John Jarratt
Acting
Biography
Jarratt was born and grew up in Wongawilli, a small rural town near Wollongong, New South Wales and later in the Snowy Mountains area. Jarratt’s father was a coal miner and later a concreter, who worked on the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme. His 5x great-grandfather, George Jarratt, born 1833, came from Croxton in Cambridgeshire, England; his son, John, married a Mary Kelly from Ireland. While in high school, Jarratt directed and acted in a school play which was a great success and led to his school principal recommending him for an acting career. Jarratt graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1973. His screen debut was in The Great Macarthy. He also appeared in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock in 1975 and Summer City in 1977 with Mel Gibson. Jarratt had the lead role in the mini series The Last Outlaw playing Ned Kelly in 1979. He played a major supporting role as a young Australian soldier in Vietnam war movie The Odd Angry Shot, 1980. In the late 1980s, Jarratt recognised he had a problem with binge drinking and related violence and joined Alcoholics Anonymous, an organisation in which he continues to be active. In the 1990s, he was a presenter on the lifestyle show Better Homes and Gardens with then-wife Noni Hazlehurst. He had guest roles in Inspector Morse, Police Rescue, Blue Murder, Water Rats and Blue Heelers in the 1990s and 2000s. He joined the cast of McLeod’s Daughters in 2001, and left the show in 2006. In 2010, Jarratt appeared in a commercial for Husqvarna. In May 2013, Jarratt filmed a guest star role in the third instalment of the ABC telemovie series, Jack Irish: Dead Point. In 2005, he had a major role in the Australian film Wolf Creek, playing the villain Mick Taylor.[5] In 2007, he appeared in two films, Rogue and The Final Winter. Jarratt also had a small role in the 2008 film, Australia, as a soldier. In 2008, Jarratt launched his own film production company, Winnah Films. Winnah’s first feature film, Savages Crossing (originally carrying the working title Flood) went into principal photography outside Ipswich, Queensland in February. In 2009, he appears as the father of a teenage girl via phone in Telstra’s “Next G” commercials. In 2010, Jarratt starred in the ensemble exploitation extravaganza, Bad Behaviour, written and directed by Joseph Sims. In the same year, Jarratt also had a role in the supernatural horror movie Needle. He made a cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012, appearing as an employee of the Le Quint Dickie Mining Company alongside Tarantino himself, both appearing with Australian accents. In February 2013, Jarratt reprised his role as Mick Taylor, filming the Wolf Creek sequel, Wolf Creek 2, with Matt Hearn producing and Greg McLean directing. The film was released on 20 February 2014. In January 2014, a new thriller called StalkHer began filming on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The film is co-directed by Jarratt, who also stars in the production. The producer of the film is ‘OZPIX’, a production company partly owned by Jarratt. Filming was completed in February 2014, and will screen later in the year.
Known For
Blue Heelers was one of Australia's longest running weekly television drama series. Blue Heelers is a police drama series set in the fictional country town of Mount Thomas. Under the watchful eye of Tom Croydon (John Wood), the men and women of Mount Thomas Police Station fight crime, resolve disputes and tackle the social issues of the day. We watch their successes and their failures and learn to grow with them and their loved ones as the heart of the series develops.
Blue Heelers
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis, as well as a large cast of notable actors and actresses.
Inspector Morse
Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001.
Water Rats
When Jack McLeod passes away, his two daughters inherit Drovers Run, a vast cattle ranch in the Australian outback. Ultimately, Tess and Claire decide to run the ranch together, with their housekeeper, Meg, her teenage daughter, Jodi, and a local girl, Becky. Their lives are hard and the obstacles many, but the rewards are every bit as grand as the wild open land they've inherited.
McLeod's Daughters
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
Django Unchained
The coastal town of Bristol Cove is known for its legend of once being home to mermaids. When the arrival of a mysterious girl proves this folklore all too true, the battle between man and sea takes a very vicious turn as these predatory beings return to reclaim their right to the ocean.
Siren
Police Rescue was an Australian television series The series dealt with the New South Wales Police Rescue Squad based in Sydney and their work attending to various incidents from road accidents to train crashes.
Police Rescue
An anthology series which centers on different characters being targeted by crazed serial killer Mick Taylor in the Australian outback.
Wolf Creek
When a group of tourists stumble into the remote Australian river territory of an enormous crocodile, the deadly creature traps them on a tiny mud island with the tide quickly rising and darkness descending. As the hungry predator closes in, they must fight for survival against all odds.
Rogue
An English widow on a reluctant quest. An Australian detective escaping his past. When lives collide, two strangers embark on an epic outback odyssey together.
Darby and Joan
At Melbourne's Russell Street Police Headquarters, Sgt. "Bluey" Hills, unable to work within the existing police squads, oversees Department B. They're assigned cases other departments could not readily solve by conventional means, with Hills applying his unconventional methods to bring about their resolution. Bluey's investigations are supported by newly assigned Gary Dawson, long-time cohort Monica Rourke, and undercover officer Reg Truscott, who spends his time ostensibly working as a small-time burglar, and supplying Bluey with information on the activities of local criminals.
Bluey
In the harsh, yet beautiful Australian outback lives a beast, an animal of staggering size, with a ruthless, driving need for blood and destruction. It cares for none, defends its territory with brutal force, and kills with a raw, animalistic savagery unlike any have seen before.
Boar
Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.
Australia
Three backpackers stranded in the Australian outback are plunged inside a hellish nightmare of insufferable torture by a sadistic psychopathic local.
Wolf Creek
Lured by the promise of an Australian holiday, backpackers Rutger, Katarina and Paul visit the notorious Wolf Creek Crater. Their dream Outback adventure soon becomes a horrific reality when they encounter the site's most infamous local, the last man any traveller to the region ever wants to meet—Mick Taylor. As the backpackers flee, Mick pursues them on an epic white knuckled rampage across hostile wasteland.
Wolf Creek 2
Outriders was an Australian children's television series that first screened on the Nine Network in 2001. It was a 26 part series produced by Southern Star Entertainment.
Outriders
The hugely successful British television series Father Dear Father is transplanted to Australia when novelist Patrick Glover and his assistant Nanny trek down under to write the great Australian crime novel, and end up supervising Patrick's boisterous young nieces while their own father is abroad.
Father, Dear Father
A family of American tourists wander innocently into Taylor's hunting grounds. When the parents sacrifice themselves to save their children, the kids find themselves alone, lost and hunted in the vast Australian wilderness.
Wolf Creek: Legacy
A secret government agency has recruited celebrities to be undercover agents and the celebs must save humanity from an imminent attack from the undead.
Zombie Plane
In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.