Portraying the central character in the play Jacky is both confronting and exciting for actor Guy Simon.
As a queer, Indigenous man living in the city, Jacky wears many hats, Simon explains.
He juggles a career as a cultural performer with office internships and sex work.
Simon, a Biripi, Worimi, Waddi Waddi and Walbunga man said Jacky is a complex character trying to make a life for himself in the big city when his brother gets sent to live with him.
"While Jacky is trying to juggle so many hats with his new life, he has his old life come in," he told AAP.
"It just makes things a bit more interesting or difficult."
Simon grew up in La Perouse and said he's drawn from his own experiences as an Indigenous man living in the city to play Jacky.
"For most of us blackfullas when we go back home we sound like our family ... but then you get on the phone to book an appointment and you've got that phone voice," he said.
"There's subtle little shifts that you do but it's not until it's spoken about that you realise that shift."
It's the second time Simon has played the character in the play, which was written by Indigenous playwright Declan Furber Gillick.
The first time was in 2022 for Melbourne Theatre Company, and Simon's excited to be doing so once again - this time for audiences in Sydney.
"When we first did it I had no idea how people were going to receive it," he said.
"But as soon as we got into the theatre the audiences were with us the whole time... the audiences were like Jerry Springer - like gasps and oohs - the whole time.
"Bringing it up to Sydney, fingers crossed it's going to be the same reaction. I have a feeling it will be."
Simon also gets to work with two new cast members for this season of Jacky - Mandy McElhinney and newcomer Danny Howard.
Simon also hopes the play will provoke conversations about the play's themes, particularly around sex work and the realities of navigating city life.
Queer, Indigenous and sex workers of colour, they have to put up with this thing all the time of being fetishised," he said.
"Their skin, or if you look like me and are described as 'ethnically ambiguous' - that gets fetishised.
"What do you do with that? Do you allow it, or do you stand up and say 'I don't want that'. There's really complex conversations around that, that are real."
Jacky will be performed at Belvoir St Theatre from January 16 until February 2 as part of the Sydney Festival.
