Director Guy Ritchie revealed he decamped to a local hotel while his sprawling 1,134-acre Ashcombe Estate in Wiltshire was used for filming the second series of his Netflix crime drama, "The Gentlemen." The estate served as the backdrop for a lavish hunting party featured in the opening episode.
Ritchie, 57, admitted he deliberately stayed away from the proceedings. "I don’t know what they got up to. I think it’s best I don’t know," he said at the show's world premiere in London. "I went and stayed in someone else’s gaff. I was staying in the local hotel."
Leading man Theo James, who reprises his role as Eddie Horniman, suggested Ritchie's decision to stay elsewhere might have been prudent, particularly as filming later moved to Italy. "In Italy, 200 Brits just going f***ing bonkers," James described the atmosphere.
Kaya Scodelario, who plays Susie Glass, added that some production members faced repercussions abroad. "Some of them got kicked out of the country a week in!" she joked. The cast shared these anecdotes during a Q&A at Guildhall following a screening of the first episode.
Ritchie has spent over two decades cultivating Ashcombe Estate into a country playground, featuring amenities such as pheasant and partridge shooting, fishing lakes, and a microbrewery. The Georgian Ashcombe House, a former residence of photographer Cecil Beaton, was acquired by Ritchie and his then-wife Madonna in 2001. Although Ritchie retained the estate after their 2008 divorce, he now divides his time between Ashcombe and London with his current wife, model Jacqui Ainsley, and their family.
The estate's grounds and sporting lake provide the setting for a hunting gathering attended by wealthy landowners and powerbrokers in the opening episode of the new series. The second series expands the narrative beyond England, with subsequent episodes filmed on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. Scodelario noted that her character's wardrobe received an upgrade for the Italian scenes, featuring "head to toe in Dolce & Gabbana."
Other attendees at the premiere included Ray Winstone, Vinnie Jones, Joely Richardson, Hugh Bonneville, Giancarlo Esposito, Michele Morrone, Maya Jama, and Chris Eubank Jr. Ritchie was accompanied by his wife Jacqui Ainsley and his son Rocco from his marriage to Madonna. The cast continued celebrations in the Crypts beneath Guildhall after the screening. All eight episodes of "The Gentlemen" series two are now available on Netflix.