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Simon News, Articles, Info
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| redbird |
Date: Thursday, 21-May-15, 3:13 PM | Message # 961 |
Dinkie-Di
Messages: 152
Status: Offline |
One of the things that I most adore about Simon is that he remains a level-headed regular guy despite his celebrity and wealth. If he had mentioned the sacrifice his family had made for his role on The Mentalist once, I probably wouldn't have noticed it but he mentions it in practically every interview he gives as if long work days and being away from your family is somehow a hardship that is unique to starring on a one-hour network TV series. I was just pointing out that it's not unique to anyone who has a job ..........
I agree with Fran that it's unlikely we'll see Simon starring in a network TV series again. But I do hope we'll see him in some other kind of television project - a mini-series on the BBC would be perfect or a premium cable series like Breaking Bad or True Detective. Premium cable series are furtile breeding grounds creatively - without sensors - and the time commitment is much less than a network TV series as those series are usually on 10-12 episodes a season. |
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| Tina |
Date: Thursday, 21-May-15, 3:55 PM | Message # 962 |
 Fair Dinkum
Messages: 2066
Status: Offline |
I'd love to see him doing a mini series with 1 or 2 movies a year (like "Jesse Stone" with Tom Selleck, I really love these movies and I'm happy Tom found a way to go on on another channel now since CBS cancelled it) so we can see him in one role for longer and learn more about the character ...
My dream would be he'd play Will Trent of the Karin Slaughter novels (my absolutely favorite book series), but I guess this will not happen since the character is too close to Patrick Jane ..crime-fighting in a three-piece-suit and kind of a damaged character ...
I too don't think he will do a weekly tv show in the next years. And I can understand him that he doesn't want to commit to something like that in the near future. I guess he is just happy to do different things now. He is too good as an actor to play just one role. As much as I love Jane and he was the perfect role for Simon, I'm very much looking forward to see him play other characters now. |
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| DS_Pallas |
Date: Thursday, 21-May-15, 4:37 PM | Message # 963 |
 Fair Dinkum
Messages: 1979
Status: Offline |
The Hollywood reporter 21st May 2015
Cannes: Simon Baker on Life After 'The Mentalist,' his Directorial Debut and French Celebrity (Q&A)
by Scott Roxborough, 5/21/2015 7:42am PDT
Simon Baker is looking tired. The Australian-born star of CBS' global hit The Mentalist is still recovering from jet lag and a lack of sleep since hopping a plane to Cannes. So he fits in with the crowd of sleep-deprived producers, stars, journalists and critics that stumble along the Croisette.
“Everyone looks horrible!” he jokes.
The Mentalist ended its successful seven season run in February. Suddenly with time on his hands, Baker is in Cannes pitching his directorial debut, an adaptation of the 2008 novel Breath by Australian writer Tim Winton.
Baker helped co-write the script and is producing the film, set in a small coastal town in West Australian in the 1970s. It looks at two daredevil teenage surfers who bond with a reclusive surfer – played by Baker – who challenges them to go to new levels or recklessness. It's a story that immediately spoke to Baker, who grew up in a costal Australian town much like the fictional Sawyer depicted in Winton's novel. After helming several episodes of The Mentalist, the actor, 45, thought it was time to make the leap to feature films.
“I enjoy being the control freak, having that influence,” he tells THR. “Often when you are acting, you do your thing and then you hand it over to someone else. This is all mine.” But while in Cannes as a producer and director, Baker is still enjoying the celebrity double-takes he gets, particularly here in France, where The Mentalist is the top-rated show on television. “I got into the elevator at my hotel a few hours ago and the bellboy looked up. When he saw it was me he turned bright red,” says Baker, “then he broke out laughing. He didn't even say a word.”
What's its been like doing the dirty work of financing and producing Breath?
All this time trying to figure out and organizing the financing has been a real eye opener and not the most pleasurable experience for me. It's been hard to disconnect creatively from the piece and talk about it like a product. That's obviously a necessary evil but that's been challenging.
What's the appeal of Tim Winton for you?
The exported idea of Australians, is more like me: blond, outdoorsy guy who drinks too much and is a bit brash. Tim Winton manages to combine that traditional, rugged Australian view of things with a more deep and sensitive side...I spent some time with him and we really identified on a certain level. He grew up in a coastal area too, he's into fishing, surfing and all that stuff. He's really a man's man, but he has been interested in literature and writing from a very young age. I grew up in this environment where there were six guys to one girl, very male-dominated, but I secretly wanted to become an actor. I understand where he is coming from, how difficult it is in that environment to become your own person.
