Greek-Australian actor/comedian Nick Giannopoulos, who shot to fame after the hit Aussie comedy The Wog Boy in 2000, not only took the stigma out of the derogatory nickname ‘Wog’, he subsequently made a prolific career out of it. Ten years after The Wog Boy became the 13^th Australian film to ever to break $10 million mark at the local box office, Giannopoulos has done something that few Aussie filmmakers ever get the chance to; he’s made a sequel. Written, produced and starred in a sequel, to be more precise.

In The Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2, Giannopoulos returns alongside Vince Colosimo as Steve and Frank, two Greek-Australians who leave Melbourne for the gorgeous Greek isle of Mykonos in order to claim an expensive family heirloom. Of course, recovering their inheritance isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, as Steve and Frank discover they’re not nearly as Greek as they originally thought they were.

Despite being involved in a heated interview with a local Adelaide radio station just prior to our interview, Giannopoulos was in good spirits as we sat down to talk about his new film, which hits cinemas across Australia on May 20^th.

Cut Print Review: Ok, so be honest; did you write The Kings of Mykonos just to spend time on the Greek island and surround yourself with beautiful women?

Nick Giannopoulos: [laughs] Well when I first went to Mykonos in the early 90s, the first thing I realised was that the world’s most beautiful women came to this island every year. I guess that’s why it’s so popular! It’s such a cosmopolitan and fashionable island that it tends to attract, you know, a very wealthy clientele. With that comes the fashion, looks and all of that. So it was important in terms of getting the look right; we had to get the sort of women you do see in Mykonos. So we cast Zeta Makrypoulia and Cosima Coppola who were great. Just terrific.

CPR: Yes, be sure to thank your casting directors Nanette Fox and Makis Gazis for me. I think a lot of men in the audience will be very pleased with their work…

NG: [laughs] Yeah, I think so too!

CPR: So why do a sequel some ten years after the first?

NG: I wasn’t really planning a sequel, actually. Kings of Mykonos started life as a separate project. After going there in the 90s and meeting all these crazy characters, I thought this could one day be a really good film, so I made observations and notes. Then I came back to it five years ago and started developing it seriously, but it was still a separate film. Then a couple of years ago Chris Anastassiades, my co-writer, decided that it would actually be a stronger script to include the characters Frank and Steve in it, because we knew those characters so well and we knew that the audience loved them from the first film. It was just the perfect story line – it just kind of seemed to fit!

CPR: So you decided to rewrite it with the characters from The Wog Boy?

NG: Yeah, well what we did was re-tweaked it, you know? I think that was a good thing because I think if we just set out to write a sequel, I’m not sure we could have achieved that as well as we have now.

 

CPR: It’s interesting you say that because this film is quite different to the first. For one, there was a distinct political undercurrent to Wog Boy that’s not as prevalent here…

NG: Well the first one was about the minster of employment and Steve being called a ‘Wog boy’…

Cosima Coppola in The Kings of Mykonos

CPR: So would you say this one is a bit more laid back and easy going?

NG: It’s…different. It’s based on what happened when I went to Greece for the first time and they laughed at me for saying “G’day”. They’d call me ‘Kangarootha’. So I thought, “Well, this is great…they call me a ‘Wog’ in Australia, and I come here and they call me a ‘Kangarootha’. Where the hell am I meant to be?”

So it’s actually about displacement, you know? It’s about Steve and Frank finding out how Aussie they actually are. That’s why the ending is the way it is. It’s like — you know when you travel and you find out your more Aussie than thought you were?

CPR: Oooh yeah. Especially when you board a QANTAS flight home after being away for a while and you hear that first “G’day mate!” It’s so jarring!

NG: Yeah, exactly! And we’re great travellers; every Aussie has travelled. That’s exactly right though, it’s really jarring. So yeah, I loved the idea of having these two Aussie Wog boys who are fish out of water in a place they really shouldn’t be.

CPR: [laughs] Yeah, you certainly get that awkwardness across with all the “mate!” greetings and thumbs-up gestures your characters use.

NG: Yeah, and it’s really like that. Whenever I say “G’day” or “mate”…people just laugh! Not just overseas, but here as well! Because it’s so incongruous, it’s so – it just doesn’t quite fit in with the whole sense of the island. That’s kind of how we are as Aussies when we travel. We kind of fit in, but we don’t. [laughs]

One thing is for sure: we stand out!

CPR: Definitely. I mean, when I travelled overseas with my family, my dad would always wear this tattered Adelaide Crows [Football Club] cap just so he would stand out. He was hoping that some Aussie footy fan would spot him and yell “Carn’ the Crows!”

NG: [laughs] Yeah! The first time I went — when I was 14 – I’ve got a photo of me on my grandfather’s donkey wearing an Essendon jumper. That’s the image we project! [laughs]

CPR: How would you say your character Steve has evolved – or grown-up — since the first film?

NG: Well he’s ten years older for a start, so if he hasn’t evolved after ten years…

Look, Steve goes on a really interesting journey in this film. He loses his one and only true love…his car. Then he loses all his assets, because he trusts Tony the Yugoslav. So he’s pretty much left with nothing until he gets this call from a cousin that he’s never met to tell him that an uncle he’s never met has left him a beach in Mykonos. Steve and Frank decide to go, or as Vince [Colosimo] likes to say, he got a two for one ticket; that’s why Frank came along! [laughs] Vince has always just loved the way Frank always just goes with Steve, you know what I mean?

