In the new Oz horror movie Dying Breed, a young zoologist from Ireland (Mirrah Foulkes) ventures into the Tassie wilderness with her boyfriend (Leigh Whannell), his old school mate (Nathan Phillips) and his girlfriend (Melanie Vallejo) to look for a Tasmanian tiger. What they find instead is a race of cannibal killers.
Were you shocked when you read the script?
Not shocked. The story really drew me in and it was a fun read. But there is some pretty nasty stuff in there.
Was the accent hard to keep up?
Irish intonations are similar to Australian. It's not a big stretch. And the Irish pride and humour, it's nice to try to incorporate that into the character.
Where did you shoot?
Near Cradle Mountain. Our first couple of days were just cruising up and down these amazing waterways. But this bridge we were passing under had a constant convoy of trucks carrying logs. That's Tassie - it's a heartbreaking dichotomy.
There's lots of blood and body parts in this movie.
There are days when you're in the makeup bus getting organised and sitting next to you is this life-size corpse and they're putting the finishing touches on tearing out the fingernails! It's surreal but you get used to it.
We hear you've been cast in the new series of All Saints.
We started filming a few weeks ago. I play a paramedic. It's great, a fun character. I feel pretty blessed to be a working Australian actor.
Was it a good atmosphere on the Dying Breed set?
Filming in a remote location is like being on school camp except you're old enough to drink, so we had a lot of fun! There was a real lightness on set and joking around. Because at the end of the day horror's kind of funny. Nick Dent
Dying Breed screens from 6 Nov.
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