What Industry’s Ken Leung Learned About Style From His Costars

It’s nothing they’ve consciously put me on to. It’s just them—by example. I know that Mickey has this whole closet full of Miyake suits. I wore one of that style of suit last season for some of our press things, and he was like, “Oh, I have that in every color.” So I was like, “Okay, that’s a Mickey thing. I’m gonna stay away from that.” That’s a kind of thinking that I’m not practiced in. I never think about stuff like that. But because of press and events and stuff, you know, you can’t help but develop a thinking around that stuff.

You brought up the concept of a uniform, and I wanted to get your personal take on your character’s style. We really only see Eric Tao in a variation of one outfit.

I think with Eric, it’s not so much what he wears, but how he wears it. For example, we’ve seen him change clothes on the trading floor. We’ve seen him in his boxers on the trading floor. He treats the trading floor like it’s his personal bathroom, his bedroom, his closet. It’s his way of owning the space. You’re not gonna not wear a suit to work at Pierpoint, but it’s about how you wear it.

It feels really cool. But there’s a sense of armor that’s beyond cool. I find that interesting. If you’re wearing armor, then you anticipate danger, or you anticipate an attack. That’s why you’re wearing armor. And then that becomes: What are you defending yourself from? What are you protecting yourself against? What are you afraid of? So it actually reveals a vulnerability more than some kind of, you know, posturing coolness.

I want to talk about Eric’s retired guy style. In the first episode where Harper calls him on the phone and he’s in a cashmere hoodie and a floppy beanie/beret type thing. It seems sort of like a costume for Eric, because it was very different from what we’ve seen him in throughout the show. Was that very much by design?

It felt really comfortable. I think Eric is in a place of “trying on” retirement, right? What is that feeling? I guess this is a “retirement outfit,” like, how does that feel on me? Because what we witnessed, you know, he’s apparently reached everyone’s dream. You work all your life to be able to do nothing, and that doesn’t work for him. Maybe the hat is like, Wow, it’s not obvious how I wear it. I’m uncomfortable in this, in this comfort. There’s that subtle kind of duality with Eric; he’s not wearing retirement quite the way he maybe dreamt about.

It seems like Eric is talking about trying to be a normal person and find this balance. But do you think he’s really capable of that, or is he doomed to sacrifice everything for his ambition and his competitive nature and work?

I think he recognizes the need to do something different because of his daughter, who he has no relationship with. He’s been a completely absent father, and she’s starting to show signs of resembling his worst qualities. I think he finds that alarming, and for the first time, he’s trying to look in the mirror in a way that he never has. The important thing is not could he. The important thing is that he recognizes that he needs to. And so the season sees him trying that. That’s his deal for season four—trying on a new, you know, “outfit” for the sake of his kid. To show up in a way that he never has, and because he hasn’t, he doesn’t know how to do that. So he’s gonna look for places that he does know to try to find a path to her, and that’s obviously through Harper.