Actor Lincoln Younes has fleeting memories of clubbing on Oxford Street, albeit after its “heyday” era as the centre of Sydney nightclubs.
The gay strip forms a large part of the second season of Paramount+ drama Last King of the Cross when King’s Cross nightclub lord John Ibrahim sought to expand a crumbling empire.
“It was a pretty wild time back then. I kind of got the last five years of the Cross and I guess whatever was going on at Oxford Street at that time,” Younes, 32, tells TV Tonight.
“It brings in a very different culture and blueprint for Season Two. I think the ways that John’s used to navigating or manipulating or getting his way, just doesn’t work. So he kind of has to start from zero.”
Ibrahim became owner of DCM, renamed in the 1990s-set Paramount+ drama.
To bring the scenes to life, an exterior King’s Cross set built for Season 1 at Raging Waters car park in Prospect, Western Sydney, was adapted.
“We repurposed that set for Season Two. We kept the original strip, but then we kind of affixed an Oxford Street set nearby. It’s quite wild what they can create right next to a waterpark. But they did and they did it well.”
Season 2 focusses more on the wider Ibrahim family, with two younger brothers, Fadi (Alex Kaan) and Michael (Dave Hoey), while older brother Sam (Claude Jabbour) remains in prison.
“The appeal of the story was always the the loneliness that comes with success and ascension”
“For me, the appeal of doing this show and the appeal of the story was always the the loneliness that comes with success and ascension, and the divide between tradition and ambition when it comes to business and family,” he continues.
“You see the pseudo-father difficulties between Sam and John. They both have very different versions of what it should be to lead a life of purpose.
“What you see throughout Season Two is Michael and Fadi being dragged between both brothers, and who they identify with. For John, it’s moving away from ambition and being pulled towards duty. After all the trauma of season one, he kind of has a very nihilistic, bleak view of the world. He’s having to try and cover that and mask it more than he’s used to, and restructure the games he’s used to playing.”
Naveen Andrews (Lost, The English Patient) plays nightclub owner Ray Kinnock, a fictional character who employs every trick in his arsenal to challenge John’s crown.
“All the characters are fictionalised. You always take creative license with these things, because it’s not a biopic, and we need to structure the show the way they would like for each season. Someone like Naveen’s character Ray is inspired by probably a few real-life figures,” Younes explains.
“Naveen when he was here filming met, in his words, an exact replica of Ray just down the street from where he’s living. He would go get coffee every day and run into this guy, and he was like a modern-day Ray. He enjoyed getting inspiration from that person. It’s kind of hard when it’s not a biopic, trying to pin down who who’s.”
“I’m at the forefront of everything with a lot of this”
Ibrahim is also a producer on the project, inspired by his own memoir. So how does Younes reconcile playing a balanced fictional character drawn from IP penned by the man who is also producer?
“At the end of the day, you know, I’m in every scene. I’m at the forefront of everything with a lot of this. There’s a lot I don’t have a say in, but what I do (have) is how much consultation enters the show. This is not a world or a business that actors are well-versed in or could even understand, because we weren’t deeply immersed in that era,” he suggests.
“You can research as much as you want. You can kind of make educated guesses, but to have someone like John as a first-hand information-giver on things like business and the inner workings of the Cross is quite invaluable. It’s my job to marry that information with my perspective, and then hopefully put it on screen.”
Episodes are also brimming in toxic masculinity and violence, which Younes insists is true to the Ibrahim story. But he looks for the flaws in between the black and white.
“This show really kind of leans into the darker, flawed, grittier problems that come from living a certain in a certain culture. So for me, it’s a really rich story that brings in ideas of immigration, police corruption, business and family. If it weren’t such a long series, you wouldn’t have time to explore the various aspects of that, no matter how divisive,” he observes.
“For me, always, it’s been the grey, that’s what I find interesting”
“For me, always, it’s been the grey, that’s what I find interesting. When you’re an actor, you can’t judge your character. You kind of need to be an objective observer, and you need to understand or create motives or opinions on things to be able to play them in a rounded way. With this character I could identify with the loneliness, and I could always identify with the self-imposed pressure that comes from trying to do something new and pave new ground when you weren’t taught it. Especially when you didn’t have good mentors growing up.
“I think the idea of glorification on screen and in storytelling does get muddied. I think it is where it kind of lands in terms of the redemption at the end of the show or how it’s portrayed.”
The 8 part Helium Productions season also features Luke Arnold, Matuse, Tess Haubrich and Doris Younane as John’s mother. Last King of the Cross was conceived as 3 seasons but S2 will first need to perform well before any final instalment is greenlit.
“There is plenty more story to tell if that were to go that way,” Younes teases. “For now we just hope everyone enjoys Season Two.”
Last King of the Cross is now screening on Paramount+
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