Last King of the Cross: Lincoln Younes on John Ibrahim, recreating the seedy strip and Tim Roth’s ‘volatility’

It’s one thing to portray a real person on screen. It’s another entirely when that person is still very much alive — and very much the executive producer of the series you’re working on. That’s the predicament Lincoln Younes found himself in when he signed on to play ex-Sydney nightclub owner and business identity John Ibrahim in Last King of the Cross. The 10-part series, screening now on Paramount Plus, is inspired by John Ibrahim’s bestselling autobiography of the same name. It tells — and we’re quoting the official press materials here, because they sum things up beautifully — “an operatic story of two brothers, John (Younes) and Sam Ibrahim (Claude Jabbour) who organise the street but lose each other in their ascent to power”. Set in and around Kings Cross over two decades, Last King of the Cross follows the two brothers as they rise through the ranks, their story beginning with them as youngsters in 1978 war-torn Tripoli, Lebanon. It then charts their ups and downs right through to the mid-Nineties, when both are caught up in a royal commission into police corruption. It’s a wild ride, with John Ibrahim being closely involved with bringing the series, which producers are quick to point out is only inspired by his life story, to the small screen. So how did Younes feel about the pressure of portraying one of Sydney’s most colourful identities? Did he feel nervous about stepping into the skin of someone with ties to the shady world that’s portrayed in the show? Someone who’s standing just out of shot while he filmed some of his scenes? “Oh, I mean look, only now you say it,” Younes laughs, chatting to STM from Sydney, where he’s based. “No, but seriously, my mantra with acting is that you kind of have to be daring — as soon as you hesitate or pull away from something, you are kind of lost. “I go towards what scares me, or what is unique, or what is risky. I think that is where the best art comes from, and that is kind of my marker. “At times it could obviously get a bit overwhelming. But I just kind of focused on the work, and let the rest flow past me, if that makes sense?” There are shades of the Noughties crime franchise series Underbelly in this new show — and, interestingly, that series mined similar territory in its Underbelly: The Golden Mile offering from 2008, which dealt with the same time period. This is a much bigger production. Streaming on Paramount Plus internationally, they’ve been able to utilise a larger budget, re-creating a massive scale replica of Sydney’s famous Golden Mile of strip clubs, nightclubs and restaurants in a carpark in Western Sydney. Anyone who was around the city at that time will recognise the seedy strip immediately. “I am so happy to hear that,” says Younes. “The fact that we got to build the Cross to scale from the Eighties and Nineties is a very unique opportunity that never really gets to be done on a project in Australia. “But it was vital. Because if you weren’t living in the Cross at that time, or weren’t in and around it, it’s really hard to describe the magic and the chaos and the excitement of that time.” By the time Younes was old enough to be out and about, the famous strip was on the decline, transforming from pulsing inner-city night spot to gentrified quasi-residential area. Once home to addicts and pimps, it now houses judges and professionals — it’s almost unrecognisable. “I’m 31 now, so I guess I got the last three years of the Cross,” Younes muses. “I definitely got a really good sense of what it was like though — I loved it. “Those were some of the best years of my life, in terms of going out. I never felt particularly threatened; I enjoyed the possibility of going out in the Cross. There was this kind of essence, or energy, in the air — even if you didn’t get into a venue and you were walking along the strip, you could feel it, and it was palpable.” It pulsates through this pacey series, which boasts an incredible cast, including Pulp Fiction’s Tim Roth as fictitious Kings Cross kingpin Ezra Shipman, and Callan Mulvey and Tess Haubrich as cops, alongside Claude Jabbour as John’s troubled brother Sam. Their storied kinship is at the heart of the series, but Younes is quick to point out that even minor characters are important in this retelling of their lives. “It was an incredible calibre of cast,” he says. “And that was really important, because it has its main storyline, but away from that it’s an ensemble show, and a show is only as strong as its parts. “You need an incredible supporting cast around you to bring something like the Cross to life. And we were really fortunate because we had incredible actors in every role. “For someone like Tim to come in and play the antagonist, he brought this volatility and unpredictability to the screen which creates a villain type of role that hasn’t really been seen in Australia before.” It helped to have Ibrahim so close to the project; Younes was able to spend time with him working on his portrayal. So are rumours true that the man himself cherry-picked him for the role? “Yeah, there were a few different things that came together,” he clarifies. “I had read the memoir a few years before and weirdly been like, ‘Oh, this would be really exciting to explore if they ever made a series about it’, and I kind of parked that in my brain. “Then, a couple of years later, the opportunity came around and we organised a meeting and there were a couple of other stages, but it kind of serendipitously came together. “Basically, my vision of the character aligned with his and the producers’ and it felt like the right fit. From there we crafted the rest of the show and cast.” Now it’s finally hitting screens. Though Younes was consumed with the project for much of last year — it was filmed towards the end of 2022 — there was another series that was also taking up much of his time, and he stepped into it mere moments after wrapping on Last King of the Cross. Later this year we’ll get to see him in the Stan original series C*A*U*G*H*T. Directed, produced and written by Kick Gurry (Edge of Tomorrow), the six-part series, which also stars local faces Ben O’Toole, Alexander England, Mel Jarnson, Fayssal Bazzi, Dorian Nkono and Rebecca Breeds, has one very famous name attached: Hollywood heavyweight Sean Penn, who joins the cast alongside Bryan Brown and Matthew Fox. It was a project close to Younes’ heart. “Kick Gurry, who is one of my good friends, created it,” Younes explains. “Ben O’Toole, Alex England, myself and Kick all lived in the same house in LA, and we are all very close; all very different people who get along very well. We basically said we should make something we could all be in, to put this magic, weird dynamic on screen. “Then we did this two-day shoot and created this little teaser and from that sent it to a friend and Sean watched it and called Kick and said, ‘Do you want to produce?’ And he then came on in the acting capacity and it has kind of gone from there.” Lincoln wrapped shooting on Last King of the Cross and stepped straight onto the C*A*U*G*H*T set. “I finished Last King at 5am on Thursday morning and started filming on C*A*U*G*H*T at 8am that day,” he says. “We shot that for about six weeks at the end of last year.” The experience lit a spark in Younes, who is now also working on developing his own project, which will likely be coming to screens later this year. It’s a busy time. “It is,” he concurs. “But it’s a nice place to be — life is good.” Last King of the Cross is streaming now on Paramount Plus