CPR: Yes, their friendship is much more developed in this film than it was the last. They act a lot like brothers, don’t they? Is that how your relationship with Vince is in real life?

NG: Well Vince and I are close mates, as most people know. As actors, we’ve developed a really close relationship having worked so much together on stage and having done the film. Because we keep in touch and we go out together, we know each other really well. We both love these characters too, you know?

So we spoke about it and we said that they really are like brothers. In fact, Vince likes to say it’s actually love story between Steve and Frank.

CPR: Oh yeah, it’s definitely what I’d call a ‘bro-mance’…

NG: Yeah, it kind of is in a strange way. I mean, without ruining the film, there’s a moment where Steve and Frank have a little bit of a fallout. And yeah, that’s when you kind of go “oh ok, this film’s actually about their relationship!” But, you know, the girls add a lot to it as well. The romance side of it is kind of cute.

Steve, of course, finds his big love in – should I reveal that? – well, he discovers another car in Greece. That was owned by his so-called Uncle and without ruining that moment, I think we found just the right song to go with it, don’t you think?

[Nick breaks out into Donna Summer’s 1975 hit ‘Love To Love You Baby’ in a faint falsetto]

‘Ooooh, I love to love you baby…’

CPR: [laughs] Not bad! Not bad… yeah, the soundtrack was good fun.

NG: Yeah, you liked it? There’s a lot of great Aussie artists; TV Rock, Jade MaCrae, Mr. Jigga from Melbourne, Kaz James and so on.

CPR: I have to ask, what happened to Lucy Bell’s character Celia from the first film?

NG: That’s a GOOD question! It’s a tough thing, you know. Chris and I wrote this and said “well, how much of the first film do we actually include in this?” In the end, we actually found that we just didn’t have the time. We felt like, where the film really takes off is when they do get to Mykonos, and the longer we spent in Australia the more it detracted from that. So that was the problem; we didn’t have enough time to hang around in Australia. But maybe, maybe, MAYBE if — and I’m saying a big IF — there’s a number three, you never know!

CPR: Right, so neither Lucy nor Steven Curry were approached? Not even for a cameo role?

NG: No, we decided that because it was ten years on and the story kicks off with Frank having gone through a divorce. So Steve’s marriage has, I guess, failed sometime during that time…

CPR: OK, so we just have to accept that…

NG: Yeah, it was a big decision for us to make. Because you don’t want to just bring them in and use them for two minutes, you know? Whereas with Theo and the other characters, they become integral to the plot. So it was more of a scriptwriting thing more than anything else.

CPR: One cast member who makes up for their absence is, of course, the goat. After The Men Who Stare at Goats, there’s no stopping him!

NG: [laughs] Well he does have the last laugh in the film, right at the very end.

CPR: Oh? Is this post credits?

NG: Yeah.

CPR: Oh no! I didn’t stick around for it! I’m sorry…

NG: Oh mate! Tell everyone they shouldn’t leave before the end credits roll, ok? There’s these animated credits, so stay for the end of that.

CPR: Right, ok. I’ll be sure to let everyone know to stick around.

NG: Yeah, it’s the best part!

CPR: I suspect a lot of Aussies will place Mykonos at the top of their holiday destinations after they see this film. Did Greece help finance the film?

NG: Yeah, there was some Greek money involved. We did a presale to Greece because of Zeta Makrypoulia’s involvement. She’s such a huge star over there. And the Greek Film Centre gave us a little money, but the majority of funding came from Australia.

CPR: So it’s a co-production then?

NG: It is, but not officially. Australia and Greece don’t actually have an official co-production, which is ridiculous considering how many Greeks are here. It’s something that should definitely do. So no, it wasn’t an official co-production, but I wish it was. It would have helped a lot. Maybe in the future.

CPR: In any case, it’s good to see a film look beyond Australia, you know? For example, Balibo, Mao’s Last Dancer, Daybreakers, Accidents Happen and now your film. They’re all Australian films, but set overseas. In terms of exposure and marketability, it’s a good trend to see for our industry.

NG: Absolutely. I mean, we’re great travellers, like I said. You find Aussies in all parts of the world, and I like the idea that this is a road movie too. I like the idea of taking Frank and Steve on the road, because we never really did that in the first film. I thought it would be a lot of fun to explore these characters in a foreign setting.

CPR: Yeah, it’s takes a very different direction to the first. The whole issue of being called a ‘Wog’ isn’t what this film is about…

NG: Yeah, we deal with it really quickly in this one…

CPR: Well, you’ve done it once. No need to do it again, right?

NG: That’s right. That’s why when people say to me “why has it taken so long for a sequel?” I say “we took ten years because we didn’t want to repeat the first film.”  This film is very much a progression of that film. So the way we deal with it in this film is really quick. In fact, overseas the film is only called The Kings of Mykonos. In Australia, it’s Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2.

CPR: Ah, OK. I was going to ask about the reason behind the title. It’s also good choice, I think, for those who were too young to remember when the first film came out…

NG: For sure, yeah, cause they can see it as a standalone film. Absolutely, that’s exactly what we wanted to do.

CPR: Well thanks so much for your time, Nick, and best of luck with the film!

NG: Thanks mate!

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THE KINGS OF MYKONOS: WOG BOY 2 hits cinemas across Australia May 20^th.

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