the mindset of Hayley, whose first appearances involve a drugged-up sex scene and whose true motivations are revealed slowly over time. \u201cI love what I do and I know that I\u2019m good at what I do, but I approach it as if I\u2019m trying to learn from it,\u201d Shipka says. \u201cI have self-confidence that I can do the job, but I always want to feel a little nervous because that\u2019s what makes me put my whole self into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Katherine Pekala\n <\/p>\n

The first shocking moment of the season occurs when Hayley is seemingly coerced into a threesome with her boss, Henry, and his wife, Yasmin, in episode three. Like all sex on Industry, it\u2019s depraved. Viewers were disturbed, but so far, there\u2019s nothing this show can do that won\u2019t be memed by its fan base.<\/a> It was a complex scene, but Shipka wasn\u2019t too fazed, she tells me. \u201cI\u2019d done sex scenes in some capacity before, but this one was definitely the most explicit, and the one I knew would be the most seen,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very psychological scene, and Hayley is always two steps ahead. We came at it from a character-driven space, so the physicality about it didn\u2019t scare me at all; it felt very safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the season, it is revealed that Hayley has been in control of her own destiny the entire time. There were clues, of course \u2014 this is the same character who suggested snuggling in bed with Yasmin an episode before the threesome and offered a wicked \u201cThank you, Mommy\u201d <\/a>while flashing Yasmin in an elevator after the sexual encounter. (\u201cLike, is there chemistry?\u201d Kiernan asks, laughing.) Later, we learn that <\/strong>Hayley\u2019s role as an assistant has always been second to her job as an escort. She was employed by Tender\u2019s manipulative co-founder, Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), to lure men into rooms with cameras, and Yasmin and Henry were just another mark. By episode six, Hayley manipulates Whitney, extorting him for half a million dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cHayley moves through her life pretty much thinking, How can I weaponize this? She\u2019s very calculated and very manipulative and I don\u2019t relate to that at all, but it\u2019s a fun character to play because she\u2019s very cerebral. She\u2019s constantly playing a character,\u201d Shipka says. She pauses for a beat. \u201cI guess in some sort of semi-meta way as an actor, I could relate to her because I play people, and she\u2019s playing different versions of herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In real life, Shipka is a social butterfly and quick to ask questions.\u00a0She wants to know what I\u2019m doing tonight and, when I reveal I have a date, specifically what I hope the vibes are going to be when I get there. (When it comes to her own romantic life, I get the sense she\u2019d rather keep things private.) <\/strong>She swipes on her phone to show me her array of wallpaper backgrounds. \u201cThis one helps me not to overthink,\u201d she says, revealing an image of a well-known meme, two nihilists on a bus<\/a>. She shows me another: \u201cThis is the Earth from the sun,\u201d she says, swiping, \u201cwhich is a nice, like, here we are \u2026 on this little floating rock.\u201d She offers a giggle.<\/p>\n

When we pour the rest of our concoction of gin, vermouth, and olive brine from our cocktail shakers into our glasses, Shipka peers down at her coupe, her eyes right above the rim. The pour is just right. \u201cThese are nice glasses, too,\u201d she adds, a wide grin on her face. We\u2019re both old enough now that it would be weird to not know how to make a good drink, Shipka says, so we clap, a white Van Cleef ring on her left pointer finger glinting in the dim bar light as she grabs for her glass to take a sip.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Katherine Pekala\n <\/p>\n

Most childhood actors experience burnout or breakdowns. <\/strong>Shipka says she has suffered neither. She has a varied social life \u2014 she counts her castmate Marisa Abela as one of her good friends and attended her wedding<\/a> last summer. \u201cThere was a moment in my early 20s where I started experiencing a new side of set, which was hanging out and making friends,\u201d Shipka says. \u201cObviously as a kid, I wasn\u2019t going out with the cast of Mad Men,\u201d she adds, laughing. <\/strong>She didn\u2019t realize how big her community had gotten in L.A. until a recent holiday party. \u201cI invited every person that came to mind, and there were so many people that you wanted to see in a room together and never thought that you would,\u201d she says. \u201cThere were my childhood friends and my actor friends, writers, and musicians. That was just a moment where I realized I had accumulated a lot of different friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her calendar is always stacked, but especially so when she\u2019s in New York. Later, she\u2019ll head back to her hotel before meeting friends for dinner at Via Carota. Dinner with her friend group is always a must, she tells me, though she\u2019s also down to be spontaneous. \u201cWe\u2019ll do novelty moments,\u201d she says. \u201cWe went to the Cheesecake Factory, which was really fun. We go to dinner and then we say, \u2018What\u2019s the move?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Her career, however, is where she sticks to a plan. \u201cI\u2019ve fallen in love with acting in a whole new kind of way in my 20s,\u201d Shipka tells me, tucking her feet up under her legs, grabbing the martini glass and setting it back down without taking a sip. \u201cI had to go and live my life and be a person so that I could take that back into the work.\u201d The result? \u201cThe parts that I\u2019m playing now are complicated in a way that I can wrap my head around because I\u2019ve got more life in me.\u201d Shipka has no regrets about growing up as a child star in Los Angeles, though she knows that\u2019s a rare state of mind for most grown-up former child actors. \u201cThe idea of my life and my early childhood not unfolding the way that it did is really scary to me,\u201d she says. \u201cI really feel like when I look back on this period of my life, Industry will be a very defining part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Production Credits<\/p>\n