By Joe Puccio

Upon graduating from the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1973, if someone had told John Jarratt that he’d be best known for playing Australian serial killer Mick Taylor in the “new classic” modern slasher Wolf Creek just over 30 years later, the formally trained actor would’ve assumed his leg was being pulled.

“I was only four months out of NIDA when I got the leading role in The Great Macarthy, the football comedy,” Jarratt exclaimed incredulously, during a recent conversation with Generation X Wire. “And I walked straight out of that into a screentest with Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, The Year of Living Dangerously) and I got one of the leads in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) when I was 21. I was lucky enough to stumble onto a bloke who was a film genius, who’s still one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with.”

Picnic at Hanging Rock, the revered mystery adapted from the identically named novel by celebrated playwright Joan Lindsay, is widely considered to be a masterpiece that helped draw international attention to the then-emerging Australian New Wave of cinema and was even voted the best Australian movie of all time in a poll by the Victorian Centenary of Cinema Committee and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) in 1996. “It’s a classic, it got into the Cannes Film Festival, and it really opened the doors for films like Gallipoli, Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee, and The Man from Snowy River,” Jarratt explained. “It just kept going and I was there (for it).”

The son of a coal miner father and homemaker mother, Jarratt grew up with two brothers in a small village on the side of a hill named Wongawilli, in New South Wales, in a neighborhood packed with similarly employed families and their children. “My dad was a tough guy, a hard worker, and strong as a bull. In those days, coal mining was swinging picks and shovels,” he shared. “I grew up barefoot and crazy with all the other kids. It was a great upbringing.”

Eventually moving to the Snowy Mountains, the tallest mountain range in mainland Australia, followed by the Beef Roads in Central Queensland (“the middle of bumfuck nowhere, with 700 people”), Jarratt wound up in the considerably more populous city of Townsville. It was there where, upon graduating from high school, a seemingly trivial conversation with a friend about their futures would turn out to be pivotal for Jarratt’s career trajectory.

“My mate said he was going to drama school, which surprised me,” he admitted. “I wound up speaking with the headmaster at my school after a performance I was in, and he told me that he thought the only thing I was good at was disturbing classrooms, but he felt I had a knack for acting. I really thought you had to be from Hollywood to be an actor,” he smiled. “I got into NIDA and that’s how I got into the business.”

While some veteran thespians with a resume as profound as his might have spurned the quite unsettling role in Wolf Creek, Jarratt was savvy enough to see past its on the surface one-dimensional nature, fully embracing the friendly, yet sadistic, killer part. “My first instinct when I read the script was that it was a really good idea and premise, and I knew I could play the part because I was around people like that when I was younger,” he acknowledged. “Then I met the director (Greg McLean), and it was like Peter Weir all over again. He’d seen me in a play where I was a redneck cop in the Outback, and he remembered me. It took him a year, but he raised the $1.2 million he needed, and it was great. There are three things you need to make a good movie – the script, the script, and the script,” he laughed. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

By the 2000s, the slasher subgenre of horror was in the midst of a bit of a slump. A new crop of fright flicks had emerged, from 2002’s post-apocalyptic 28 Days Later to 2005’s creature-feature The Descent to 2007’s supernatural chiller Paranormal Activity. And despite ‘70s and ‘80s mainstays like Leatherface, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees no longer being the “it” antagonists in cinema, Jarratt’s portrayal of the alarmingly easygoing murderer struck a chord with moviegoers ready to embrace pictures of their ilk once again.  

The intense thriller, about three backpackers hunted by the villainous Taylor, was successful enough to warrant the release of a 2013 sequel in addition to a not as common two season television spinoff three years later. The franchise’s one common thread is Jarratt, whose charisma has spawned an entire new generation of followers, many who will be meeting the septuagenarian at one of his two scheduled appearances in the United States next month, just in time for Halloween, ScareFest Weekend in Lexington, Kentucky (October 17 – 19) and Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, New Jersey (October 24 – 26), his first-ever East Coast convention.

One topic sure to be discussed at the gatherings is the upcoming third installment in the Wolf Creek film series, currently in pre-production and scheduled for release next year. Obviously not at liberty to reveal much about the plot, Jarratt provided just enough to whet the appetites of fans. “The vibe is of the first one – creepy, dark, and spooky. It’s set in a little ghost town,” he revealed.  

As accomplished as he is, the seasoned artist’s repertoire expands well beyond performing in front of the camera. An autobiography titled The Bastard from the Bush: An Australian Life (Echo Publishing) came out a decade ago and while the finished product was met with positivity, it was something Jarratt had never planned on writing. “Greg was the one who actually pushed me to do it,” he stated. “He felt I had an interesting upbringing and that the Wolf Creek fans would be curious where I came from. I didn’t particularly want to write a book, but they offered me far too much money to turn them down,” he continued, with a smirk.

Directing is another endeavor that’s intrigued the multi layered performer, with his most notable achievement being 2023’s What About Sal, a riveting drama centered around a man with Down Syndrome on a quest to locate his absentee alcoholic father. “Gerard O’Dwyer, the lead, who obviously really has Down Syndrome, is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with,” he insisted. “It’s currently on Netflix in Australia but it’ll eventually end up your way (in the United States).”

As for the future, Jarratt still intends to write, direct, and, of course, act. But his goals don’t end there.

“I’m trying to build a studio. Australian cinema has shrunk rapidly since the ‘90s. I think it’s up to me, a guy who was there for the Australian Renaissance, to encourage independent filmmaking here,” he remarked. “I’m going to encourage the Australian A-listers to come back. We had none in 1975, but we still cracked it. But it’ll make it a little easier. That’s my vision. I’m 73 now. By the time I’m 90, maybe we’ll get it back to where it belongs,” he joked.  

Meet John Jarratt at ScareFest Weekend in Lexington, Kentucky on October 17 – 19, 2025.

Meet John Jarratt at Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, New Jersey on October 24 – 26, 2025.