Myha'la makes ambitious, difficult women worth following without asking us to forgive them. We rate her most in Industry, where Harper Stern's vulnerability complicates the toughness, and the performance survives the programme's fondness for excess.
Fi1m perspective
In the London investment bank of Industry (2020), Myha'la's Harper Stern is ambitious and ruthless enough to be difficult company. Myha'la gives her vulnerability without softening the behaviour that makes her hard to like. We found ourselves caring about Harper despite her ruthlessness, because her toughness never quite conceals how exposed she can be. The performance holds our attention through the business of the working day, which is where this programme is most interesting.
The series was her breakthrough, and the work with creators and writers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay remains central to how we judge her. Lena Dunham directed the pilot, but the continuing opportunity matters more: Harper has room across multiple series to remain contradictory. Our reservation is with Industry itself, which too often lets sex and excess crowd out the office politics. Myha'la helps make young bankers worth following; the programme need not keep looking for distractions.
Her subsequent film work includes Jordan in the horror-comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), followed by two ensembles that we find less rewarding than Industry. Craig Gillespie's Dumb Money (2023), in which she plays Riri, is quick and well cast but explains the GameStop squeeze without finding much to say about it. As Ruth Scott in Sam Esmail's Leave the World Behind (2023), she is part of a thriller whose tense, funny opening hour gives way to over-explanation. These are reservations about the films rather than her performances. Neither would be our first recommendation for understanding what she can do.
Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire (2026), with Myha'la as Linda Page, is a tighter, more satisfying film, though Bill Skarsgård is our reason to see it. The caution for Myha'la is the repeated casting as driven or ruthless young women: intensity can become predictable when it is all a part requires. Her strength is in finding the vulnerability and contradictions that prevent such women becoming merely abrasive. Start with Industry, if the working day interests you enough to tolerate what keeps interrupting it.
Biography
Myha'la, born Myha'la Herrold, is an American actress. She trained at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, graduating in 2018, and began her career in theatre, including a 2017 touring production of The Book of Mormon.
She is known for her role as Harper Stern in the series Industry (2020–) and film roles including Jordan in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), Riri in Dumb Money (2023) and Ruth Scott in Leave the World Behind (2023). She has also appeared in Black Mirror and Modern Love.
