By Erin Free
“I was thirteen-years-old, so I was still at school,” Lincoln Younes replies when FilmInk asks him for his memories of 2005’s infamous Cronulla riots, which play a major role in his new comedy, Down Under. “The following year, we ended up studying it as part of the curriculum. That’s quite a naïve period of your life, when you still have high hopes for humanity. It was a disappointment that that was something that could happen. It was so close as well. My mum was a journalist, so I grew up in newspaper offices, and there are all these horrible things happening, but they always seemed far away. But to have it happen so close, and to have no real lead up to it – there was no major catalyst for it –was quite horrifying. It showed that life is quite unpredictable, and that it can be quite volatile. It was just a very sobering day.”
The Cronulla riots – which saw angry young Anglo youths rampaging across the streets of Sydney’s famous beach suburb, looking for people of Middle Eastern background to assault in retaliation for what they saw as acts of disrespect – are the kick-off point for Down Under. Written and directed by Abe Forsythe (Ned), the film then takes a far more relatable, intimate approach, settling in on two car loads of young men – one full of Cronulla “Aussies”, and the other driven by “Lebs” from Sydney’s south-west – caught up in the feverish aftermath of the riots, which saw acts of revenge and provocation ripping their way around the city. “Understanding the motivations of each character was the great thing that Abe and [producer] Jodi [Matterson] did,” says Younes. “They cast an ensemble of actors that can and will go to those places. They don’t just go the clichéd bad or antagonistic character route…there’s no one who you could actually call ‘bad’ in the film.”
Lincoln Younes’ Hassim is certainly one of the most sensible and restrained of all the fired up boys baying for blood. He’s a good student, and a decent young man, but he slowly, inexorably gets caught up in the rage and anger around him, prodded along by his aggressive friend, Nick (Rahel Romahn), and sweating on the whereabouts of his missing brother, who he thinks might have been attacked during the riots. “They’re all flawed, but by the end, you can understand their motivations, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. They’re coming from a place where they actually believe that they’re doing the correct thing, for their culture or for their subset of the community. So it’s this whole heap of wrong,” Younes laughs of the film’s characters.
The role in Down Under is a big one for Lincoln Younes. It’s his first major big screen work after a successful run on TV (where he’s appeared on the popular series, Love Child, Hiding, Home And Away, and Tangle), and a supporting slot in the low budgeter, The Wedding Party. “I didn’t have much time to prepare,” Younes says of his audition. “I came in quite late, and I got to meet and audition with Rahel. I’d never explored that side of my heritage, the Lebanese side, so I was really interested in the role and the film. But to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. I was a little nervous about it, but the audition process was great. We were in there for an hour, and we did a little bit of improvising. The first thing that I noticed was that Abe wasn’t precious about the script. At the end of the day, he just wanted the best version. In the end, I don’t think we strayed that far from the script at all, but it was just great to have that freedom to play and explore things. We could find new levels of depth, and then put that into the words that he created. Working with Rahel was great too; you always want to be surrounded by people and actors that you want to be inspired by, because they are so intelligent and creative in a different way to your own. That’s what our cast and crew was for me. It was a really fun learning experience which happened to deal with a very important issue and have something to say, so it was kind of the ultimate project.”
In a strange twist for the film’s cast and crew, the film’s narrative – which is split into two very distinct halves, with the two car loads of boys not colliding until the film’s climax – prevented most of the actors from mixing with each other for most of the shoot. With the film performing a tonal tightrope walk, with wild swings from raucous comedy to pure tragedy, that made things even more difficult. “We were only there for our side of the thing,” Younes explains. “Because it’s such a big ensemble cast, we’re obviously not there for the whole shoot. So we actually didn’t know what was happening with the other car, and the other characters. It meant that we actually had to have an incredible amount of trust in Abe and the crew, for them to tell us whether to either tone it up or down. So it was all equally balanced. We didn’t really know until we saw it, but Abe did an incredible job. From our point of view, we really only had Abe to guide us.”
One of the film’s wildest scenes has Younes and his friends hitting up a drug dealer to supply them with a gun. That drug dealer – a sexually ambiguous oddball who plies his trade in a palatial beachside home surrounded by pandering male Thai servants – is played by legendary Aussie actor, David Field, and the whole scenario peels out like the film’s own version of Alfred Molina’s notorious turn in Boogie Nights. Has Younes ever done anything as weird as that scene? “No,” the engaging and charming young actor laughs. “I don’t think I realised how weird it would be with 50 extras all staring at me and David Field telling me to take off my pants. It’s kind of a highlight reel.”
For Lincoln Younes, the entirety of Down Under could play as a highlight reel. The actor gives a soulful, thoughtful performance that grounds the larger madness of the piece, which is sure to get people talking in a big way. “Indifference is a big killer when it comes to film and TV,” Younes offers. “So it doesn’t matter whether people love it or hate it, it’s a good thing because it’s going to start a conversation, and maybe even change. It’s kind of a treat to be involved with this film.”
Down Under is released in cinemas on August 11. To read our review, click here.
