Willem Dafoe almost had a wallaby explode in his face on the set of 'The Hunter'.

The 56-year-old actor plays the role of a man who must find and kill the last Tasmanian tiger in the film, and in one scene he had to skin a wallaby and he had to be incredibly delicate with the deceased creature in case its' gastric juices burst.

He said: ''When it came to skinning the wallaby I only had One Chance at it, because they only had one animal.

''They said, 'Listen, it's been dead for a while. The gastric juices have been building up and it's quite bloated. If you do this incorrectly, it's gonna explode in your face.' Luckily, there's lots of surgeons in the family. I think it's in my genes.''

Dafoe has previously starred in several controversial movies, including 'The Last Temptation of Christ' and 'Antichrist', in addition to crowd pleasers such as 'Mr Bean's Holiday' and 'SPIDER-MAN', and he admits he has to mix up his roles so he is satisfied by his art.

In an interview in The Guardian newspaper, he explained: ''It's not very filmmaker friendly out there. For pleasure and survival I have to mix it up. It's no fun for an actor to keep repeating what you did before.

''It's always changing. I'm changing. The target keeps moving, that's the beauty of it.''