Generational tensions run high between the old guard and the hungry youngsters in the second season of the HBO show that begins Monday. The series about the junior bankers of the fictional London firm Pierpoint & Co. he channels this concern into the character of Eric Tao, played by Ken Leung. In the waters of the trading floor, the 50-year-old cross product sales managing director is both shark and shark bait. “Youth terrifies him,” says one up-and-comer, “unless he can control it.” What makes the show even more depressing is knowing that its characters and stories come from real life, with creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay incorporating the titles, their own brief financial careers, and interviews with financial executives into the scripts. . The original inspiration for Eric came from a person who was once in his banking orbit – a financial executive who they said is still unaware of the connection to the show. The world emerges from Covid in the show. At Pierpoint, bosses have no patience for subordinates who want to continue working remotely. The drama revolves around meme shares, the real-life transactions that have gained a huge following on social media. Eric’s white-tablecloth business breakfasts and investor club weekends are no match for a disruptive landscape shaped by brash newcomers, including a billionaire profiting from the pandemic. The new season poses a question: If experience isn’t always useful and the value of seniority is no longer a given, then what’s the point of an Eric?

Actor Ken Leung, who plays senior banker Eric Tao, said friends who work in finance say his character gives them PTSD.

          Photo: Simon Ridgway/HBO

“It’s a very young people’s game,” said Mr. Down, 33, formerly of Rothschild & Co., echoing what industry insiders have told him about their experiences in finance. “It’s a place where youth and drive and that first glimmer of ambition is really rewarded.” The show finds Eric fighting for his job against three rivals, all of whom he hired. This includes his protégé in the office next door, Harper Stern, played by Myha’la Herrold. The authors looked for generational tensions and found them around issues such as wealth. A line cut from an early script had Harper breaking what Mr. Down calls the cardinal rule of interviewing for a finance job: Don’t say you want to make money. Harper makes it clear. It’s what some in finance call a “safe-in-the-bag” mentality, or directness about the pursuit of wealth and success. “The really big hedge fund managers we talked to said it was crazy for millennial recruits to say ‘I want to make money’, it was seen as a bit fancy, a bit bad to have that mentality,” Mr Downe said, referring to the talks that he and the team of executives had while investigating the show. “Gen Z recruits have absolutely no qualms about saying they want to be successful. They say, “I want to get money.” The financial world has moved over the decades toward greater diversity and inclusion, and the show’s casting reflects that. But the series also argues that at its core the industry will never change.
“It’s not unreasonable to think that in a structure so proud of its hierarchy, there wouldn’t be a more Darwinian relationship with power,” said Mr Kaye, 34, a former Morgan Stanley member. “Of course they’ll go to their most basic animal instincts: ‘How can I get power? Who’s holding it for me? How can I keep it to myself?” As the story continues, Eric’s charges are making money, but they aren’t. As their boss, Eric claims that the team’s successes are his own. But he’s been told he’s only as good as his last deal. “In the show he’s talking about, ‘Think about everything I’ve accomplished,’ and his boss says, ‘None of that matters — what matters is what you did this week,’” said Mr. Leung, 52. ” So he has to look for new muscles to exercise. It’s a season of “finding yourself again.” At one point, Eric is “promoted” to a corner desk that he compares to a coffin. “It tells you something about how youth-obsessed the culture is that we’re talking about a 50-year-old man as if he’s a dinosaur,” said Jami O’Brien, 48, the show’s writer and executive producer. Eric is both the voice of the establishment and, as an Asian in a historically white world, an outsider. He wrestles with a baseball bat in his office, but fights for his team’s raises. A creature of the trading floor, he cuts his nails in a wastebasket as if he were in his own bathroom.
“A lot of my friends in finance say it gives them PTSD,” Mr Leung said. “And then there are other people who say, ‘I would die to have a boss like you.’ Before college, Mr. Leung worked briefly as a Wall Street temp, feeding financial documents into photomicrographs. He was struck by the noise and heat behind the cold exteriors of the financial district buildings. A key resource for the actor: his son’s elementary school. A parent who works in finance held morning meetings with his team over the phone while driving. With permission, Mr Leung listened from the passenger seat. “It just organically gave me a sense of the texture of this world,” he said. Mr. Leung, a native New Yorker of Chinese descent, played Miles Straume, a volatile medium on the ABC television drama “Lost.” His film credits include roles in Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour, Spike Lee’s Sucker Free City, and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old. The actor shows Eric struggling with his priorities in the world back at the office. “He was motivated to win and be good at his job,” Ms O’Brien said. “The pandemic made him wonder, ‘Was that a good enough reason?’ He goes through a small existential crisis in his old age, in his 50s.” Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8