Who Plays the Italian Duchess in The Gentlemen Season 2? Meet Benedetta Porcaroli

Guy Ritchie has taken The Gentlemen somewhere very different in Season 2. The sharp suits, dirty deals, aristocratic manners, and sudden bursts of violence are still here, but the setting has changed. The English country estates have given way to Northern Italy, where Eddie Horniman and Susie Glass are trying to push their criminal operation into territory controlled by people who have absolutely no reason to welcome them.

Season 2 arrived on Netflix with all eight episodes on September 3, 2026, and the Italian setting brings a whole new collection of characters into Eddie’s increasingly complicated life. Among them is Bella, an elegant Italian aristocrat played by Benedetta Porcaroli. Netflix describes her as an orphaned aristocrat who is just as comfortable around European nobility as she is around dangerous people, which makes her an unusually natural fit for Eddie.

That is also why the question has been popping up so often: who plays the Italian duchess in The Gentlemen Season 2? The short answer is Benedetta Porcaroli. The character is Isabella “Bella” Soranza de Parma, although calling her a duchess is slightly misleading. She is presented as an Italian aristocrat, and the official Netflix material refers to her simply as Bella rather than using “Duchess” as her title.

Still, the title is not really the interesting part. Bella matters because she immediately occupies the same strange space Eddie does: someone born into privilege who has learned how to survive around people who solve problems with money, influence, threats, and sometimes violence. That similarity gives her scenes with Theo James a very different energy from Eddie’s conversations with the London criminals we met in Season 1.

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Who Is Benedetta Porcaroli?

If you are discovering Benedetta Porcaroli because of The Gentlemen, there is a good chance you are already late to the party. The Rome-born Italian actress had built a substantial career long before stepping into Guy Ritchie’s crime comedy. Born in 1998, Porcaroli first became widely known outside Italy through Netflix’s Baby, where she played Chiara Altieri from 2018 to 2020.

Baby was an important turning point for her. The series followed teenagers from an affluent part of Rome and mixed privileged lifestyles with a much darker story of secret lives and exploitation. Porcaroli’s performance as Chiara gave her an international audience and established a screen presence that was much more restrained than the louder, more conventional performances often associated with teen drama.

She kept moving between genres after that. There was the drama 18 Presents, the comedy-drama Amanda, the period crime comedy 7 Women and a Murder, and several other Italian productions. Then came Immaculate, the 2024 religious horror film starring Sydney Sweeney, in which Porcaroli played Sister Gwen.

That film is particularly useful if you are trying to place her face. Immaculate gave Porcaroli an opportunity to work within a much darker, more atmospheric genre, and her performance showed that she could hold the screen without relying on constant dialogue or exaggerated reactions. There is a controlled quality to her acting that works surprisingly well in The Gentlemen.

Then came Netflix’s lavish historical drama The Leopard, where she played Concetta Corbera di Salina. That role feels especially relevant now because The Gentlemen asks her to inhabit another world of inherited wealth, social rules, old families, and carefully maintained appearances. Her filmography also includes The Kidnapping of Arabella, where she starred alongside Chris Pine.

Benedetta Porcaroli as Bella in The Gentlemen Season 2

By the time Season 2 begins, Eddie Horniman is not the same reluctant heir we met before. A year has passed, and he has become far more comfortable with the idea of running a criminal enterprise. Netflix’s own description makes the change pretty clear: Eddie is scaling up, and the consequences of that ambition are beginning to catch up with everyone around him.

Susie Glass is still beside him, of course. Kaya Scodelario’s character remains Eddie’s sharp, pragmatic business partner, and their relationship continues to be one of the central forces driving the story. But moving into Northern Italy changes the rules. Eddie may have a title, money, connections, and a growing criminal reputation, but none of that guarantees that local power players will simply step aside.

That is where Bella becomes interesting.

Porcaroli plays Isabella “Bella” Soranza de Parma, an orphaned Italian aristocrat who understands both sides of the social divide. Netflix’s Season 2 cast guide specifically describes Bella as someone who is comfortable around nobility and danger, much like Eddie. The show’s co-creator Matthew Read also describes an “immediate connection” between the two characters.

