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Australia Today

Farouk from The Castle Is Now a Magistrate

Turns out Darryl Kerrigan's neighbour has been a barrister for 30 years.
Gavin Butler
Melbourne, AU
Image via YouTube

Remember Farouk? He was Darryl Kerrigan’s Lebanese neighbour in The Castle: a movie about an Australian everyman taking Melburnian property developers to the High Court over the compulsory acquisition of his house. Well, turns out Farouk was a barrister this whole time. And now he’s a Victorian magistrate.

Constantinos Kilias, the actor who played Faruk in the 1997 Australian film, has been appearing in supreme, county, and magistrates’ courts for the past thirty years, with a primary focus on criminal cases, The Guardian reports. Victorian attorney-general Martin Pakula appointed him to the bench on Wednesday, noting that he brings “decades of collective experience to the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria.”

Constantinos—otherwise known as Costas—said that he was “excited, honoured, and humbled to have been appointed a magistrate.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank my father and late mother for their Olympian support throughout my life,” he added.

Costas is the son of Greek immigrants who arrived in Australia in 1954. He was admitted to the Victorian bar in ‘86, and is respected in legal circles for his “fair manner” and “sharp mind”, according to The Australian.

In addition to his breakout role in The Castle, he's also appeared in such Australian cinematic classics as The Wog Boy and, of course, The Wog Boy 2.