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Forum » Simon / Fun / Videos » Simon News & Chat » Simon News, Articles, Info (Part 3: from 1 May 2017)

Simon News, Articles, Info

DS_Pallas

Date: Wednesday, 25-Apr-18, 2:00 PM | Message # 211

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/////

New article from WENTWORTH COURIER April 25, 2018

http://newslocal.smedia.com.au/wentworth-courier/

DS_Pallas

Date: Sunday, 29-Apr-18, 8:16 PM | Message # 212

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The Sunday Times Magazine April 29, 2018

Wand6122360

Date: Sunday, 29-Apr-18, 8:39 PM | Message # 213

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Great articles, DSP. Thanks. The interviews do irritate me with one factual error, though. I’m quite certain that Simon and Rebecca were dating before E-Street.

DS_Pallas

Date: Sunday, 29-Apr-18, 8:44 PM | Message # 214

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Quote Wand6122360 (

)

The interviews do irritate me with one factual error, though. I’m quite certain that Simon and Rebecca were dating before E-Street.

Yep, I think too! happy

Here on the forum, we don't mess with Baker's trivia!

Tina

Date: Monday, 30-Apr-18, 9:18 AM | Message # 215

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Thanks a lot for the articles! Yes I think they dated before E Street. I once read they met on a blind date.

bee

Date: Monday, 30-Apr-18, 1:09 PM | Message # 216

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Thanks for all the pics and articles DSP. We shall miss him when he goes on his break but I hope he is left alone by the media so he can finally relax with his family. He deserves a rest from the public eye for a while so he can recharge his batteries. We certainly have much to look back on to keep us happy and hopefully the release of Breath in Europe (fingers crossed).

DS_Pallas

Date: Monday, 30-Apr-18, 10:39 PM | Message # 217

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'It chose me': Simon Baker on Breath movie

ABC Radio interview, with Rafael Epstein

http://www.abc.net.au/radio....9712292

DS_Pallas

Date: Wednesday, 02-May-18, 5:42 PM | Message # 218

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Simon Baker Brings Tim Winton’s Surf Novel ‘Breath’ to Life

By Erin Bromhead
May 2, 2018

http://www.monsterchildren.com/73749....th-life

Leading up to the screening of Breath, the film adaptation of Tim Winton’s dark
coming of age surf novel of the same name, I was a little apprehensive.

A huge plot point in the book is that Eva, the wife of Sando (played by Simon Baker in the film), is really into auto-erotic
asphyxiation. She embarks on a physical affair with a local teen nicknamed Pikelet, whom Sando has taken under his wing,
and asks him to put a plastic bag over her head while they have sex. And I had invited my dad to the movie with me.

It turns out I needn’t have worried. In the film, the reference is fleeting. In fact, Baker’s adaptation of Winton’s acclaimed
novel is a considerably lighter take on a much heavier story. “I still think it’s a reasonably big plot point. Five minutes before,
Pikelet has this kind of ‘sexual awakening’ to the music of Fleetwood Mac, and it’s all excitement and thrills and then suddenly
he feels like he’s in love and then it goes to a really weird place,” says Baker when we speak on the phone.
“I think auto-erotic asphyxiation is a pretty heavy subject, I don’t think on film you need to go to the places that
Tim went in his book. That just probably would have repelled an audience. But really, I think it’s more about the loss of his
innocence, or youth.”

Speaking of youth—for Baker, making Breath was a way to revisit his own, having spent his childhood and adolescence as
a surfer in Lennox Head in the ’70s. “It was just like reliving my youth, and casting these two clowns was sort of like reliving
my youth as well, because they just reminded me so much of my mates.” These ‘clowns’ are Ben Spence (Loonie) and
Samson Coulter (Pikelet), two young Australian surfers who had no previous acting experience before filming. For them,
playing the roles of two eager young surfers discovering the power and draw of the ocean came pretty naturally,
considering their lives revolve around surfing offscreen too. “It’s more or less the same. We all just surf and try to surf
as much as we can, and go to school, and just try to have a good time, basically,” says Spence.

The film follows Pikelet and Loonie, who discover surfing as 13-years-olds and become enamoured by it. Sando, a much
older, local surfer, becomes a mentor to them, driving them around to secret surf spots and teaching them the ropes.
Though their relationships become complex, their affinity for the ocean keeps them entwined.