It is a small detail, but it changes the way their scenes work. Eddie does not have to explain the world of titles, estates, family names, or social expectations to Bella. She already knows it. At the same time, she is not some sheltered aristocrat who has wandered into the criminal world by accident. She understands the danger surrounding her, and she knows how to move through it.

That creates a completely different kind of tension between Bella and Eddie. Susie knows Eddie through business, ambition, and the criminal operation they have built together. Bella connects with another part of him: the aristocrat underneath the gangster. And because both of them understand what it means to inherit a name and the expectations attached to it, their conversations can carry subtext that does not need to be spelled out.

The Italian Underworld Changes Everything

Bella’s story also makes sense because she is not floating around the Italian plot on her own. Her character sits inside a much larger criminal network, and that network includes two of Season 2’s most important new additions: Sergio Castellitto and Michele Morrone.

Castellitto plays Marco Moretti, the head of a powerful Mafia family. Netflix describes Marco as serious, influential, ruthless, and elegant, which is almost the perfect combination for a Guy Ritchie antagonist. Eddie and Susie arrive in Italy thinking about expansion. Marco sees them as outsiders entering a territory where he already holds power.

Suddenly, the problem is not simply how to make more money. It is how to operate without provoking people who have spent years building their own networks.

Bella is connected to this world, which makes her position even more complicated. She is not just the sophisticated woman Eddie happens to meet while visiting Italy. She has relationships with people on both sides of the social and criminal divide, and that makes her useful in ways that are difficult to measure.

Then there is Michele Morrone’s Cico Maldini, Bella’s husband. Cico is a small-time Italian criminal with a deep collection of local contacts, and Eddie and Susie rely on him as their guide through an unfamiliar criminal environment. Netflix’s description calls him the “boots on the ground” for the Italian operation, while also making one thing very clear: Cico is not a man who should be trusted too easily.

That marriage adds another layer to Bella’s character. She is connected to an established aristocratic world, tied to dangerous criminal figures, and married to a man whose loyalty is questionable. Eddie may find himself drawn to Bella, but understanding where Bella herself stands is much harder.

Why Bella and Eddie Have Such Interesting Chemistry

The easiest mistake would be to look at Bella as nothing more than a romantic complication. There is certainly tension between her and Eddie, and the series is not shy about playing with that dynamic. But her real function in the story is broader.

Bella represents the version of Eddie that existed before the criminal business took over his life. She understands inherited wealth and the strange social performance that comes with being born into it. Eddie has spent much of the series learning how to behave like a criminal while still carrying himself like a duke. Bella does not need to learn that balancing act. She already knows it.

And Porcaroli plays the character with enough restraint to keep Bella from becoming a simple femme-fatale stereotype. She does not need to announce that she is dangerous. A glance, a pause in conversation, or the way she handles a social situation can do the work.

That suits The Gentlemen. Guy Ritchie’s characters often talk quickly, but the best scenes are not necessarily about what they say. They are about what one character understands that another character has not yet figured out.

From England to Northern Italy: A Major Visual Shift

Season 1 had a very specific visual identity. Damp English countryside, enormous estates, dark interiors, expensive clothing, and the occasional extremely unpleasant reminder that Eddie’s new business was not exactly legitimate. Season 2 keeps the expensive clothing but changes almost everything around it.

Northern Italy brings lakeside villas, bright sunlight, mountains, boats, gardens, and a much warmer visual palette. The production has used locations around Lake Maggiore, giving the season a noticeably different atmosphere from the original run.

That contrast matters because the new setting makes the violence feel stranger. A conversation about money or murder can happen beside a beautiful lake, during an elegant dinner, or inside a villa that looks like it belongs in a luxury travel magazine. The ugliness of the criminal world is still there. It is simply surrounded by better scenery.

Bella fits naturally into that visual language. Her wardrobe and styling lean into the polished Italian aristocratic aesthetic without making her look like a costume-piece character. She belongs in those rooms, at those tables, around those people. And that makes it easier to believe that Eddie would immediately recognize something familiar in her.

