‘Business’ Season 3: Ken Leung talks Eric’s ‘obsession’ with Yasmin

One of many components of Business Season 3 that almost all intrigued Ken Leung was the brand-new dynamic between his character, Eric Tao, and Marisa Abela’s Yasmin Kara-Hanani.

“Before we shot anything, I was told that something would happen between Eric and Yasmin,” Leung advised Mashable in a video interview. “For everything that happens on the show, and things that I could imagine or predict, that kind of came out of nowhere. Up until then, Eric has nothing to do with Yasmin, and suddenly they were going to come together in some way, so I was most curious about how that was going to happen.”

The catalyst for Eric and Yasmin’s sudden proximity in Business is none apart from their shared connection to Harper Stern (Myha’la), Eric’s former protégé and Yasmin’s frenemy. When Eric fired Harper on the finish of Season 2, that left Pierpoint & Co. with an enormous seat to fill — and who else ought to fill it however Yasmin?

Nonetheless, it is clear proper from the Season 3 premiere that Eric and Yasmin’s relationship will not be something like Eric and Harper’s. He is unsympathetic in the direction of her standing as tabloid fodder and unimpressed by her efficiency. In his thoughts, Yasmin is devoid of Harper’s drive and starvation, hampered by exterior forces that make her a legal responsibility to Pierpoint.

The distinction between Harper’s and Yasmin’s respective backgrounds and approaches to work have been key for Leung’s understanding of how Eric would view Yasmin. “Harper is a known entity. The reason Eric is attracted to her is that he recognizes something in her of himself. Yasmin is the other side of that,” Leung defined. “She is a complete unknown. She’s not your typical grad. She has personal wealth; she doesn’t know why she’s there, or what she wants — or it doesn’t seem like she does. So she’s a big question mark.”

Yasmin’s “unknowable” qualities start to disclose themselves to Eric later within the premiere, throughout the pair’s impromptu cocaine-fueled night time out with Yasmin’s lawyer (Fiona Button). The HR violations pile sky-high as Yasmin, rocking a barrister wig, bares her soul to Eric. She confesses she finds Eric terrifying, whereas Eric says he looks like they’ve “just skipped several awkward stages of a relationship.” Pierpoint’s HR division ought to be bursting into the room any second now, proper?

On the crux of this coked-up dialog is the sense that Yasmin and Eric may be equals now on the buying and selling ground. “Let’s try to remember that feeling when we’re sober,” Yasmin implores Eric.

She holds Eric to that request in episode 2, after he reproaches her for manipulating rumors about Lumi’s IPO launch. “Why don’t you just talk to me how you talked to me last night,” she tells him. “You know, like I’m a human being.”

That is the change that actually adjustments Eric’s thoughts about Yasmin, in accordance with Leung. “Lo and behold, she steps up to Eric in a way that we maybe don’t expect. She has the wherewithal to say, ‘Drop the bullshit. Stop this show you’re putting on all the time,'” Leung stated. “In that moment, Eric sees that this unknown entity has an element of known. It pulls him in gradually to the point where she becomes an obsession.”

That Eric’s “obsession” with Yasmin coincides together with his separation from his spouse isn’t any accident. Eric has leapt again into the relationship pool, is having informal intercourse (together with with Yasmin’s lawyer), and has began utilizing medicine once more. Principally, he is appearing just like the younger grads all the way in which again in Season 1, at the same time as he joins the ranks of associate at Pierpoint.

“With Eric’s struggles with aging out of this young man’s business, [Yasmin] represents something new and something young,” Leung stated. “She represents everything he’s desperately trying to recapture and hold on to.”

Business is now streaming on Max, with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.