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2008 (August) Elle interview
| 17-Nov-10, 2:12 PM |
ELLE MAGAZINE August 2008
Time was, the studly Simon Baker was a country-livin’, hairless wonder. He lets Andrew Goldman in on his MILF fantasies and why the beaches are better down under.
Starting this month, men who are sick of being portrayed on TV as having the intuitive powers of lug nuts will be granted a weekly hour-long reprieve from this soft bigotry of low expectations, thanks to CBS and Australian-born actor Simon Baker. Imagine a man, like Baker’s Patrick Jane on The Mentalist, who’s so adept at paying attention to little clues that seconds after meeting a woman, he’s able to announce, "You love India, but you’ve never been there.” Now imagine your surprise upon learning that such a guy, complete with blond curls and that surfer bod, doesn’t use this gift to bed Ford Models’ entire roster, but rather devotes himself to solving tricky crimes.
The 39-year-old—memorable as the journo who nearly corrupts Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada—has a trio of kids with fellow Aussie actress Rebecca Rigg. Though no mentalist himself, Baker possesses a quality incredibly rare in men: an uncanny ability to play it cool around topless women.
ELLE: Can you share a moment of early romantic humiliation? Simon Baker: In third grade, I had a crush on a girl and I’d written her a love letter that I planned to put in her schoolbag. I was riding my bike to school in the rain, and I came around a corner and the front wheel slipped out and I crashed my bike. The love letter came out of my pocket, and someone found it. Later that day, everyone knew I’d written this love letter to her.
ELLE: And then the little girl showered you with kisses, which eased the pain…? SB: No. I think she hated me because she became part of the scandal. It was like her voice was on the Pellicano tapes.
ELLE: What can you tell me about your first time? SB: Brief. Then the very next day I was surfing at this point break, and I remember getting more and more depressed, thinking, That’s it. I’ve done everything.
ELLE: Did you lose it early? SB: I was probably not the first to lose my virginity among my friends. I was definitely one of the last ones to reach puberty—I didn’t grow until the last couple years of high school.
ELLE: Do you remember being ashamed of your hairlessness? SB: No, I was a pretty confident kid, even if it was all false bravado. But definitely, in the PE change room, there were always one or two pubic beasts who were shaving while everyone else was sitting around wondering when their balls were going to actually drop.
ELLE: Do you remember any figures from your childhood who awakened your sexuality? SB: Definitely some of my best friends’ moms. I grew up surfing on the north coast of New South Wales, and on most of the beaches, women never wore tops. When we were 10 or 11, me and my mates couldn’t drive, so they’d take us surfing and then sit on the beach topless and read a book. I don’t know if I quite saw them sexually, but there was physical intrigue.
ELLE: Did being exposed to all those breasts in your youth diminish their erotic power for you? SB: No, I’m not immune to the charms of the female form. And when I was 17 and I spent every spare minute surfing, most of the girls we hung out with would be topless.
ELLE: Do you even realize how lucky you were? SB: We thought we were lucky at the time, but at the same time—you know you’re onto a good thing, don’t go frothing at the mouth, because you’re liable to spook them.
ELLE: You’ve said that your wife is a "city chick” and you’re a "country bloke.” Do you recall any scenes from your courtship that might illustrate that? SB: When I met my wife, I had literally eaten out at a restaurant maybe three times in my life. After one of the first nights we spent together in Sydney, we went and bought breakfast. I was 21 and I’d never bought breakfast in a café, and I think we had about five bucks between us. I said, "What are we doing? Why don’t we get a box of cereal and some milk, and we’ll have two-fifty left?” She was like, "No. Pancakes with Canadian bacon and a coffee.”
ELLE: If your wife insisted that, for your birthday, you make love with any one woman, who might you cash in your free pass with? SB: Sophia Loren in the ’60s. I’ve always been really drawn to that kind of sexual earthiness in European women, and Sophia Loren covered all the bases, including the whole mummy fantasy.
ELLE: Do you ever find yourself fantasizing about any current young actresses? SB: No. Now that I’m in the business, I’m tainted. They all look extremely complicated to me, not warm and nurturing. It’s more like, "Oy, a lot of work there.”
ELLE: So, if some average Joe told you he was considering dating some famous actress, would you encourage him to run away? SB: You’re talking about an everyday guy being with an actress? See, I think there’s more chance of that working. I have actress friends who say, "Oh, I need to find a guy.” And I’m always saying to them, "Find a guy who’s not in the business. What about a carpenter?”
ELLE: How do they respond? SB: They’ll say, "Can you find me a carpenter who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal?”
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Category: Interviews 2008-2011 | Added by: Fran
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