Natascha McElhone on Bella’s Season 3 Journey on 'Hotel Portofino'
After five episodes of heartbreaking plot twists, star-crossed romances, devastating betrayals, and some genuinely fabulous vistas, Hotel Portofino will end its third season on the day before Labor Day, Sunday, September 1, 2024.
As the hotel’s proprietor, Natascha McElhone’s Bella Ainsworth has spent the season starting her own business, dealing with family members who came for a visit and still haven’t left, navigating a new romance, trying to save her hotel from financial ruin, and so much more. “You want as much external jeopardy and pressure as possible to propel the interior story of the life of the hotel and the family and what’s at stake,” McElhone told Telly Visions during a recent interview.
The jeopardy this season has been plenty. The stock market has crashed. Portofino’s resident fascist Vincenzo Danioni (Pasquale Esposito) keeps threatening to shut the hotel down. Her father has had a heart attack. Her son Lucian (Oliver Dench) is reeling from discovering that his best friend was murdered. Her husband, Cecil (Mark Umbers), simply refuses to go away and become her ex-husband.
