Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam hung out with ex-bikie boss with in Melbourne
Hollywood’s most famous bikie hung out with the real thing, a former Comanchero boss, while in Melbourne.
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Hollywood’s most famous bikie Charlie Hunnam clearly takes his roles very seriously.
The actor who became a household name playing Jax, the implausibly handsome boss of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle chapter in the hit US TV series, is getting among Melbourne’s very own.
Last Friday Hunnam was photographed out and about in Melbourne’s CBD with a group of “locals”, dining out at the George on Collins and taking selfies with fans.
Page 13 looked a little closer and lo and behold Hunnam was hanging with none other than “local” former Comanchero bikie boss Jay Malkoun.
Malkoun was looking the picture of good health after been seriously injured in a botched car bomb attack outside an Athens gym two years ago.
It’s believed Malkoun, who quietly returned to Australia last year after several years living abroad, managed to escape his white Mercedes Benz because the would-be international assassins put the bomb in the wrong place.
The dangerous hijinks is the plot of a great movie, which brings us back to the Hollywood heart-throb.
Because in Melbourne doesn’t it always comes down to a form of six degrees of separation?
Malkoun and Hunnam have far more in common than meets the eye.
Hunnam is back in Melbourne to play the titular role in upcoming Apple TV series Shantaram.
The backstory to getting the semi-autobiographical book turned into a movie, then a TV series, has had its bullet holes.
Johnny Depp first secured the rights on the life of Melbourne-born author Gregory David Roberts back in 2003.
The story of a convicted bank robber and heroin addict called Lin sees the character played by Hunnam escape from Pentridge and flee to India.
Just like Lim, Roberts a convicted bank robber who was known as the “Building society Bandit” escaped from Pentridge and was arrested in Germany more than a decade later.
Russell Crowe expressed interest in starring in a film version as did the aforementioned Depp.
Australian director Peter Weir was even lined up to direct with Warner Brothers buying the rights to the story.
Joel Edgerton was later touted as a possibility to play Lim, with Depp as a producer. But it seemed it was just speculation, nothing more.
Warners’ rights to the book eventually lapsed and it was picked up in January 2018 by a US production company as a TV series for Apple.
Shantaram is now filming in Melbourne and India although that too was washed out by a terrible monsoon season and Covid.
Filming is soon to pick up again in Thailand.
Keeping up?
But what does this all have to do with Malkoun, the former Comanchero boss who used to drive around in a yellow Lamborghini bearing the number plate EASY10?
EASY10 was a reference to Malkoun’s stint in the slammer. He did 10 years in Pentridge for heroin trafficking.
It was there that Malkoun and Shantaram author Gregory David Roberts struck up a friendship.
The prison buddies became so close that David Roberts was later part of Malkoun’s bridal party in 2012.
Roberts gave a rousing speech at the nuptials, saying Malkoun was one of the “good guys” in prison.
The Shantaram author credited Malkoun with looking after the underdog and keeping some sort of unity within prison ranks.
David Roberts is now based in Jamaica where he recently released a, er, reggae album.
Any fears Shantaram would again be halted due to Covid restrictions after Victoria went into lockdown on Friday appear to have been avoided.
Filming will continue at Docklands studios, with crew bound for Thailand to begin filming scenes originally scheduled for Mumbai.
On Thursday night, Hunnam was again out with the locals.
Hunnam joined security consultant and former kickboxing champion Dave Hedgecock and his partner Leanne Webb along with Australian martial arts expert and movie action man Richard Norton at CBD restaurant hotspot Chin Chins.
The Pentridge prison scenes where David Roberts and Malkoun first met have already wrapped.
Page 13 has been left to mull over this philosophical quote from David Robert’s Shantaram:
“Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key we twist the knife of fate, because every time we cage a man we close him in with hate.”
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