In ‘The Gentlemen,’ Theo James stands in for ‘the dying power of British aristocracy’

When Theo James signed up for Guy Ritchie’s Netflix spinoff of his 2019 movie, “The Gentlemen,” he knew the Netflix series would be action-packed: His character, Eddie Horniman, a captain in the British army, comes home to discover that he’s inherited his aristocratic family’s historic 15,000-acre estate, the title of the 13th Duke of Halstead and — surprise! — a hidden cannabis farm run by gangsters. He also knew he wanted to switch things up from playing Cameron Sullivan, the charismatic rogue of a hedge-fund bro from HBO’s “The White Lotus” and the role that he’s best known for here.

“Cameron was larger than life, Americana, outward energy,” James says. “Eddie is the opposite of that: incredibly controlled, chooses his words incredibly wisely and very British. He thinks before he talks, and he’s always assessing the landscape.” Eddie also gave James — who was born in Oxford, England, and studied philosophy at the University of Nottingham but has played a lot of U.S. citizens — the chance to set another record straight. “When I meet people, and they realize I’m not American, they’re not only disappointed by my accent, but they’re also disappointed that I’m not filled with energy and telling people to go f— themselves,” he says. “I’m actually quite shy and genteel.”

Describe where Eddie comes from.

He’s part of this family he has relative distaste for. But really what he represents is the dying power of British aristocracy. At the height of British power, they held all the cards, they held the judiciary, they held the landmass, they were the most powerful. But in this modern world, who are the most powerful? The up-and-comers, the people who start from the ground, whether that’s Silicon Valley or it’s criminals. [Eddie’s] not corrupted by death or violence or something as simple as that. It’s realizing his family lineage has lost its power. And now the only way you can have power is through the darker arts.

So it challenges his worldview?

In a fun, comedic way, it’s kind of like the Corleone story — not that you’d ever parallel it to [“The Godfather”], one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s the idea of a guy who comes back to his estate and encounters anarchy at home and also anarchy underneath, and what those two things mean.

There’s a debt-ridden chaos agent for a brother, an imprisoned criminal mastermind and a meth-dealing billionaire. Describe a typical day on a Guy Ritchie set.

Guy likes to have a skeletal script. He likes beginnings and ends, entrances and exits. Essentially, what you realize is it’s the foundations of a story and all the in-between things are going to be hewed out on the day. I didn’t know how much of that was true, but it’s totally true. You go in and it’s like, “OK, how are we going to approach this? Let’s throw this piece of s— out the window.” I’m a bit of a control freak. So letting go of that? That took some trust.

How long did Ritchie’s style take getting used to?

I’m still getting used to it. [Laughs]

What did he want you to understand about the very rich?

He was very keen to remove our understanding of certain tropes around aristocracy and class guilt. It’s a very small, specific group and he wanted to embrace that as opposed to judge it. I’ll be honest, I brought my own middle-class chip about British structural class systems to it initially. To me, indentured wealth feels like something that should be disbanded. But interestingly, the conversations with Guy were, “Don’t judge the character from your own standing. You have to be devoid of any judgment about class. So love being an aristocrat and love being a f— toff.”

Did you learn anything about the rituals of the aristocracy that surprised you?

The idea of formality at breakfast I thought was perhaps a relic of the past. And [Ritchie] said, “No, not really.” Breakfast in an aristocratic family, even if they’re wack-a-doo coke-snorting wild dogs, that’s still an element of ritual that everyone abides by.

Your business consultant father is also a wine expert. How would he rate Eddie’s father’s prized collection?

There’s understanding wine culture and then there’s the hyper-wealthy who have fights about the most expensive wine. And I think that is more about what “The Gentlemen” is doing. The most expensive and unique bottle, not necessarily the best bottle of wine.

Some of “The Gentlemen” was filmed at Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England. Did you quiz the owner, the Duke of Beaufort, about life at his centuries-old manor?

No. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. I think he just wanted to [receive] a check, then frown as we were murdering people outside his front window. Again, I do find the deconstruction of class interesting. This [estate] is handed down through multiple generations, this family still owns large swaths of Wales. That’s fascinating. In my naivete I did think that had gone. I thought you had the royals and a few barons with meaningless titles, but actually there’s still aristocrats who are very much alive and kicking in the U.K.