“The Gentlemen” is officially returning for a third season, but the show’s most talked-about prospective cast member may have already exited the picture. Netflix has renewed Guy Ritchie’s crime series ahead of its Season 2 premiere, while a separate report claims that Meghan Markle’s proposed role has been withdrawn.
Variety reports that Season 3 is officially moving forward, with Ritchie teasing another expansion of the show’s criminal world. “I’m looking forward to pushing the boundaries further,” the filmmaker said.
The news arrives only days after Variety confirmed that Markle was in preliminary talks to join the third season. No character had been identified, and no contract was in place, but the potential role would have marked her biggest return to scripted television since leaving “Suits.”
READ MORE: ‘The Gentlemen’: Meghan Markle In Talks For Role In Guy Ritchie’s Netflix Crime Series
However, journalist and former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown subsequently claimed the prospective casting had collapsed almost as quickly as it emerged.
“I learned this morning that the casting of Meghan Markle in season 3 of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series ‘The Gentlemen’ has been withdrawn,” Brown wrote in her Fresh Hell newsletter. “The backlash in the U.K. was so intense, it became untenable to go forward. This does not bode well for Meghan’s acting comeback in the U.K. More to come.”
Brown’s report remains unconfirmed, and neither Netflix nor Markle’s representatives have publicly addressed the claim. Subsequent reports have also disputed her account and maintained that discussions remain underway. What is now certain, however, is that the season Markle was negotiating to join will actually happen.
Markle has already taken a smaller step back toward acting with a cameo as herself in the upcoming Amazon MGM Studios comedy “Close Personal Friends.” A role in “The Gentlemen” would be substantially more significant, particularly as she and Prince Harry prepare to spend an extended period in the U.K.
“The Gentlemen” is a spin-off from Ritchie’s 2019 film of the same name, although it introduces new characters and only loosely connects to the movie through its British cannabis underworld (read our review). The series stars James as Eddie Horniman, an aristocrat who inherits his family’s country estate and discovers that it houses an underground marijuana empire operated by Scodelario’s Susie Glass and her imprisoned crime-boss father, Bobby (Ray Winstone).
Before any third-season casting is settled, “The Gentlemen” will return September 3 with Theo James and Kaya Scodelario reprising their roles as Eddie and Susie. Season 2 expands the criminal operation beyond the English countryside and into Italy, with Hugh Bonneville, Benjamin Clementine, Benedetta Porcaroli, Michele Morrone, Sergio Castellitto, and Maya Jama among the newcomers.
