From Amy Winehouse to Industry: Marisa Abela Means Business
After the scrutiny of playing the late singer, the BAFTA winner returns to a world of money, risk and power
It was never going to be easy getting the role every young actress wanted. Playing Amy Winehouse was always going to feel like judgement day for whoever landed the part — but Marisa Abela knew exactly what she was walking into. “It was terrifying,” she admitted speaking about the weight of responsibility that came with portraying the adored singer who died in 2011 at the age of 27.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Back to Black, Amy Winehouse’s landmark album, which went on to win five Grammy Awards and became one of the most influential British records of its generation. Back to Black, also the name of the Amy biopic saw Abela sing all the songs herself, after months of vocal training for the role rather than miming to Winehouse’s recordings and critics were largely respectful of the approach.
Having the courage to sing the iconic catalogue did not go unnoticed and Abela got a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer. She didn’t walk away with a mask that night, but was glad to be included and anyway she already had one on her mantelpiece – a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for Industry, the series that first put her on the map and in which she returns on 11 January in season 4.
Fans of Industry know Abela well. She has been there from the start in 2020, playing Yasmin Kara-Hanani, one of the original graduates at Pierpoint & Co — the fictional investment bank at the centre of the show’s racy, high-pressure world. Created by former bankers Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, Industry owes more to The Wolf of Wall Street than traditional workplace drama with its’ mix of money, sex, power and ambition.
Set in London but global in its outlook, the series follows a group of young recruits competing for survival in an environment where loyalty is thin, and excess is normalised. Abela was just 23 when she got the part of Yasmin, then a nervy junior much like herself, but she is no longer the new girl. More importantly she’s relieved she isn’t like Yasmin. “Thank God I’m not as cold-hearted or complicated as she is,” she says. “But as the series has grown, so have the risks.They’re dealing with bigger money, bigger stakes — there’s more on the line now.”
And as for what’s coming next, Abela hints that the show isn’t toning anything down, describing the new run as “the most high-camp, crazy villain origin story of all time.”
Marisa’s parents – Jewish mother, Caroline Gruber and father Angelo Abela an actor and director, of Maltese-Libyan heritage warned her about the realities of acting — “They said ‘unless there’s nothing else you can do, don’t do it.” But their daughter is doing it and well, after catching the interest of director Steven Soderbergh who cast her as a British intelligence officer opposite Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in his spy thriller Black Bag, which opened in spring 2025.
Next up a starring role in The Return of Stanley Atwell with Nicholas Galitzine which is about a wealthy family thrown into turmoil when an heir long believed dead suddenly reappears. Last year Abela was also invited to play Elizabeth Bennet in a a new Audible adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Starring opposite Harris Dickinson as Mr Darcy and a heavyweight supporting cast including Glenn Close, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Abela says that playing Elizabeth was “pure joy. She is one of the most fiercely intelligent and iconic characters in literature.” Landing the role she wants, it seems, is becoming something of a habit.
Industry’ Season 4 premieres Monday, 12th January on BBC One
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