How has directing episodes of The Mentalist prepared you for the leap to feature films?
I had been working towards wanting to direct when I signed on to The Mentalist. After I did (CBS series) The Guardian (which ran from 2001-2004), I didn't want to ever do TV again. I didn't think that I could handle that kind of grind. But when I signed on to The Mentalist, I made a very conscious decision to use it as a film school. We made 151 hours of TV and it's sort of the speed dating of film production. You have to pull pieces together at high speed. You have to do the script development, you have to do casting, do location scouting. You are always working with different people. I directed as many of those as I could physically.
How difficult has it been to adapt Winton's work?
He is not an easy writer to adapt because his prose is so good. The developing of the script has been difficult – it's taken time to distil the book down. I worked with (Top of the Lake writer) Gerard Lee on the last couple of drafts. He did the drafts, I did the re-writes. He has a real understanding of the material and definitely a real understanding of the kind of film I wanted to make. He really understands how to create the voice of the teenage boys that are at the center of the story.
What will be your cinematic approach with Breath?
The story suggests a lot of the cinematic style of the piece – it is a big broad canvas. We're planning to shoot it in Western Australia on the coast – it is so vast and impressive – it is like Jurassic. Seeing 13-year-old boys against that landscape says a lot about the themes of the book, without the need for dialog.
Australia has produced a number of prominent actors and directors but Australian films, with a few exceptions, like George Miller's Mad Max:Fury Road, are rarely successful with local audiences. Why do you think that is?
It's an eternal question in Australia. We are incredibly fortune to have an organization like Screen Australia and they have been incredibly supportive (of Breath). That is an ongoing question with them: why don't more Australians go to Australian films? Australian films can be a bit slow because we aren't a very verbose culture. Until we've had a couple of beers, at least, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot going on under the surface. So the challenge is find that and not to feel that we had to push in a certain way.
I think we are a nature of story-tellers but we also struggle with our identity. If you look at a lot of the (local) films that do really well in Australia, many of them parody Australian culture. Because maybe otherwise there is a slight cultural cringe with our own content.
The other side of it is sometimes we try to make films that fit into the American mold, which I don't understand because Americans make those films better. I feel that you have to run the course and try to make films that we can identify with without boring us senseless. I can say all this now but I'm going to have to get into the director's chair and try and do it.
What films have you been looking at for inspiration?
I have been looking a lot of films that use the environment as a character. I really enjoyed the (2014 Cannes Best Screenplay winner) Leviathan for that. I have also been looking a lot at films that deal with coming of age themes – the French film (and 2013 Palme d'Or winner) Blue is the Warmest Color was a really well made film. It was a very simplistic story but it was very identifiable and you were drawn into it by the way it was shot and the fluidity of it. I probably could have done without the 15 minute sex scene in the middle of it – watching that in the cinema was pretty awkward.
The Mentalist is a hugely successful show here in France. Do you ever get special celebrity treatment when you're here?
When people travel with me they say they can't believe how nice the French service is, how polite the waiters are. And how different it is when I'm not with them.
Source : http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news....-797352
Message edited by DS_Pallas - Thursday, 21-May-15, 4:38 PM |
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| marta75 |
Date: Thursday, 21-May-15, 8:37 PM | Message # 964 |
 Rip Snorter
Messages: 289
Status: Offline |
Quote redbird (  ) I feel no extra compassion or sympathy for what The Mentalist "took" from his family.
Redbird, I have the same feeling. Even if his beginning in the life was tough, Simon is a lucky guy as he has always said. But it is difficult to put everything in perspective when you are interviewed in the middle of the madness of festival de Cannes. Myself I raised 3 children while simultaneously continuing my full-time regular employment as my husband, and it was exhausting.... |
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| ruuger |
Date: Thursday, 21-May-15, 8:53 PM | Message # 965 |
Cobber
Messages: 134
Status: Offline |
Interview with Marie Claire Belgium: http://sarapettarini.tumblr.com/post....already
Translation: http://mentalistgerman.tumblr.com/post....h-simon
Simon Baker
Gentleman without a cause
We are not surprised Givenchy chose the actor again as face for their new perfume ‘Gentleman Only Casual Chic’: the Australian is a gentleman like they don’t make them anymore. Unfortunately he already has a wife.