What Fans Have Been Saying About Benedetta Porcaroli

Once the season arrived, Bella quickly became one of the characters viewers were discussing alongside the larger Eddie-Susie storyline. Some of that attention is obviously connected to Porcaroli herself. She already had a following from Baby, The Leopard, Amanda, and her film work, so The Gentlemen gives a much wider international audience another reason to look her up.

The chemistry with Theo James has also been difficult for viewers to ignore. Their characters come from similar social backgrounds, and that changes the rhythm of their conversations. Eddie can speak to Bella without putting on the same defensive performance he uses around many of the criminals he encounters.

It also helps that Porcaroli and James are not playing the relationship as a straightforward romance. There is business underneath it, social calculation underneath that, and danger underneath everything. In a show where almost everyone wants something from everyone else, that is exactly the kind of relationship that keeps a viewer suspicious.

The Italian setting has generated plenty of discussion as well. The shift from England to Italy gives the series a fresh visual identity without throwing away the style that made the first season recognizable. Bella is almost a personification of that change: elegant on the surface, complicated underneath, and much harder to read than she first appears.

The Meghan Markle Rumors and the Season 2 Casting Conversation

There was also another casting story surrounding The Gentlemen around the Season 2 premiere: reports and rumors involving Meghan Markle and a possible future role. The speculation attracted substantial attention around the show’s launch, although the reported idea concerned potential future involvement rather than Porcaroli’s Season 2 role. Reuters reported that the rumors had become a major talking point around the premiere, while later reports suggested that the proposed casting was no longer moving forward.

That noise ended up becoming a strange side story to a season that already had a much more interesting casting development happening in plain sight. Porcaroli, Castellitto, Morrone, Hugh Bonneville, Benjamin Clementine, Amra Mallassi, Tyler Conti, Chris Eubank Jr., and Maya Jama all join the expanding ensemble, giving the second season a noticeably different cast dynamic.

And Porcaroli arguably has the most immediately intriguing role among the new additions because Bella is positioned between so many competing worlds. She can move through aristocratic society, understands danger, and has a direct connection to Cico and the Italian criminal network.

Is Benedetta Porcaroli Returning for The Gentlemen Season 3?

For viewers wondering whether Bella’s story ends with Season 2, there is already reason to keep an eye on the character. Netflix has renewed The Gentlemen for a third season, and Porcaroli is listed in current filmography databases as returning as Isabella “Bella” Soranza de Parma.

That does not necessarily tell us exactly where Bella’s story goes, and it certainly does not remove the tension surrounding her relationships. If anything, it makes the character more interesting. The second season introduces her into Eddie’s world, but the real question is what she does once she has become part of it.

Because Eddie is no longer simply trying to escape the criminal business, his relationships are changing too. Bella understands the aristocratic side of him. Susie understands the criminal side. Cico understands the local Italian underworld. Marco controls a large part of the environment they have entered. That is a lot of pressure around one character, and The Gentlemen has never been shy about letting those pressures collide.

So, Who Plays the Italian Duchess in The Gentlemen Season 2?

Benedetta Porcaroli plays Bella, officially Isabella “Bella” Soranza de Parma, in The Gentlemen Season 2. She is an orphaned Italian aristocrat who shares an immediate connection with Eddie Horniman and becomes closely tied to the show’s Italian criminal storyline. Netflix’s own cast guide confirms the role and describes Bella as a woman equally comfortable among nobility and danger.

Calling her the “Italian duchess” may be how many viewers find the character through search engines, but “Italian aristocrat” or “countess” is closer to how the series presents her. And honestly, the distinction matters less than what Porcaroli does with the role.

She gives Bella a quiet confidence that works against the louder personalities around her. She does not need to dominate every scene. Sometimes it is more interesting when she simply sits there, listens, and lets everybody else reveal what they are thinking.

That is what makes Porcaroli such a natural addition to The Gentlemen. She has already played teenagers hiding dangerous secrets, emotionally complicated characters, historical aristocrats, and figures caught inside darker worlds. Bella lets her combine several of those qualities at once.

And now that Eddie’s criminal empire has crossed the Channel, that combination could become increasingly important. The British duke has entered an Italian game. Bella already knows how that game works.