Meghan Markle or not, Maya Jama will be the star of The Gentlemen Season 3
Rumours of Meghan Markle being cast may abound for The Gentlemen, but Maya Jama has already stolen the spotlight for the second season.
Jama, 32, has previously spoken about her desire to act, telling the BBC that she 'wasn't as persistent as I should have been' when auditioning in her teens.
When she was 15 Jama tried for a part in the hit Channel 4 series Skins, set in Bristol where she grew up and with a cast including Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel, and Game of Thrones alumni Joe Dempsie and Hannah Murray, though Jama was not successful in landing a part.
Jama said that she 'naturally fell into presenting', but she is now optimistic about once again pursuing her acting dreams, saying that 'it just feels like the doors opened up again.'
Advert
"My dream role is something completely opposite to me," she said. "I've always said I don't want to be what people expect me to be on camera. I'd want to be the complete opposite to that so a monster or a mean, evil person. A villain maybe would be nice."
Jama is perhaps best known as the host of the hit reality TV series Love Island, which she took over presenting in 2023.
Sharing her favourite moments on Love Island, she said: "It’s always the moments where someone drops their guard completely. Not the big, dramatic scenes but the quiet shifts, when someone realises something about themselves. Those are the moments that stay with you."
Her career so far has been largely focussed on appearing as a guest or presenter, from BBC Radio 1 to The Masked Singer, where she appeared on the panel as a judge, as well as using her platform to advocate for body positivity.
Jama previously had a small role in the Netflix series The Duchess back in 2020, but her role in the latest season of Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen will be her first bigger acting role, where she plays the character of Aisha.
And despite scoring some success in acting with her role in The Gentlemen, Jama has told Variety that she has no plans to walk away from Love Island.
“Before I started Love Island, I would say you can get what you need out of a show in two years, and then you move on," she said. “That was always kind of what I had in the back of my mind.
“But with a show like Love Island it just feels like it keeps growing and I’d be silly to leave now.”
Jama's own love life has also seen her having relationships with some big names, though she is currently single after splitting from Portuguese footballer Ruben Dias.
Prior to Dias, she had dated basketball player Ben Simmons.
However her longest running relationship has been with UK rapper Stormzy, with the pair saying in their breakup announcement that they fell 'madly in love in 2014', when they were aged 20 and 21.
"We decided to try for the final time in August 2023," the pair added, "and we've spent this past year trying our best to make it work; however, we recently decided to call it quits."
They went on to say that they 'still think the absolute world of each other', and that they 'are still friends and will always be friends.'
Season Two of The Gentlemen premiered on Netflix on 3 September.
Topics: Celebrity, Maya Jama, Netflix, The Gentlemen
Kit Roberts