by Gill Pringle in LA
“The ambition of The Gentlemen has accelerated, the world has expanded, and the consequences carry weight,” teases prolific British filmmaker Guy Ritchie.
Set just a year after The Gentlemen’s Netflix debut, the new season sees Theo James’ Eddie Horniman no longer the reluctant duke finding his footing within organised crime.
In fact, he’s scaling up his marijuana empire and everyone around him is feeling the repercussions.
And now, after joining forces with Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) and her luxuriously incarcerated father, Bobby (Ray Winstone), Eddie is discovering that being a power player in the criminal underworld fits him like an immaculately tailored suit.
“In terms of themes, it’s how does one ascend without self-imploding? How does one remain aggressive and ambitious and, simultaneously, not get decimated by their own ego,” asks Ritchie, left, on the set with Theo James.
“Eddie is someone that appears to be incredibly privileged, but is paradoxically cursed by that privilege, and the extreme measures he has to go to against the prevailing narrative of just shut up and be independent and be privileged and apologise for it,” says Ritchie in his capacity as series creator/writer/director and executive producer.
“And then, in order to shake that mantle, you have to go against the prevailing narrative to self-generate that narrative. But we were very specific, so we wanted to take the two extremes of someone that was super privileged, and then bestow upon them a position that privilege has nothing to do with, and is completely self-generated.
“And Season 2 is an extension of that principle, as Eddie starts to spread his wings, and I suppose Susie’s dad saw this in him in the first place. He suspects that once these wings have spread, you’ll have a soaring eagle rather than a crippled starling,” says the director who launched with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels back in 1998.
“So, the idea was: it’s actually harder for someone to inherit something and then to self-generate through the inheritance because they feel somehow beholden upon being the inheritee.
“What I think is the fundamental tenet is the difference between self-generated identity, and an identity that has been bestowed or given to you,” argues Ritchie, 57.
Indeed, he delights in skewering the aristocracy within his hit series, even deploying Hugh Bonneville to portray a flamboyantly gay lord as a send-up of his stately Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, leading to highly compromising situations.
But it is James who is the most evolved character as he seizes control of his own destiny. “He is a man very much at the helm of it, and he’s bought into the possibilities of what both worlds can bring him, both as an aristocrat and a criminal,” muses James who is aided once more by his trusty gamekeeper Geoffrey, Vinnie Jones masterfully reprising this key role.
If the first season introduced audiences to the decadent country estates of British aristocracy, then Season 2 takes us on a tour of the Northern Italian version, where mob bosses and gentry luxuriate side by side in grand lakefront palazzos.
“There’s a funny relationship with the Italians. The Anglo-Italian relationship goes back a long way, and it’s a very strange relationship because Italians are just sunburnt Englishmen,” quips Ritchie.
“The similarities are conspicuous and, simultaneously, there’s a passion in Italians that the English secretly covet, and I think there’s a stoicism in the British that the Italians secretly covet.
“I think they inform each other really. I mean, the first time you stumble into the Italian lakes, it’s a bit like percolating a dream. They’re too good to be true to some degree.
“Matthew and I had a discussion about what do you want to see in a show? Any show?” he says referencing co-writer Matthew Read.
“And the truth is that we both love the Italian lakes, so the lakes made sense. Aristocratic homes, stately piles in the UK are great. So, we’re just spoiling ourselves really when we have to end up filming there. But we’d rather choose places that we want to go to, and the lakes just happen to be a place that we wanted to go to,” he says.
The opportunity to film in such grandeur was not lost on the cast. “It was beautiful, absolutely. I think it’s such a privilege when you get to go away with work. It feels like being on a school trip all over again,” says Scodelario.
“We did make the mistake of taking 250 British crew members with us, so we did Brit up the joint a little bit too much,” laughs the Pirates of the Caribbean and Maze Runner actress.
“We tried to stay on the other side of the lake. We didn’t want to be associated with them on the other side! But it’s gorgeous, just the energy there, the beauty of it. We took our families out, which was lovely and we got to spend time with our kids out there and, yeah, I saw Guy Ritchie riding a bike every morning, and that was a lovely image to witness,” she says.
Naturally, James’ duke is able to effortlessly mingle among the Italian elite. “Well, in a way, I think that’s the part that he’s quite adept at. He understands hierarchy. He understands indentured power and wealth. It’s how to manoeuvre that, and it’s the criminal underbelly that he’s trying to figure out how to use best to his advantage,” says the Divergent and White Lotus star.
“One of the elements that I quite like that parallels old England, but also old European aristocracy is the fact that when he partners up with someone in a marital way, and you don’t know whether it’s for business or for love, that reflects what has happened for many centuries.
“Families marry off or make strategic alliances for power. So, it’s kind of a nice nod in a modernistic way to what has been happening in European aristocracy for many years,” he says, teasing what is a major plot line in the new season involving gorgeous Italian actress Benedetta Porcaroli whose Bella acts as a go-between between their new Italian partners . . . and then some.
Scodelario has always enjoyed the fact that Ritchie refuses to narrowly define his female characters. “I think what’s great about Susie and what we’ve done with the show is that we’ve never explicitly had to explain that she is the only woman in this arena. She just is – and I really respect that about the show. This isn’t about having, you know: oh wow, she can stand up to the men. She just simply is. She exists within this world, and she holds her own. And we don’t need chew on that too much, which I think is true progression of a female character in cinema and in TV,” she argues.
“And in Italy, I think she handles herself just as well as she does in the UK. She’s aware of the nobility. She’s very respectful, even towards Bella. There is no instinctive competitiveness between them. I think there is very much a mutual respect. She understands Bella’s place in the world. She’s dubious about Eddie’s intentions, but I don’t think she’s dubious about how powerful Bella can be to them as well, and that only benefits her. So, I think that is something that she’s actively pursuing just as much as everyone else,” she says.
Already re-upped for a third season, Ritchie (below, faffing around on set) muses, “A third season felt inevitable, and I’m looking forward to pushing the boundaries of it further.”
The Gentlemen: Season 2 is streaming now.
