Gangs of London star promises 'violence on steroids' in series two

Things are looking extremely bloody and gruesome in the long awaited second season of Gangs of London.

The new instalment is just as brutal as fans would expect and it turns out the cast and the series’ director wanted the violence in the gritty crime drama to be turned up a few notches.

Series star Michelle Fairley, who plays Marian Wallace, exclusively tells LADbible that the violence is ‘on steroids’ in series two.

Prior to the release of the red band trailer earlier this month – which features an introduction from Fairley, who warns ‘it's not for the faint hearted' – the actress, along with her co-stars Lucian Msamati and Orli Shuka, teased what's in store for their characters.

“This is a violent show, basically we got a lot of blood, blood, blood everywhere,” Shuka quipped. “We don’t have unicorns, we don’t have rainbows, it’s not a fairytale. We are still in gangster territory.”

Msamati also shared his excitement for the action and teased an upcoming scene involving his character Ed Dumani, and Orli’s Luan Dushaj, which made them wince when they watched it back.

“There was a sequence, I won’t give anything away, where all of us, once we had filmed it, went behind the monitor to look at it.

“We worked on this scene for a couple of days, so we knew what was happening, everybody watching the playback just went ‘ooh’. Even thinking about it now, fans will be satisfied.”

Director Corin Hardy knew exactly what fans wanted to see in the new batch of episodes, revealing he aimed to ‘really push [the violence]' as far as it could go while also incorporating lots of emotion.

“It was certainly something I was very aware of, the ingredients that the audience responded to,” he tells LADbible. “That was part of the challenge in season one, ‘Are we gonna get away with this? Are we gonna pull it off? Are people gonna like it?’”

When crafting the action scenes – of which there are several high octane confrontations from the jump – Hardy made a list of some of his ‘outrageous ideas’ and drew inspiration from from Korean revenge action movies, such as John Woo's films and even Jurassic Park 2.

Series 2 picks up exactly where the first season left off. Sean Wallace (Joe Cole) is dead and Marian is not only dealing with the death of her son, she has become a working woman again.

Elliot – who is an undercover officer who has infiltrated the Wallace crime family – must also figure out what to do with the card and the incriminating evidence about the investors it contains.

He’s also coming to terms with the death of Sean.

Sope Dirisu, who portrays Elliot, said his character is ‘f***ed up’ at the start of series two.

“He’s quite untethered. He’s extremely depressed. He’s out of control. He is not self-determinant.

"He’s not in control of himself. He lacks autonomy. He can't make decisions for himself. He can’t be where he wants to be. He’s constantly under the thumb of the investors, it’s really taking a toll on him and I think you can see that on his face in that first hero reveal in episode one, there’s still something wrong and we go on to find out why.”

Dirisu and Cole filmed together frequently, before Sean was savagely shot in the face at the end of series one.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Joe,” he said, reflecting on Cole departing the Gangs of London series. “I’ve known him for a number of years from our time at the National Youth theatre as well. I had a lot of my scenes with him the first time round, so that’s what keeps our audience on their toes, not knowing who's there, who's going to come back.

“It wasn’t the same experience without him.”

Gangs of London season 2 arrives on Sky Atlantic and NOW on October 20, 2022.