Text: Franciska Bosmans
Every generation has its gentleman. Sir Walter Raleigh put his coat over a puddle so the British queen Elisabeth I didn’t have to step through the mud, George Washington took his hat off for a poor black man who had greeted him in the same manner in times before race equality, James Bond always held the door open for women and Cary Grant was always the humility and politeness himself in his three-piece suit.
For our generation the gentleman comes from Down Under, since Simon Baker became the face of the Gentleman Only perfumes in 2012. “But that doesn’t mean I consider myself a gentleman. I do strive to behave like that. The term itself has a very old fashioned connotation and it is too bad that it is male, because I don’t think it is gender specific. For me it is just about civilized behavior. The nature of a gentleman isn’t expressed in certain actions, it is more about general values: that you are aware of other people and take them into account and that you go through life well-mannered. That is at least how I was raised.”
The actor may then not call himself a gentleman, actions speak louder than words: Baker, for the occasion in a nice fitting suit, is courteous during the interview, thanks the waiter explicitly for his glass of water and bends over immediately to pick up the paper that fell out of my notebook.
DEODORANT? NO, THANKS
For a world famous celebrity who has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – which he inaugurated on February 14th 2013 at number 6352 on Hollywood Boulevard – the Austrialian is notably modest and no-nonsense, qualities who are often ascribed to stars who share his nationality. He once said in interviews that he mostly cuts his own hair, that he doesn’t use deodorant because you don’t need that if you drink enough water and that he gardens in his spare time because he then feels constructive.
During our interview, he confesses that, although he is the ambassador for Givenchy, he doesn’t always wear a scent himself. “I know men who have shelves full of perfumes, but I am not like that. I still want to smell like a man. Nothing is more terrible than to smell someone even before you see him. You know this situation: you are in a hotel elevator and already smell the man before he gets in. And then the smell become almost unbearable. He gets out, but you have still eight floors to go and he keeps hanging in your nose. Did that guy maybe wash him in a vessel of Kouros? That kind of experiences have deterred me from wearing perfume myself for a while. But a whiff does make sure that I feel good and relaxed. It gives me a sense of familiarity.”
Luxury doesn’t always imply a five star hotel or a magnificent suit. My family, that is worth gold”
BEER ON RUG
Perfume may then not always be necessary for Baker, ordinary smells play a big role in his life. “Our olfactory memory is very sensitive. Scents can immediately bring you back to a certain place and time in your life, just like a verse of a song that you haven’t heard anymore in years. Like that sunblock with zinc is the scent of my youth. I grew up at the beach. Ebb smells different to me than rampant and I can recognize the smell of oncoming storm, because you can smell if fish start to swim away. But my youth also smelled of petroleum. As a kid I mowed lawns to earn a bit of money and the lawnmower had to be filled with petroleum. My grandfather smelled like whisky and cigarettes, my mother like menthol cigarettes. Even though she hasn’t smoked anymore in forty years, each time I smell a menthol cigarette, I have to think about her. My step father was a butcher, so I smell raw meat often, which wasn’t exactly the most pleasant smell. I worked a lot of pubs before too and believe me: spilled beer on a rug has a very strong smell when you come in in the morning to clean.”
TASMANIAN DEVEL-DOES-ALL
The life of Simon wasn’t always all roses. He grew up with his sister and three half brothers in Launceston in Tasmania (“desolate is the best way to describe the region”). His mother, an English teacher, remarries to butcher Tom Denny after her divorce. The new composed family moves to Ballina because his parents hope to find better paid jobs there. Baker spends his teenage years on a surf board and in the swimming pool, where he plays water polo at a high level.
After secondary school it takes a long time before his acting career takes off. Baker then spends a while as a bricklayer and appears in the end of the eighties in the Australian series Home & Away and Heartbreak High. His debut in videoclips Read My Lips of Melissa Tkautz and Love You Right of Euphoria are worthy of a Youtube-session by the way.
But no major breakthrough Down Under, so the actor follows the footsteps of Nicole Kidman by the end of the nineties and moves to the US with his family to try and make it there. He gets a small part in the film noir L.A. Confidential as the male prostitute Matt Reynolds, after which a few supporting roles follow in other movies (you undoubtedly know him as smooth boy Christian Thompson in The Devils Wear Prada). It takes until 2001 before he makes it as a leading man in the series The Guardian. Five years later, the successful The Mentalist follows. After seven seasons he said definitive farewell to Patrick Jane on December 19th last year. With a happy ending in a wedding suit.
