Actor Willem Dafoe feels like a kid again saying it, but he hopes the Tasmanian tiger still exists.

In his latest film, The Hunter, Dafoe plays a mercenary sent to Tasmania by a pharmaceutical company to hunt for the last surviving Tasmanian tiger.

In reality, the thylacine is believed to have been hunted to extinction by Australian settlers, with the last known one dying at a zoo in Hobart in 1936.

There have been many unconfirmed reports of sightings though and Dafoe remains optimistic about one being out there.

"I feel a little like a child, but I like to think there is and when you see all that wilderness you think, it's possible," he said.

"It's a little bit like I remember when I'd go fishing as a kid, I'd look out at the water and I would envision the big fish that I was going to catch."

Director Daniel Nettheim says that if there is one, he hopes the spotter has their mobile phone ready.

"I'm really hoping that the next person who claims to see one, manages to get a photo with their iPhone, because people can carry cameras everywhere," he said.

Sydney-based Nettheim thinks that Aussies have always had a fascination with whether the Tasmanian tiger still exists because they feel guilty.

"I think a lot of people regret what happened to it," he said. "It also to me speaks about the endurance of hope because science tells us that really the animal couldn't have survived up to present day, because it lacked the critical mass for breeding.

"But so many people on the island believe in it, and so many people claim to have seen it, there is this kind of collective need for it to still exist."

Dafoe said he was "loath" to comment on a subject so close to Australians and their mythology.

"In doing the film of course, I became initiated into that a little bit," he said.

Dafoe said the weather was "crazy" in Tasmania - the location for the entire shoot for The Hunter.

But Nettheim said the crew used it to their advantage.

"We chose to make the weather our friend," the director said. "When it started snowing, we had some scenes up our sleeves that we wanted to shoot in snow."

Australian actress Frances O'Connor said it would have been silly to make a film about the Tasmanian tiger and shoot anywhere else.

"And I'm sure it helped a lot for all the stuff when Willem was hunting, to actually be up in those isolated areas."

In The Hunter, O'Connor plays Lucy, the mother of two children (Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock), whose husband has been missing in the wilderness for months.

After recommendation from local Jack Mindy (Sam Neill), their home becomes a base camp for Dafoe's character while on his secret mission.

O'Connor said shooting on location wasn't as hard for her.

"For my storyline it was a bit cold, but I was either asleep in the house, or in and around the house so I probably got the better end of the deal," she said.

The Hunter is based on the acclaimed novel by Julia Leigh, who recently turned to filmmaking, with her directorial debut Sleeping Beauty screening at film festivals in Cannes, Sydney and Toronto.

While Leigh visited The Hunter set once, Nettheim said she elected not to be involved in the screenplay or see any rough cuts of the film because "she just wanted to appreciate it as a finished thing".

"She saw it for the very first time at Toronto," he said.

"I mean I was nervous ... I found myself sitting next to her right before the screening started and I had to get up and move because I would have been too aware of her kind of every scratch of the head, every movement."

But he said she seemed really happy with it, as did the audiences in Toronto.

The Hunter releases nationally on October 6.