Theo James is winning over viewers once again as Eddie Horniman in Netflix’s The Gentlemen, but there is another side to the actor that fans may not know. Long before he became a familiar face on screen, James was pursuing a career in music as the lead singer of a rock band. Now, with the second season of The Gentlemen bringing renewed attention to the actor, old footage of him performing has given fans a glimpse of a very different chapter in his life.

James was the frontman of Shere Khan, a London-based band in which he sang and played guitar. The group eventually split in 2012, but recordings of its performances have remained online. One clip shows James performing an original song called “Skin,” offering a reminder that acting was not always his only creative ambition. He also played in an earlier band called Makora, with photographs and live footage from those days later shared by fans.

@vibecodedd #theojamesedit #theojames #theojamestiktok ♬ original sound – vibecodedd

His musical background is not just an old story dug up by fans. In a September 2026 interview connected to The Gentlemen Season 2, James spoke about his days as a singer before his acting career took off. He has also recalled his early experiences performing live, including some less-than-glamorous gigs that made him question whether music was the right path for him.

Today, James is best known for roles in The White Lotus, the Divergent films and The Gentlemen. In the Netflix series, he plays Eddie Horniman, a former army captain who unexpectedly inherits his family estate and becomes involved in a criminal enterprise operating beneath it. The second season finds Eddie more comfortable with his dual life as an aristocrat and a criminal, taking the character further into Guy Ritchie’s world of crime, ambition and dark humour.

The contrast between James’s polished screen presence and his earlier days performing with a band makes the old footage particularly interesting. Rather than being a secret boy-band past, it reveals a genuine musical ambition that came before his rise as an actor. For fans discovering those performances now, it is another reminder that James’s path to stardom was not quite as straightforward as his current success might suggest.

Source: Various