But no chance of falling into a career gap. “After the last shots of The Mentalist I hopped on the plan to Australia. I am going to film the novel Breath by Tim Winton: I will direct and take on one of the roles. Very ambitious, I know. (laughs) I started very courageously, we should start filming by the end of this year. It is a personal odyssey because the book is so close to my heart. It is a very personal, intimate and simple story about identity. A fifteen year old boy tries to find out who he is, what his relationship is with his parents and friends and how he fits into the big world. All things we struggle with in our life. The story also shows many similarities with how I grew up. I know and understand all characters. I just know that for me this is the perfect movie to shoot.”
MIDLIFE, NO CRISIS
In his private life, everything runs smoothly for years already. “My life has always been pretty good. I am an optimist: I always try to see the positive in things.” So for Baker no divorce battle, no midlife crisis (he is 45) and no drugs stories or other gossip. The only pictures the paparazzi can take, are cheerful holiday pictures during family vacations.
Baker has been very happy for the last 24 years with actress Rebecca Rigg, who he met during a blind date in Sidney (by the way she smells, for those who are interested, “very good of coconut. My wife has been using a kind of Tahitian coconut oil on her body for years. And she has also another perfume, a very subtle rose smell”). Together they have three children: daughter Stella Breeze, who turns 22 this year, and teenage boys Claude Blue (17) and Harry Friday (13). They also live a normal life without major luxury and fuss, besides the fact that Harry and Claude have Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts as their godmothers.
THE SCENT OF BETRAYAL
All the success, money and fame will never make Baker forget that he comes out of “a very simple working class family”. “I have been together with my wife for so long that I sometimes poke her and say: ‘Look at where we are and what we are doing now.’ We appreciate and enjoy all of this. Luxury doesn’t always imply a five star hotel or a magnificent suit, the small things matter to me. Watching a movie in the living room with my family, have a cosy meal together, talk and laugh or even have a discussion with each other. Simply enjoy each other’s company. Those small things touch me. You know, everything is so transitory. We are here and suddenly we are not here anymore. Everything can end so fast. So you must enjoy the small things and put everything into perspective. But because of our ego’s we as humans feel much bigger and better than everything around us. Showing appreciation is key according to me. I am constantly aware of how lucky I am. I am now starting to sound a bit like Aldous Huxley, or as if I am a bit drunk, but I love to talk about the bigger things in life. To then switch again to smaller things.”
Such as a last smell anecdote. “One of my previous girlfriends, who was a bit older than me by the way, always wore patchouli oil. One day I was going to meet a friend of mine, but he was hours too late. When he finally came, he smelled like patchouli and I knew what was going on. Oh well, it does make a good story now. That’s life.”
Message edited by ruuger - Thursday, 21-May-15, 8:57 PM |
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| DaboGirl |
Date: Friday, 22-May-15, 1:00 AM | Message # 966 |
 Jillaroo
Messages: 44
Status: Offline |
I have several friends who worked in hour long TV dramas most with an ensemble cast and yes the hour are long. Most days run 12-14 hours (or more) and while you are acting you are expected to learn your lines for the next show. A weekly procedural drama takes 4-5 days to film with 2-3 days for editing etc. It becomes more stressful when you are the lead and in almost every scene. While you don't work 12 months a year there are numerous publicity appearances built into your contract.
If you are a regular you are paid pretty well. Double or triple or more if you carry the show.
In Simon's case his family means everything to him so lack of time to spend with growing children who are asleep when you both leave and return home was a real hardship for him. Even when he did a movie on down time he took his family. I see a man who is grateful and feels blessed to have archived what he did but like all of us felt the personal sacrifice. Unlike most of us he has people asking him about it all the time so we keep hearing the same thing. But it is only one problem and/or regreat and it is always the same one. Lack of family time.
My two cents Love all the opinions. |
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| bee |
Date: Friday, 22-May-15, 8:49 AM | Message # 967 |
 Fair Dinkum
Messages: 1525
Status: Offline |
I entirely agree with you DaboGirl. Simon has worked extremely hard to get where he is today with the help and support of his family and it doesn't matter if he is wealthy or privileged, missing out on family life can be just as hard for him as anyone. He's only human with feelings like everyone else!
Also because his childhood wasn't always a particularly happy one he naturally wants to give his children the best he can and time spent with his children (and Rebecca) is important to him.
