He was once chosen as the star of tomorrow, when he had not yet left the conservatory. This prediction was not at all wrong, and a few years later Theodore Peter James Kinnaird Taptiklis co-starred under the pseudonym Theo James Divergent , the first of three blockbusters aimed at youth audiences that blew up the box office in the middle of the last decade. After recently resurfacing in the award-winning The White Lotus, James is back in fashion with a starring role in The Gentlemen: The Series, a spin-off from Guy Ritchie's 2019 film set in the same universe, but without any connection to history. Theo plays Eddie, an aristocrat who, after his father's death, inherits a fortune and a complicated drug-trafficking business that turns him into what he never imagined he could be.
What attracted you to this expansion of The Gentlemen universe?
I liked the central idea, because it reflects very well the worlds that Guy Ritchie builds, but at the same time in this proposal there is something that he had never done, which is to work on the aristocratic element, the old world and the facade that yes
His character has basic elements of the James Bond formula, he is British and has a lot of style. How did he manage to capture that essence while maintaining Guy Ritchie's quirky tone?
It's very simple, Guy Ritchie leaves no room to stray from his humor. When it feels like you're getting too close to drama, it quickly undermines that aspect, which I think is a really fun way to carry on a series that's formidable as a comedy, because it also struggles with crazy situations. He never takes himself too seriously and I think that's what we all love about his work. His characters have a certain arrogance. He has a unique way of using the lights, and of choosing the costumes. His style shows even in the music he chooses. These are elements that distinguish The Gentlemen, which never forgets that humor is its forte.
An essential part of the series is the relationship that his character has with his brother, played by Daniel Ings.
It's true, she was very important to us because she's the one that sets the story in motion in the first episode. Daniel and I talked about it a lot, because we wanted them to have a real brotherly relationship in an exaggerated world like Guy Ritchie's. It is clear that they love each other and also that they hate each other. Between them is a combination of guilt, shame and competitiveness. The theme of ever-changing sibling rivalries is a very fertile one to explore, and in the case of our series, the dynamic between them is a lot of fun.
How does the way Eddie dresses describe his personality?
There is clearly an evolution in the way he is seen, the way he walks and the clothes he wears, because when he returns from his mission in the army he wears country clothes with a certain elegance, but as he gains confidence in himself and his soul darkens, he becomes more structured, he begins to be interested in clothes and in the last episode he already has a completely different way of dressing.
The series breaks with the image of strictly separated social classes in British culture...
This also has to do with character transformation. The aristocracy linked to servant labor is the backbone of the British class system. And, with all the problems it brings, it still greatly influences the way we understand the world. We thought that power resided in the aristocracy, and certainly for a while it did, but the idea of the series is that this is collapsing and that the real power now comes from the working class, from those who come from have nothing and yet have managed to build a legacy that stands in contrast to those who have always had everything handed to them on a platter...
