Featured Image Credit: Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/WireImage/Netflix
Topics: Celebrity, Guy Ritchie, Netflix, The Gentlemen, TV and Film
Anish Vij
Topics: Celebrity, Guy Ritchie, Netflix, The Gentlemen, TV and Film
Theodore Peter James Kinnaird Taptiklis - otherwise known as Theo James - is well and truly the man of the moment following his portrayal of a dapper Duke in Guy Richie's new Netflix series, The Gentlemen.
The 39-year-old from Askett plays the Duke of Halstead, Eddie Horniman, in a spin-off from the 2019 film of the same name, featuring the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant.
If you're watching the new Netflix series though, you can forget about the film because there's a completely different plot and a new-look cast.
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"It's a very different story, completely different story," James told LADbible.
"You know, it's about a soldier that comes back to his family seat and his father's died.
"And he unwittingly inherits the entire estate over his older brother (Daniel Inge).
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"So, it's a different story. It's in the world, but it's more in a fun, bombastic Guy Ritchie way, there's a bit of a deconstruction of British classism, the hyper wealthy, the fading power of the aristocracy. So in terms of that, no, it's not the same in any way."
James' big break came in 2014's film series Divergent, where he returned for two more films in 2015 and 2016.
And he's not looked back, with roles in 2018's How It Ends, as well as executive producing and starring in Backstabbing for Beginners in the same year.
Throughout his career there's no hiding away from the fact that James has garnered a lot of fans, who, let's just say, like what they see.
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There's dozens of fan pages across social media who are crushing over the star and they all want to know why isn't he online?
“I never have been. I think I was on Facebook at University for about six months, I think," he explained.
"I'm quite a private person. And I guess I like the idea of not sharing everything.
"I understand, I think it can be very useful.
"And I know plenty of people very close to me who are on it.
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"But just for me, I like to keep a little bit of mystery, shall we say?"
Now, James happens to be the son of a business consultant father and a mother who worked for the NHS and also got him a job there.
The actor has since opened up about his bizarre part time job at the health service, where he would collect and clean up dead people's furniture.
"My mum set me up [with] one of many jobs, you know, that you had early in your career, and I had to go and collect furniture and then clean it down," he said.
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"Yeah, it was actually pretty tricky, because what you had to do is inevitably after, this is pretty dark, but after someone passes away, they have a bunch of stuff that needs to be used for someone else in the NHS system.
"So you had to go into these homes with these grieving people and I’ll be like 'Can I have that bed back?’"
Alongside James in The Gentlemen is Ray Winstone, starring as drug kingpin Bobby Glass, who runs his industrial cannabis empire from prison.
Meanwhile, Kaya Scodelario plays Susie Glass, Bobby’s fashionable and ruthless daughter, handling the drug operation while her dad is locked up.
Vinnie Jones also features as the estate's groundskeeper, Geoff Seacombe.
Veteran actor Giancarlo Esposito plays American billionaire and methamphetamine mogul Stanley Johnson.
Perhaps a nod to his Breaking Bad days.
The Gentlemen is available to watch on Netflix now.