There’s a scene in the film where Sando unfolds a map and traces his finger along the coast of Indonesia, pointing
out spots he’s surfed and breaks he’s heard about but never seen. Surfing Indo seems like such an enchanting,
mysterious concept back then. Now, you can check the swell anywhere in the world from your phone.
“Instagram has ruined everything,” says Simon, before Ben interjects, “That’s such an old person thing to say.”
“It’s an old person thing to say, but I’m telling you, when you’re surfing the point at Lennox and it’s pumping in the
morning, and someone posts a shot of like, six foot barrels all the way through, by the afternoon there’s 200 people
in the water,” Simon continues. “It used to be on the radio at 8 pm on 2LM, which was the Lismore radio station,
a guy called Biggles would fly in a light aircraft up and down the coast and he would do a surf report and unless you
got up in the morning and drove there yourself, that’s where you got the surf report. You figured out where you were
going to go based on that and which way the wind was gonna swing.”

There’s another part in the film where Sando takes Pikelet and Loonie to a secret spot, only to divulge it’s inhabited
by a Great White seconds before they hit the water. Hungry for it, they paddle out anyway. In real life, the guys
mightn’t be so keen. “I think it depends what sharks, and how big they are. In Western Australia, if I knew there was
a shark out there, I probably wouldn’t go near it. I have surfed waves where there’s been a shark spotting that morning,
but when you’re dealing with Great Whites, it’s best to steer clear,” says Samson.

So much of Breath—both Winton’s novel and Baker’s film—revolves around fear, adrenaline, pressure, and the male
ego. Bravado, and this notion of toxic masculinity, have long been a problem in the water. But Baker believes the tides
are starting to shift. “Being a bit older, I’ve seen a change in it. It used to be a lot harder—you weren’t allowed to show
vulnerability at all. It was never something that was accepted so you kind of conformed to those masculine ideals all
the time. Now, I’ll go for a surf in places where I grew up and I’m outnumbered in the water by women. In that whole
area of Lennox, Ballina, and Byron, there were about four women that surfed when I was a kid and now you go out any
given day and you’re sometimes the minority—which I find phenomenal, and just the energy that that brings to the
line up alone.”

“The ’80s was intense, it was really aggressive and there was a lot of heavy localism and a lot of fighting and stuff in
the surf,” Baker reminisces. “Then, in the 90’s it felt like professional surfing really took off and there was a very
corporate feeling into the early 2000’s. And I think now, because there is a bit more history and people surf boards
from different eras that have different approaches, there’s professional surfers that don’t have to compete. That stuff
wasn’t accepted before. Now guys get paid just to travel around and surf waves and they don’t have to do 500 turns on
a wave and do an air-rev at the end of it.”

DS_Pallas

Date: Friday, 04-May-18, 12:59 PM | Message # 219

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Excellent news Ladies & Gentlemen!

The ADG Awards were established in order to celebrate the outstanding achievements and contributions by Australian Directors, and are the only peer-judged awards for directors in Australia.
Held in Melbourne, the awards celebrate excellence in the craft and art of directing across film, television, documentary, animation and interactive media.

Simon Baker Wins Australian Directors’ Guild Award for Breath

by Dov Kornits
May 4, 2018

And it could not have been more timely, with the Tim Winton adaptation just released in cinemas.

Held in Melbourne, the Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG) Awards celebrate excellence in the craft and art of directing across film, television, documentary, animation
and interactive media.

Presenters included Kat Stewart, Xavier Samuel, Adam Elliot and Michala Banas, and along with Baker, the big winner was Fiona Banks, who picked up 2 trophies. And the winners were…

Best Direction of a Feature Film
Simon Baker for Breath
…

https://www.filmink.com.au/simon-b....-breath

bee

Date: Friday, 04-May-18, 1:23 PM | Message # 220

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Congratulations to Simon so well deserved. It's heartwarming to know that all his hard work and dedication in making this film, which means so much to him personally, has been recognized in this way. I hope Simon directs more films in the future as he obviously has a passion for directing and a director's eye for detail, although I hope he doesn't give up the acting side altogether.