‘Last King Of The Cross’: Ian McShane Joins Paramount+ Australia Drama

Ian McShane has been cast in Paramount+ Australia’s drama Last King Of The Cross and will take on a major role. He will appear opposite star Lincoln Younes.

Last King of The Cross, which will begin filming in Sydney in May, is a Helium Pictures production for Paramount+ Australia with Cineflix Rights as the international distributor. Produced by Mark Fennessy and Karl Zwicky, the drama is by writer/director Kieran Darcy-Smith who will direct.

Inspired by John Ibrahim’s best-selling autobiography, Last King of The Cross is an operatic story of two brothers, Sam and John Ibrahim who organize the street but lose each other in their ascent to power. The drama tracks John Ibrahim’s rise from a poverty-stricken immigrant with no education, no money, and no prospects, to Australia’s most infamous nightclub mogul in Sydney’s Kings Cross – a mini-Atlantic City, barely half a mile long with every form of criminality on offer.

McShane will play Ezra Shipman. The lead antagonist of the series is the reigning King of The Cross. Wily and much-celebrated, Ezra has a gift for all things business – be that the stock market or overseeing the illegal gambling, prostitution, and strip joints that Kings Cross has been famous for since the Vietnam War.

For three generations Ezra has been the most powerful and most feared man in Sydney – but now he is confronting his looming mortality. For all his power and material success, and all he has had to do to maintain it, there is no one to continue his legacy.

Enter John Ibrahim (Younes) – an adolescent facsimile of Ezra: young, brash, ambitious, and intelligent. Seeing the opportunity to extend his reign, Ezra takes the young John into his inner circle as his acolyte… but who is exploiting who?

McShane will next reprise his role as Winston opposite Keanu Reeves for John Wick: Chapter 4. The American Gods actor and executive producer previously won a Golden Globe Award for his work in HBO’s Deadwood as Al Swearengen. He later reprised the role for Deadwood: The Movie. His additional credits include The Wild and the Willing, Pirates of the Caribbean: on Stranger Tides, Hellboy, Ray Donovan, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Lovejoy and more.

McShane is represented by ICM Partners, Independent Talent Group, Gallant Management, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.