FIRMLY footed in reality, Sydney director Daniel Nettheim doesn't believe in supernatural entities and he's pretty certain Bigfoot is a mere flight of fancy.
He does accept, however, the possible existence of one mysterious creature that defies rationale, and it could be living close to home…
Whilst working on new film The Hunter, Nettheim was seduced by stories from people claiming to have seen the Tasmanian tiger, which, if we believe scientists, became extinct in 1936.
A sighting was reported during filming in the island's glorious wilderness, prompting one excited crewmember to set up a camera on the dashboard of his car in case the animal should cross the road.
“We met locals who weren't crackpots; they told us with a straight face they had seen one, sometimes from the way back from the pub and sometimes not,” the amiable movie-man chuckled over lunch at Kings Park.
“About 37 per cent of Tasmania is completely untouched, permanently protected wilderness, so if it's still out there and smart enough to stay away from humans, there's somewhere for it to go.”
Nettheim - who kept clippings of reported findings over 10 years developing the film - sees the tiger as a symbol of life's fragility and the mistakes of our colonial past.
“It was brutally hunted down to extinction. Farmers believed they were killing their sheep and they weren't; not in the numbers they suspected,” he said.
“People are attracted to the myth because it offers a chance for redemption, but as long as we're holding onto the illusion that it's still out there, we're not accepting full responsibility of what we did to it.”
Another enigmatic specimen at the heart of The Hunter - very much alive and kicking, mind you - is beguiling Hollywood star Willem Dafoe (roles include both Jesus Christ and the Green Goblin), who plays a quintessential alpha male on a mission to find the beast.
“When we were confident enough in the script, we sent it off and got a cryptic message from Dafoe's management saying: 'Willem has read the script, he's intrigued, he'd like to know more,'” Nettheim said.
“So I flew over to New York and had a meeting with him and from the get-go, he was refreshingly friendly and straight-forward.
“He made it clear there wasn't going to be a hierarchy based on fame or experience; he didn't hide out in his trailer and he loved joking around with the crew.”
The Hunter is in cinemas now.
Sara Fitzpatrick