'Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders in the mix': Vinnie Jones on Netflix series The Gentlemen
Vinnie Jones in The Gentlemen on Netflix.
Vinnie Jones was still playing professional football when Guy Ritchie first cast him as smooth criminal Big Chris in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in 1998.
Jones didn’t realise it then, but he was about to embark on an entirely new screen career and his star status was confirmed when Ritchie cast him in Snatch two years later.
In the decades since he’s become known for his hard man image on screen - but we see a more enigmatic side to him in Ritchie’s new Netflix series, The Gentlemen.
As Geoff Seacombe - the groundskeeper of a posh country estate harbouring a huge and illicit drugs enterprise - Jones’s more nuanced character is a man who knows many secrets about the wealthy family he works for and has a good poker face.
“I think it's kind of a Guy reinvention,” says Jones of the new role. “You know, he had me smashing people’s heads in doors and everything else and we’ve done that.
"I think he wanted to bring me in completely different and direct me as completely different. He told me it would be like that, and it's nice and cool.
“Geoff's not flustered by what's going on. He's cool as a cucumber. It was quite an easy way of acting when you're not running around, fighting everyone and crashing their heads in doors,” he adds with a chuckle.
“You just go around and you've got your animals. It was quite nice, quite harmonious, I'd say.”
A spin-off of Ritchie’s 2019 hit film of the same name starring Colin Farrell and Matthew McConaughey, The Gentlemen series debuts on Netflix on March 7.
It centres on Eddie Halstead (Theo James) who has inherited the family’s lavish country estate from his father in controversial circumstances. What he doesn’t realise is that part of the estate is being used as a weed-growing empire for a powerful drugs gang.
Joely Richardson also joins the cast as the powerful matriarch of the estate, Lady Sabrina, and embraced the opportunity to take on The Gentleman’s unhinged sense of humour.
“When people ask what it's like I say it's Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders in the mix, and great, heightened fun,” she says.
“I was very excited to do a Guy Richie production. But the funny thing was I thought it was a serious drama. Then I arrived on set and Guy was like: ‘comedy! eccentricity! the stranger the better’. So it was quite a rewrite in my head from day one of what I was bringing to the table, but in a way more exciting.
“It’s completely different, I think, from the film which is great and really funny. This is a whole world. Rich as in multi layered - the family structure, what all goes wrong to get them into the trouble that they have, to come up with a solution. What individually is going on with everyone is very mysterious.”
According to Jones, the buzz on a Guy Ritchie set is different from your typical shoot.
“To start with, you get on the set and all the crew are buzzing that they're on a Guy Ritchie set. He's changed a lot of people's lives, you know - wardrobe, actors, makeup, runners. You'd be a fool not to want to do a Guy Ritchie. There’s a lot of joking around, a lot of mickey-taking energy, good energy.”
It’s no surprise that the former footballer would have a bond with the filmmaker, who first saw his acting potential when he cast Jones in Lock, Stock.
Having enjoyed a prolific, 15-year football career that saw him play for Wimbledon, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelsea and QPR, Jones’s no-nonsense charisma was about to be discovered on screen.
He would go on to star in shows like Gone in 50 Seconds, Mean Machine, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Now, again, he’s embracing the opportunity to do something different.
“When you started off people's biggest question was: ‘Oh, you're not worried about being stereotyped and all that’,” recalls Jones of his early filming experiences.
“I didn't even think about it really. I was just on a jolly up - I was on the rocket and I was just enjoying it. Now, to play kind of a different role is cool because, you know, everybody thought I played football one way but I didn't.
“I was a lot better footballer than people said I was, I can assure you of that. People that played with me will tell you that. And I think it's the same with the acting. I'm a better actor than just bashing people up all the time.
"I’ve changed it up in this and people can make their own decisions. But I think if you change it up like this, it can give an actor longevity.”
Beyond the movie sets, Jones has long maintained the friendship with Ritchie they cultivated in those early days.
“I used to spend a lot of time with Guy once he gave me the role in Lock, Stock. I was still playing football, but we socialised a lot, Jay Statham, Matthew (Vaughn), myself.
Beyond his forthcoming reunion with the filmmaker, Jones has enjoyed other successes. He returned to his country roots for Vinnie Jones in the Country, in which he took on a major project over 2,000 acres of West Sussex countryside over a hectic summer.
His pure love of nature was endearing and the show was warmly received by audiences. It was a show he had wanted to be a part of for several years.
“I mean, that's what I want to do,” he says now. “I made a short video of it about seven years ago and I took it around everywhere, and no one took it up.
“Then finally, somebody close to me worked for a big production company who had contacts with Discovery. Seven years later it got made but you hear about these stories. Guy took Lock, Stock's script around for two or three years before he met that Matthew Vaughn.
“That's your luck - your hard work turns into luck. For me it's a nature programme, there's not much farming in it to be honest. Yes, we renovated an old farm but my main passion and love of life is nature.
"Country pursuits, countryside, and I wanted to show that side of it, to show that that is my knowledge. My knowledge is not politics or anything like that. My knowledge and my love is the natural world.”
- The Gentlemen launches on Netflix on Thursday, March 7
