Lucy Fry On Being The Woman To Take Down Mick Taylor On Wolf Creek

In the Wolf Creekmovies, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) pretty much wins. Even if one or two survivors escape, Mick is still there for another sequel. Of all the ways for Mick to meet his match, it might finally be on television.

Lucy Fry plays Eve, an American whose family is murdered by Mick Taylor. As the survivor, she’s not just a witness, but she is going after Mick herself. I met Lucy Fry after the Wolf Creekpanel for the Television Critics Association this summer and she was still basking in the empowering glow of kicking ass. Wolf Creekpremieres Friday, October 14 at 10PM on Pop.

Do you just go primal on Wolf Creek?

I do. When I read the script, I instantly in my gut was like, “I have to do this. This is something I’ve always dreamed of doing.” And the way that she goes to that really primal place, it gave me shivers just thinking about getting the chance to do that. I was reading a scene where she is walking with a woomera over her back in one of the final parts of the story to find Mick. She’s walking through the desert with her uzi and her woomera and I was just like, “I need to do that.”

What’s a woomera?

It’s a spear thrower that indigenous Australians use that makes a spear go four times as fast and far and hard. It’s a device that you put the spear into and you throw it. It makes your arm an extra meter long.

Does the primal thing begin in the nightclub scene when she first thinks she sees Mick again?

I guess that’s where the crazy delusion is starting to set in. The initial hunt I guess comes from a place of complete desperation and that she’s lost everything and doesn’t have a reason to live anymore. I guess her mind thinks that she sees him when it’s not actually him. That’s what instigates this need to find him, to have a reason to keep living really.

Is the archetype of the horror movie final girl important to you?

I didn’t really look at that archetype so much for this because the writer actually sent me her inspiration was Atalanta who’s like the Roman goddess of the hunt who was the one who slays the boar in this epic journey. She was really going for that epitome of female primal power and wanted me to try and access that. So yeah, it came from a really epic story place and they really challenged me to go there. This writer, Felicity Packard, I would call her a lot and talk to her about this story arc and make sure that I was keeping true to what she was envisioning. Because it’s such an epic journey, I wanted to make sure the arc was all right and in place. It was really helpful having her guiding me through that and keeping in touch with the archetype that she was envisioning.

Did you have to train with all the weapons like the uzi and the woomera?

It was more like with the shotgun that I had to practice pulling it apart and putting it back together, reloading and things because I had no idea how to do that before. It was crazy how much I enjoyed it. In Australia we don’t have guns unless you’re out in a cattle farm or in Central Australia where you’re shooting pests. So I’d never had a chance to do that. I was really surprised by how much fun it is to use a gun. It kind of made me realize how dangerous guns are because they’re actually really fun. It sort of made me finally understand why people enjoy it, which really surprised me because I’m so anti-gun. But I guess it made me have to understand why people enjoy them.

When you got into acting, had you always wanted to play an action heroine at some point?

Completely. I love Gladiator. It’s one of my favorite films. When you watch Maximus go on that journey, it calls up something really primal inside of you. As a kid, I remember being like, “Oh, I want to be that.” But of course as a woman, you can’t expect to get a role like that. So then when I read the script, I was like oh my gosh, this is that role. It’s the action hero that I always dreamed to get to play, but I thought I might never get to because normally it’s a man that plays that role.

How exhausting was it to be in that primal space for six episodes?

Yeah, it was tough. It was really grueling because every scene is life and death. There were a few beats of calm between the storms but it was like every day I had to be in this state of complete tension and going from trauma and power and that hunger for revenge. It’s such heightened stakes, and because I was Eve the whole time and she was in every scene, I never really had time in the two months to become Lucy again, because any time I had off, I’d just be preparing for the next day. So in a way it kind of felt like I lived as Eve for two months. And I completely changed and became fitter and stronger and more aggressive. When I saw my family at the end of two months, they were like, “What happened to you?”

Assuming it gets there by the end, what was it like to go face to face with Australian legend Mick Taylor?

It was terrifying and exciting and really satisfying, because of all of that buildup to that moment. It pays off in a way that felt epic, powerful, extreme. It’s the perfect culmination of the climax of the whole series. It was so satisfying to get there and be in that with him, the dance that’s between these two characters. By then, Eve’s gone totally feral and she’s not in the realm of normal psychology anymore. She’s gone and I guess she becomes like an animal. I was working with the dragon animal work which actors do sometimes. It was the chance to finally release all of that. Obviously, because John’s such an incredible actor, he was really challenging me to step up to it. It’s an epic playoff.

What’s dragon work?

Oh, it’s like getting into your psyche and your subconscious using animals or using images.