Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett Gallop into Season 2 of "Rivals"
The racy Jilly Cooper adaptation adds two British screen legends as filming on the extended second season continues.
Deadline reports, the highly anticipated second season of the scandalous hit Rivals is adding some major star power to its ranks, promising even more drama, passion, and intrigue in the heart of the Cotswolds.
What’s Happening:
- The Mission: Impossible and Marvel star Hayley Atwell has been cast in a guest role as Helen Gordon, the sharp and sophisticated ex-wife of the dashing cad Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and mother to his children.
- Rupert Everett (My Best Friend's Wedding) will play Malise Gordon, Helen's new husband and, in a delicious twist, Campbell-Black’s former show-jumping coach and mentor.
- Further casting for the second season includes Maxim Ays (Boarders), Holly Cattle (Young Sherlock), Oliver Dench (Hotel Portofino), Amanda Lawrence (Malory Towers), Bobby Lockwood (Wolfblood), Eliot Salt (Slow Horses), and Jonny Weldon (One Day).
- It was confirmed that Season 2 has been extended to 12 episodes, with filming already halfway complete. Showrunner Dominic Treadwell-Collins noted that polo will be a bigger theme as the season delves deeper into the past of Rupert Campbell-Black.
About Jilly Cooper and the Rutshire Chronicles
- Jilly Cooper, born in 1937, is a journalist and author celebrated for her romance novels, which are famously witty, glamorous, and unapologetically risqué. She is credited with popularizing the "bonkbuster" genre in the UK.
- Rivals is part of a larger series of novels known as the Rutshire Chronicles. These books are all set in the fictional English county of Rutshire and follow the tangled lives and loves of the British upper class, with a heavy focus on the worlds of show-jumping, polo, and television.
- The series features an interconnected world with Characters from one book often appearing in others. The most famous of these is the incorrigible womanizer and Olympic equestrian Rupert Campbell-Black, who first appeared in Cooper's 1985 novel Riders.
- Besides Rivals (1988), other major books in the Rutshire Chronicles include Riders (1985), Polo (1991), The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (1993), and Jump! (2010).
- Cooper's novels have sold millions of copies worldwide and are cherished for their humor, intricate plots, and unforgettable characters.
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