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[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from season two of The Gentlemen.]
When The Gentlemen first introduced Eddie Horniman (Theo James), he was a reluctant aristocrat who unexpectedly inherited his late father’s dukedom, only to discover that his old man had been involved in a vast weed empire for years. Back then, the dutiful former Army captain was just trying to extricate his family from the criminal enterprise and protect the Halstead country estate. But by the time the dust settles at the end of the newly released second season, Eddie has transformed into a ruthless mob boss in the vein of Michael Corleone.
In the sophomore season of the Guy Ritchie-created action dramedy series, which launched Thursday on Netflix, Eddie and his business partner Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) — on the instructions of Susie’s imprisoned crime boss father Bobby (Ray Winstone) — expand their weed operations beyond the U.K. into Italy. The moves puts Eddie and Susie in direct conflict with the elegant but lethal Italian Mafia boss Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto) and an ego-driven local fixer named Cico Maldini (Michele Morrone), whose slippery nature ultimately leads to his demise at the hands of Marco’s pet tiger. Yikes!
Wanting to seek more independence, Eddie quietly distances himself from Susie and Bobby to work directly with Marco, even going as far as to carry out a hit on an innocent accountant as a demonstration of his loyalty to their partnership. During that time, Eddie quickly becomes enamored with and marries Marco’s goddaughter, Countess Isabella “Bella” Soranza de Parme (Benedetta Porcaroli) — another aristocrat who understands the dangerous criminal underworld because of her familial connections, but is not personally interested in that lifestyle.
However, Eddie and Bella’s marital bliss is cut short. Following their wedding at Lake Maggiore in episode six, the couple sets off on their honeymoon, with Bella piloting a scenic seaplane alone while Eddie drives along the road below. Tragically, a hidden bomb detonates on the aircraft mid-flight, killing Bella instantly and plunging a devastated Eddie into a quest for vengeance. Although Eddie initially suspects Bobby or other criminal rivals for the attack, the finale reveals that the ultimate betrayal came from within Eddie’s own family.
While staying at a religious rehab center, Eddie’s mercurial older brother, Freddy (Daniel Ings), falls under the spiritual and toxic influence of Gospel John (Pearce Quigley) — the fantastical crime lord who sought revenge on Freddy in season one for killing his brother. Feeding into Freddy’s deep-seated resentment over losing the Halstead inheritance to Eddie, Gospel John convinces Freddy to help orchestrate an armed assault on the Halstead estate, an attack that results in an attempted kidnapping of Eddie and Freddy’s younger sister Charly’s (Jasmine Blackborow) newborn baby in episode seven.
After uncovering Freddy’s complicity, Eddie enlists Susie to help capture Gospel John and wipe out the rest of his syndicate. Eddie then goes to confront Freddy himself — beating him up and even holding a gun to his head. But instead of executing his own flesh and blood, Eddie orders his traumatized brother into the back of a black van, where Gospel John is tied up and another man is holding a chainsaw. “Someone’s gotta die, Freddy,” Eddie tells him. To save his own life, Freddy is forced to behead Gospel John. The season concludes with a blood-soaked Freddy holding the severed head, while Eddie lights a cigar and coldly calls his brother a “good boy.”
Eddie’s descent into an unhinged crime lord was particularly appealing to James, who has long been interested in examining the corruptibility of power among the most privileged. “It often happens with kings or leaders of religious cults,” James tells The Hollywood Reporter in the conversation below. “They kind of start off in a version of trying to help, but by the end, power degrades their sense of self so much that they become poisoned by it and become numb to violence and everything that happens around them.”
Calling in from London earlier this week, star and co-executive producer James opened up to THR about collaborating with Ritchie on a thematically deeper and darker second season (and how that shocking ending sets up the already renewed season three), why he thinks an Eddie-Susie romance may never be in the cards — and, yes, the rumored casting of the real-life Duchess of Sussex.
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What kinds of creative conversations did you have with Guy Ritchie to figure out how you all wanted to evolve the story in season two?
