‘The Gentlemen’ Production Designer Talks the Show’s Wallpaper Budget

As a production designer on The GentlemenMartyn John’s first task was to find the right house.

Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series, a spinoff of his 2019 action comedy of the same name, centers on the ridiculously posh English manor owned by the Hornimans, a group of blue-blooded British aristocrats who harbor a dirty secret: They’re on the payroll of a drug lord, who uses their land to grow vast quantities of marijuana. Theo James plays Eddie Horniman, the manor’s new duke, who takes over after his father’s death and uncovers his predecessor’s dirty business dealings in the process.

“When I got the job, I knew I had to find something that was a little bit like Downton Abbey“The house becomes another character in the show,” John explains. “I needed a project that was iconic, architecturally, to stand out, but also had enough scale and space to last eight episodes.”

John also knew what Ritchie was looking for. As art director of the 2019 feature film that inspired the series, he showed Ritchie 24 English country houses before the filmmaker chose his favorite. “After going through all 24 houses, I knew what he didn’t like, where not to go,” John says. “In the end, I think I only showed him four houses, and when we got to Badminton House, I knew that was the one.”

Badminton House has been the residence of the Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century. The estate gave its name to the sport of badminton, which was either invented or popularised at the house in the mid-1900s. John said it had exactly the “old-world grandeur” Ritchie was looking for: “Lots of cracks in the walls and ceilings,” with a sprawling 52,000-acre grounds. “The beauty of Badminton is that it has a lake, woods, farmland. They have their own church, their own graveyard,” John says. “I knew it would be perfect for the series.”

The only problem was the location. Located in Gloucestershire, the house is two hours from London, where the cast and crew were based.

“Every time we went out of London we had to move the base and put the crew up in hotels, which was very expensive,” John explains. “Plus it was a private house, so they didn’t want to have a lot of filming inside.”

So while the Badminton Hall and Staircase and these vast grounds play on the Horniman Estate The GentlemenThe interiors come from five other homes and a collection of custom-built sets, which John had to seamlessly connect to feel like one large mansion.

“The big problem is that these aristocrats spent millions building and decorating their homes in the 18th century,” John says. “It’s hard to do something that lavish on that scale, on a limited budget. So I had to be ingenious.”