Kaya Scodelario Isn’t Ruling Out a Susie-Eddie Romance on ‘The Gentlemen’

Danny KasiryeT he Gentlemen season 1 dropped in 2024 on Netflix and violently, criminally, suddenly took over the streaming charts. A huge portion of that success is thanks to Kaya Scodelario, who plays the unapologetic—and frankly a little terrifying—Susie Glass. In season 1, Susie’s role is to take Theo James’s Eddie Halstead under her wing and convince him that being involved in organized crime and the drug trade is actually kind of fun. But now that the show is back for season 2, Susie’s role is shifting. Not only does she strike out on her own, eager to get out from her father’s shadow, but she has to try to rein in an Eddie who is becoming increasingly unpredictable as a partner.Kaya hopped on Zoom with Cosmopolitan to talk through showing new vulnerable shades of Susie this season, why she lobbied hard against a potential love triangle, and the evergreen sexual tension between Susie and Eddie.There are light spoilers for The Gentlemen season 2 below. Coming into season 2, where do you want to take Susie as the actor playing her?I’m really interested in seeing who Susie is out from under the shadow of her father. Her relationship with Eddie has evolved from this kinship, a purely business thing, into something deeper and more interesting. It was important to unlock whether she feels protective of him in a personal way or purely in a business sense.Where do you think she lands on that spectrum? Is it truly business for her, or is it something more? She sees something in him that’s extremely unique. She’s worked with these kinds of aristocrats for a long time and she recognizes something in Eddie that is different—a fire beneath him that needs to be molded correctly. They genuinely work really well together. That’s something that she’s never encountered before. He sees in her what she wishes her father could see in her. Their work wife–work husband chemistry is really strong.Danny KasiryeThere are a lot of fans who think that they are endgame. Where do you land on that?I really don’t know, and that’s what I love about it. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Things take quite a darker turn. They don’t have time to go out on dates or pause everything that’s going on to talk about the puppies that they had growing up. They both are really aware that they do have chemistry, but they’re both very focused on their missions and that’s their endgame at the moment. But who knows?Are Susie and Eddie endgame? I really don’t know, and that’s what I love about it. —Kaya ScodelarioBut speaking of Susie’s romantic life, she does have a moment of vulnerability this season entering into a separate relationship. For a character who has a shield up all the time, what is it like to play with that side of her? I was excited to get to show the vulnerability, and I wanted to make sure it was in a very honest way. We set up the idea that this character Joe Green is someone from her past. Eddie and Susie ultimately are always going to have this class divide between them, whether they like it or not.It was really gorgeous to get to play that, to get to see her happy, to get to see her having sex and enjoying it and being free and having a life outside of the business world. But then it was just as important to know that she was still a step ahead of him. We all still have instincts, especially as women, and I think we can tell when it’s a fuckboy or not.You mentioned the class divide between Eddie and Susie, and another way that manifests this season is with the Contessa. What do you think Susie makes of her? She can sense Bella is Eddie’s type. It was really important to me that we didn’t play it in a jealous love triangle angle because at the end of the day, Bella is extremely useful for the organization. That’s something I actively went in with and said, “We’re not gonna play that game.” There's no need for it. Susie is far more intelligent than that.What do you think these two women could learn from each other? They’re both part of long-standing family crime syndicates. Susie respects that Bella is quite a refined woman. I could see them drinking a martini and discussing that.We all still have instincts, especially as women, and we can tell when it’s a fuckboy or not.—Kaya ScodelarioThe class differences come through in the clothing, too. Why do you think Susie opts for suiting so often? It’s part of her armor. One of my costume assistants, Lorna Cook, who’s been with me since the first season, says as soon as she hands me Susie’s handbag, I stand differently. It’s become part of building that posture: these heels and these earrings and these suits and the jackets on the shoulders—they create a posture for her that’s really unique.Danny KasiryeSusie grew up in a really male-centric environment. Where do you think she developed her taste? She was under her dad’s wing from very early on, so she was seeing all these people come in and out, all these kinds of interesting gangsters, people in government, and she kind of gravitated toward that level of success and power, and a lot of her dressing is power dressing. It’s knowing how to be taken seriously, how to speak loudly, and how to feel confident. I’d love to think she’s into ’80s fashion. She watched Dynasty or something, and she really fucking liked the shoulder pads.In one of the first images released of the season, your character is wearing a rather large diamond ring on her engagement ring finger. Fans latched onto this right away. What happened there? It was a happy accident, I would say. She loves diamonds, and she’s like, “Do you know what looks great on this finger? Why not?” That’s just one of her casual diamonds. It’s her day-to-day diamond.Christopher Raphael/NetflixHow do you feel about where she ends the season? She’s in a complicated position. She’s actually quite lost by the end, which is an interesting note to finish on. We’ve left her in a bit of a limbo, where she knows that Eddie fundamentally trusts her, but she also knows that he is out of control now, and she has to decide where she fits into all of that. Is she going to prioritize running her own side business the way that she wants to run it? Is she going to prioritize her family, or is she going to keep mentoring Eddie?What do you think Susie gives you as an actor that you haven’t been able to experience before with a character?She’s given me this real sense of confidence. It can be very exhausting being confident all the time. I’ve had to do it from a very early age in this industry, and I’m now in my late 30s, and I’m fucking tired of having to be okay all the time. It’s such a joy to have this character who is unapologetic, but getting to play with those moments where she cracks, where she is trying to figure out if she does truly believe that her blood runs cold or not is what I love about her.You described her as unapologetic, and yeah, you really don’t hear her say sorry very often. I say sorry 35 times a day. It’s refreshing. Yeah. I do think she’s really unapologetic. I don’t know if she’s ever apologized, even to her dad when he feels as though she has fucked up. There is still this steeliness about her, and that’s really fun.If the show gets a season 3, where do you hope Susie’s story takes her?I want to see her come out from under her dad’s shadow fully. I want to see her mess that up a little bit. I hope that we get to see her in boss bitch mode. I’m also interested to see how she survives with this new iteration of Eddie, because in a season 3, he’d be a very different man, and it would be interesting to see whether she can still fit into that dynamic with him or if they’ve both gone too far in separate directions. He has kind of lost it a bit but is still hot.