After season one, and honestly while I was doing it, I felt we had a great conceit, a really good story and some great actors, but there were perhaps depths that we hadn’t yet plumbed. With] season one, there’s a world where [the story’s] kind of wrapped up. So if you’re going to go back for a second bite of the apple, the reason is to try and make it better and more complex, take bigger swings and learn from the things that worked from season one and evolve as much as possible.
The methodology with Guy and [executive producer] Matthew [Read] and I is a pretty complex one, but good in the sense that there are a lot of conversations. We start with a sitdown in London, and we have a four-hour conversation that ranges from everything from the existential to the minutiae. But we start with an initial big-picture chat. We don’t solve everything in that single chat, but we start thinking about the larger themes.
But the ability to understand Eddie a bit more, to have him be challenged, to have him have more emotional depth, to have him fall in love, to have him broken both spiritually and physically, and then have him completely betrayed — those were the touch points we started with and then carried on developing. It’s a unique process — one I have never done in another job — in that we are tinkering in the trailer in the morning and during the scene, so it’s an ever-evolving process.
You have spoken in the past about how Eddie was very much on the back foot in the first season. He was not exactly a fish out of water, but he was still trying to get his bearings in this criminal enterprise that his father was involved in. This season, he seems to really embrace and almost become seduced by the promises and trappings of wealth that he was born into — and he is left to wrestle with the cost of his actions. How do you think his moral compass bends over the course of the season? Do you think he believes the end justifies the means?
I think he believes that the end ultimately justifies the means. What I was interested in exploring is a story of ascension — like some of the great stories and the classic stories, from biblical to Walter White — and what cost that incurs on a person. In season one, in many ways, he’s a moral man. He’s a civilian adapting to scenarios on the back foot and being thrown into a world he doesn’t understand with a bunch of characters who are larger than life. His job is to navigate through it and come out the other end with an ability to save his family from the clutches of poverty and villainy. [But] what happens is, he realizes he’s fairly adept at it.
What I wanted to do in season two is to take a man filled with privilege because of multiple centuries of landed gentry — and what that [familial background] gives him is ego and entitlement. There’s an ascension story where he thinks [rising to a higher state of power] should be granted to him because he thinks it’s his kind of right. That’s a kind of ego story, and also a kingship story. That’s a story that Guy’s interested, in too.
In terms of playing with morality, episode two is the moment he steps over the edge and commits a crime to ostensibly an innocent man for his own means. He justifies it as the end justifies the means for him, but ultimately it has corroded some of his moral purity. He’s a good person and now he’s far from it, and that is going to weigh on his conscience for the rest of the season.
But what I also like playing with — and this is all within the caveat of entertaining in a slightly heightened world, so not to be too portentous about it, but [I’m interested in] privilege, power and the idea that there’s an apathy and an erosion of empathy that comes with that. It often happens with kings or leaders of religious cults. They kind of start off in a version of trying to help, but by the end, power degrades their sense of self so much that they become poisoned by it and become numb to violence and everything that happens around them. We’re going to do another season, and in that season I want to continue exploring that: How far has he lost himself, and how much has he corroded his soul?
One of the people who remarks just how much Eddie has changed is Susie. Multiple characters start to question the nature of Eddie and Susie’s relationship — whether their connection is purely platonic and professional, or something more. How consciously have you, Kaya and the rest of the creative team tried to play up the will-they-won’t-they of that relationship?
Our touching point in the beginning was always Moonlighting — Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis — and the idea of two people who kind of are in love, but never quite get together. That’s a baseline. But in season two, we like the idea that they’re connected, but their distance is one of mistrust. On one hand, they’re the other’s greatest ally. But they are also heading to a path where one of them has to usurp the other because we’re talking about a kind of ascension story and how that’s going to happen, and who’s going to fail and who’s going to win.
Then beyond that, I think the realities of an indentured Duke and then peer of the realm getting with a gangster’s daughter who runs a criminal empire is pretty unlikely. (Laughs.) There’s a sadness [to the relationship] because maybe they would, but ultimately they probably never can.