Message edited by bee - Friday, 22-May-15, 1:46 PM |
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| redbird |
Date: Friday, 22-May-15, 8:13 PM | Message # 968 |
Dinkie-Di
Messages: 152
Status: Offline |
Bee & Dabo Girl: I have no issue with Simon feeling like his job took time away from his family. As I said earlier, his feeling is legitimate. My issue is that sometimes when he speaks about it, he sounds as if what he's feeling is unique to him instead of recognizing that his feeling is common to almost all working parents. I also have no issue with how much money he made on The Mentalist. He earned what his industry will bear. Do I think that it's ridiculous that entertainers make the kind of money that they make? Yes, I do but that's an issue with our society. Do I think that he worked hard for his money? Yes but he didn't work any harder or work longer hours than many other working parents. My point was that sometimes when he talks about it, what he says could be considered insensitive or offensive to other working parents. I certainly don't believe that that would ever be his intention. That isn't the kind of guy that he is and it's reasonable to think that he values his family too much to intentionally put down other people's families.
While I respect the fact that his family life as a child is very much a part of why his family is so important to him, that certainly isn't unique to him either. And I don't know any parent who doesn't want to give their children the very best they can. Those things make him a good human being but I don't see them as things that make him more "special" than any other human being. |
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| Hayseed |
Date: Sunday, 24-May-15, 9:12 PM | Message # 969 |
 Bee's Knees
Messages: 549
Status: Offline |
Thanks for the translation. I'm glad he's getting a break - sounds healthy for him. |
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| Tina |
Date: Friday, 29-May-15, 8:33 AM | Message # 970 |
Fair Dinkum
Messages: 2066
Status: Offline |
Two snippets from the Instyle Men Summer 2015 - German edition
One is about his Billabong Shorts.
One about his glasses.
Translation:
100 years celebrates the New York label for glasses MOSCOT this year! For legends and stars like Buddy Holly, Truman Capote, Simon Baker and Johnny Depp this label is a insider tip until today.
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| Tanja |
Date: Friday, 29-May-15, 8:45 AM | Message # 971 |
 Rip Snorter
Messages: 471
Status: Offline |
Thanks Tina!! have take a look!! |
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| Fran |
Date: Friday, 29-May-15, 10:13 AM | Message # 972 |
 Fair Dinkum
Messages: 4127
Status: Offline |
29th May Spotted: "SIMON BAKER Ordering take away lunch at Alimentari in Paddington" (Sydney suburb)
http://www.pressreader.com/austral....extView |
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| syriana13 |
Date: Friday, 29-May-15, 5:15 PM | Message # 973 |
 Dinkie-Di
Messages: 173
Status: Offline |
new video from Cannes 
http://replay.d8.tv/front/#/video/1269805 |
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| Ivana |
Date: Friday, 29-May-15, 5:20 PM | Message # 974 |
 Fair Dinkum
Messages: 1223
Status: Offline |
Thanks girls for fun stuff |
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| Fran |
Date: Sunday, 31-May-15, 9:46 PM | Message # 975 |
Fair Dinkum
Messages: 4127
Status: Offline |
The power of a Hollywood name was clearly demonstrated at the YWCA’s Mother of All Black and White Balls at the Sydney Town Hall on Saturday night. An auction for a lunch at Sean’s Panaroma at Bondi Beach with YWCA patron Rachel Ward, Bryan Brown, CEO Anna Bligh and Sam Neill — with wine from Neill’s label — was moving slowly towards $15,000 when the auctioneer announced an addition to the lot.
Simon Baker, recently returned to these shores after 18 years stateside crowned with his starring role in The Mentalist and perched at the top table as a guest of Ward and Brown (along with Mike and Kerryn Baird and high-profile neurosurgeon Charlie Teo), it was announced, would be coming along too. Bidding was suddenly sent soaring into the stratosphere, with the lunch first raising $45,000, then the same amount again after negotiations with the underbidder for a repeat performance. All up the Baker effect added $75,000 to the evening’s takings. Money wasn’t mentioned, though, when Brown pleaded on the stage with Baker for a part in Breath, the Tim Winton adaptation Baker is about to start work on, starring and directing.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion....7114537
Also, text accompanying the corbis photos:
In an interview with Brandon Voight on red carpet, Brandon asked "what attracted you to being part of tonight's event?".
Simon Baker replied "I was invited by lovely friends of ours Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown, and we're always happy to help out". |
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