Our latest Culture List comes from American actor Myha’la Herrold, perhaps best known as Harper Stern in hit TV series Industry with her sharp, layered portrayal of a young woman navigating the high-stakes world of finance. Soon, you’ll also know her as Tisha, from her role in 20th Century Studios’ new film Swiped – inspired by the provocative real-life story of the founder of online dating platform Bumble, Whitney Wolfe, played by Lily James (streaming on Disney+ from 19th September).
We sat down with the New York-based actor ahead of the film’s release to find out more about the role. While Lily’s character is the focal point of the film, you can’t help but be drawn to Myha’la’s character when she’s onscreen. “Tisha is a fictional amalgamation of who we might have imagined to be around Whitney Wolfe during the time. But with a twist,” she says. Through Tisha, we are given a glimpse into the loneliness that shadows ambition, especially for women trying to bend the rules of a system never built for them.
At its core, you could say Swiped is a film about reclaiming space: for women navigating dating platforms, corporate boardrooms, or simply their own stories. It casts a lens on the gender imbalance in tech, not just in sheer numbers but in actual meaningful success. If 2010’s The Social Network captured the rise of Facebook through a male gaze, Swiped offers a necessary counterpoint: the story of a woman rewriting the rules in an industry that works against her. (It’s not much of a spoiler to say that Lily’s character Whitney goes on to launch two globally lauded dating apps and becomes the youngest self-made woman billionaire.)
Myha’la’s character serves as a great example that being a women in tech does not mean you have to fit into a specific box. As for Trisha’s aforementioned “twist”? “She’s gothic, punk rock, a drummer, confident and she serves as Whitney’s closest confidante – but she’s also a tough love kind of friend,” adds Myha’la, who plays her with just the right edge: the kind of friend who challenges as fiercely as she supports.
Much like her character Trisha, there are many facets to Myha‘la, too. While most of the roles we’ve seen her in so far span film and TV, her first love was musical theatre (which she studied at university, before going on to star in The Book of Mormon tour just before she got called up for Industry). And she hasn’t left this behind, citing many musicals as key influences and favourite pastimes in our video interview.
While we’ve seen plenty of Myha’la onscreen, who is the woman behind all these complex, quietly defiant characters? What inspires and drives her to keep creating? And what’s on her cultural radar right now? Fortunately, you can find out all this and more in our video, from the film that first ignited her love for acting to her go-to recipe – plus the yoga studio in Brooklyn Heights where she goes to wind down. This is Myha’la’s Culture List...