Eddie’s relationship with Susie briefly takes a back seat to his unexpected romance with an Italian countess named Bella. Eddie and Bella quickly get married, which helps strengthen Eddie’s standing in his expanding international operations, but she is killed instantly when a bomb explodes on the seaplane that she was piloting on her way to her and Eddie’s honeymoon. How did you think about playing Eddie’s reaction to her death?
I like that storyline. It touches on what’s happened for centuries in European aristocracy and nobility. People marry strategically — they marry for alliance, they marry for land mass, for power. This [show] has got a modern touch on that. Is he marrying to consolidate his power? Yes. But is he marrying for love? Of course. He’s also from landed gentry, from aristocracy, so he’s seen that world of being presented a marriage for reasons beyond love, for one’s strategy. I think ultimately he does kind of fall in love with her, but perhaps he doesn’t expect to.
In terms of the ending [of episode six], we actually shot a bunch of [versions]. Eddie sees what’s happened, and there’s an aftermath. Guy wanted a bit more mystery, so we don’t understand where he is or what’s happening to him until the end of episode seven — and then he starts this story of ultimate revenge fueled by anger.
That’s the fun as well of being able to do a third season. He’s betrayed by his brother [who was involved in Bella’s killing]. He loses his wife on his wedding day, but he also ascends to a higher place of power, so he’s going to be more ruthless and deadly. And at what point is the barrier between a vaguely good person or a complete monster? Kaya’s character says that she thinks he’s evolving into something else, and I think that’s fun territory to be in.
The ending of the season feels particularly shocking.
That was something we had talked about with Guy and Matthew for a long time. He can’t murder his brother straight up and straight out because then he loses his family, but he has to have some semblance of revenge. So that [ending] came from trying to figure out: How do you do both in one? How do you punish him without killing him? [We settled on] forcing [Freddy] to do the most atrocious crime and also removing the head of his God in a way. He looks up to this man as a man of faith and then he has to fucking chainsaw his head off. (Laughs.)
Earlier in the finale, Eddie’s own mother, Sabrina (Joely Richardson), remarks that he has become almost unrecognizable to her. What does that tell you about where he’s going — and where the story will go — in season three?
From an audience perspective, I think he’s beginning to wander into territory of rich and problematic darkness and moral quandary. But in terms of the reality of his family, he’s just about saved himself because he hasn’t had to murder his own brother, and he’ll be able to still remain a semblance of himself.
Ultimately, he’s on a path to surpass Bobby [as a drug lord], but also get complete vengeance from his brother. How that enacts itself is still in the process [of being determined]. But on top of that, I think we’re going to expand the world further. We’ll be touching on lots of different countries and new countries. I won’t spoil it because it’s a big part of the storyline, but we’ll be in a very different cinematic planet, shall we say.
The Gentlemen was officially renewed for season three last week, but you and your creative team had reportedly known about the renewal for a while. Do you know when you will begin production for the next season? Are you going to be filming later this year or early next year?
Yeah, pretty soon. It’s very soon to the point where I’m like, “Fuck, we need to really get this shit together before we start filming.” (Laughs.) So, yes, it’s happening very soon because I think we’re also cognizant of the fact that nowadays you don’t want massive lulls. There was a large break between season one and two, and I think we don’t want to be in that position again. That happened because people were available and then they weren’t. Then I did a film, then Guy would do a film, and [schedules didn’t align]. But I think we’re all aligned with the fact that if we want to keep momentum and also just tell the story and finish the story, then we should leave less of a gap between the seasons.
The show has obviously made headlines in the last couple of weeks because of the potential casting of a certain real-life duchess, Meghan Markle, in season three. As both a star and a producer, how privy are you to those kinds of casting conversations, and what do you know about her involvement at this point?
I think that’s mostly hot air. To me, it’s fascinating how [those reports] exploded that much, and how intrigued people are, and how much kind of cultural significance [Meghan and Harry] have. I guess it’s inevitable in some way. We talk about casting all the time, but, I mean, the practicalities of that are also complex for a show like ours. Can you imagine the amount of attention, paparazzi, and so forth you’d have? So I would say it’s pretty unlikely.
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The first two seasons of The Gentlemen are now streaming on Netflix.
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