Interview: Director Daniel Nettheim talks The Hunter

Daniel Nettheim is a name more or less fresh to the feature film world. After 2000’s ANGST, the Sydney-born director has been working steadily in Australian television, having helmed dozens of episodes for the continent’s most popular series.

With THE HUNTER, Nettheim makes his mark in a distinct way. A methodically-paced thriller with ecological issues on its mind, the film stars Willem Dafoe as a gun-for-hire who’s been dispatched by a biotech company to hunt the legendary Tasmanian Tiger, an animal that may not even exist. I sat down with Daniel to talk about the appeal of the film’s source material and how crucial it was to get Willem Dafoe on board, among several other things.

“As soon as we could say ‘Willem Dafoe is The Hunter,’ people were able to understand what the film was going to be.”