“Noooo! What Are You Doing?”: Sagar Radia Was Also Shocked By Rishi’s Wild Ride in ‘Industry’ Season 3 Episode 4 “White Mischief”

Industry Season 3 Episode 4 “White Mischief” drops us right into the maelstrom that is Rishi Ramdani’s (Sagar Radia) personal life. The talented market maker has spiced things up at Pierpoint for years now, starting off as a particularly entertaining member of the background ensemble on the trading floor in Season 1, before becoming a key part of Harper Stern’s (Myha’la) storyline in Season 2. At long last, the HBO show is revealing what life actually looks like for Rishi…and it’s wild.

**Spoilers for Industry Season 3 Episode 4 “White Mischief,” now streaming on Max**

In Industry Season 3 Episode 4 “White Mischief,” we learn that Rishi is up to his eyeballs in debt. He’s emptied his savings to buy a picture perfect cottage and cricket pavilion in his white wife Diana’s (Emily Barber) hometown of Somerset. At work, he’s super duper over his debt limit, spending upwards of a billion pounds on a risky currency exchange bet. Oh, and he’s also got a loan shark friend, Vin (Asim Chaudry), trying to get back the money Rishi lost betting on horses (partially on behalf of his Pierpoint coworkers). Add cocaine nose-bleeds on his own infant son’s head and an affair with Sweetpea Golightly (Miriam Petche), and Rishi’s life looks fucked.

“I’ve sort of learned a lot about Rishi at the same pace the audience has learned a lot about Rishi,” Industry star Sagar Radia told Decider during a recent interview. “So it was a learning curve for me as much as it was for everybody else.”

“Because I’m still I’m turning the page and learning more about Rishi. I’m getting to the end and learning more about Rishi. I’m into [Season 3] Episode 8 and learning more about Rishi. So I’m going, ‘Holy crap. This is what’s happening? Where does he go from here?’ You know, I’m still asking myself this question and there’s no real answer.”

One of the key things we all learned about Rishi in “White Mischief” is just how addictive his personality is. The moment he manages to somehow win big on the gambling tables, he celebrates by causing chaos at a strip club, and then goes back to the casino…to bet and lose the thousands he won and desperately needed.

“When Rishi gets that money, and then he just has that moment, and then he just goes back into the casino, and you’re just, hands on your head like, ‘Noooo! What are you doing?'” Radia said, echoing how we all felt watching it go down.

“It just tells you so much about this guy when he hits rock bottom, what type of decision-making he goes through and what that looks like for him and how self-destructive he can be when he really, really wants to be.”

“Because I’m still I’m turning the page and learning more about Rishi… So I’m going, ‘Holy crap. This is what’s happening? Where does he go from here?'”

Sagar Radia

Radia revealed to Decider that the casino sequence was one of “the first things we shot” because they only had the location for two short days. He also explained that these scenes were “really interesting” because they revealed just “how severe” his addictive personality was.

“I know a couple of people who have addictive personalities and it’s so all-consuming,” Radia said. “It’s such a hole that you can’t get yourself out or regardless of good or better decision-making. You know, going through it, you’re just digging and digging and digging and digging. You just don’t know how you got there.”

That aspect, of not knowing quite how Rishi gets to wherever it is he winds up, is what Radia seems to love about the character — and the writing on Industry.

“You know, Ken [Leung] made a really good point earlier on today, which is that’s kind of what life is,” Radia said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We don’t know what’s going to happen next week. So in a way, it’s kind of a blessing not to know too much.”

“I never want to figure out Rishi. I know how to play him, but I never want to figure him out.”