JOHN Jarratt doesn’t care for being a typecast actor but he cares for actors.
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The star of Australian cult horror film Wolf Creek said illegal downloading would destroy the industry if allowed to continue.
"If you could download an aeroplane ticket from any airline company to fly anywhere in the world any time you like, they'd put a stop to it because that's not fair to steal billions of dollars from the transport industry, they wouldn't be able to fly the planes,” Jarratt says.
"So we say 'we're losing billions of dollars because people illegally download our films, and if they keep doing that we won't be able to keep making films' so what's the government do? F---ing nothing.
"What other industry has to put up with that?”
Kaarin Fairfax, who stars with Jarratt in new thriller StalkHer, says the industry is rallying and using technology to help stop digital pirating.
“"It's been challenging but there's going to be a new platform fairly soon where the streaming cuts the film every five seconds so there's no way you can download to pirate, you can only stream,” Fairfax says.
“This is all in the process, it's coming soon.
"It's not that people are bad, people want to see film, so the're going to find a way to see it.
“So if people pay for it the money goes straight back into the industry, without money the future is dead.”
Online steaming companies, which require a subscription and offer movies on demand, will help stem the loss of revenue.
“The big producers are fighting now, like Dallas Buyers Club, they're standing up," Jarratt says.
"Expendables 3 lost $400 million profit to downloads, and the industry is not going to stand back and put up with that.
"When you're getting absolutely zero dollars … the streaming is not going to pay us well but it's something.
"There's two million downloads on Wolf Creek so that's $20 million, probably much, much more.
"But, if you get only $2 from Netflix say, $2million is a lot better than nothing.
"You can't even buy a cup of coffee off an illegal download."
"We've got a struggle ahead of us and we've got to win."
StalkHer was released nationally on Thursday and is now screening at Regent Cinemas Albury.
In the film Jack (Jarratt) is pushed past the brink of his stalking obsession when finally decides to break into Emily’s (Fairfax) home.
However his plans for her pain and his pleasure come unhinged when he wakes up to find himself bleeding and bound to a chair in her kitchen.
