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John Jarratt, the actor who has portrayed outback serial killer Mick Taylor in two Wolf Creek movies and a TV series, says real-life killer Bradley James Murdoch was “a belligerent arsehole” who may have refused to reveal the location of Peter Falconio’s body as a final insult.
“It could be his last little ‘up yours’ to cash out without telling anyone where the body is,” says Jarratt, 73, of the convicted murder who has died in custody, aged 67. “He was a really nasty, horrible human being from all accounts.”
Wold Creek’s Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) and real-life killer Bradley John Murdoch.Credit: Composite
But the actor, who portrayed Taylor in two Wolf Creek movies in 2005 and 2013, and in two seasons in 2016-17 of spin-off TV series for streaming platform Stan*, also conceded it was possible that Murdoch simply didn’t know the exact location of Falconio’s remains.
“Maybe he just went off track somewhere and dug a bit of a hole and threw him in and he didn’t know where the hell it was,” Jarratt speculated. “I mean, it would have all been a bit frantic.”
What Jarratt does know for a fact is that, contrary to popular belief, the character of Mick Taylor – whom he will again portray in Wolf Creek 3, due to start shooting early next year – was not based on Murdoch.
Nor was he based on Ivan Milat, though the actor did read a biography of the so-called backpacker murderer in an attempt to understand something of the mindset of a psychopath – “how they operate because they’ve got no empathy and all that sort of stuff”.
John Jarratt will reprise the role of Mick Taylor for Wolf Creek 3, due to start shooting early next year.Credit: Simon Schluter
Jarratt was first given a screenplay by the film’s writer and director Greg McLean sometime in 2003, the same year Murdoch was arrested (in November) and charged with the 2001 murder of British backpacker Falconio and the assault and attempted kidnapping of his girlfriend Joanne Lees in the Northern Territory. But the idea had been kicking around long before that.
“Greg had this in mind about 1998 or ’99,” says Jarratt, whose latest film as writer-director, What About Sal – about a young man with Down syndrome who tries to track down his birth father – currently sits at number 6 in Netflix’s top 10 movies in Australia.
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McLean had seen Jarratt’s performance as a redneck outback policeman in Nick Parsons’ play Dead Heart at Belvoir Street in 1994. While Bryan Brown went on to play the lead in the film version in 1996 (Jarratt had a supporting role), McLean “saw me [play] a racist prick, and he thought I could do the role of Mick.
“It was honestly just a coincidence that it happened [around the same time as Murdoch’s trial], but it’s always cast its ugly shadow on Wolf Creek. It was very sad and terrible and distressing what happened, but it was very good press. Tragic as the case was, it didn’t do the box office returns any harm.”
So, if it wasn’t Murdoch and it wasn’t Milat, who was the inspiration for the maniacally chuckling, gruff-voiced Taylor?
“The character actually is my father – who, I’ll hasten to add, is not a serial killer or a psychopath,” says Jarratt.
Bruce Jarratt was a raised in Townsville, was a stocky farmer, and sounded just like Mick Taylor.
“My dad was a tough guy, but a very funny guy,” says Jarratt. “He had a deep voice, he could fight like a threshing machine, he was very funny, and everyone loved him.
“All my family and cousins know it’s a Bruce impersonation,” he adds. “Yeah, he was tough, he’d say things like ‘If you’re gonna get in a fight with me, you better make sure I don’t get you up against a wall or I’ll give you a shirt full of broken ribs’. But my dad didn’t have an evil bone in his body.
“He’s a funny guy, and Mick’s a funny guy, so I said, ‘I’ll do Bruce, and I’ll just add psychopath and serial killer to the mix’.”
*Stan, like this masthead, is owned by Nine.
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