AFTER hopping from Australia to LA and back again in pursuit of the perfect role, Simon Baker made a mental note not to sweat the small stuff.

 

Now, in a twist of fate and fortune, he's become TV's blue-eyed boy.
Baker is sitting astride a tumble-down tractor. Grabbing at the rusty gear lever and bucking up and down on the dilapidated machine, the LA-based Australian actor is engaged in a moment of childhood fantasy.

 

He acknowledges my presence with a nod and an easy "G’day,” but remains planted where he is. Given his gleeful grin, it’s clearly an enjoyable ride – one matching his professional journey aboard his TV show The Mentalist.

 

Today’s shoot for the hit series is at Walt Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch, an hour’s drive north of LA. Childish whimsy cloaks the 320-hectare estate: It was used as the backdrop to The Mickey Mouse Club in the ’50s and, beyond Baker and his antiquated toy, sits the old red barn used in the ’80s film Big Top Pee-Wee.

 

Eventually, and perhaps begrudgingly, the 40-year-old dismounts his ramshackle ride and makes his way over, past the crew and their tangle of equipment. "Sorry about that,” he says. "I was away with the fairies over there. But I love that old tractor. It’s cool, don’t you think?”

 

It’s the first of many responses the soft spoken Aussie concludes with a question. Not that he’s looking for an answer. Director Martin Scorsese provided that in 2007, just when the actor had chosen to take a break from showbiz.

 

In 2006, Baker and his family – Aussie actor Rebecca Rigg and their children, Stella Breeze, 16, Claude Blue, 10, and Harry Friday, 8 – had returned to Sydney to regroup after his latest project, Smith, was axed. His plan was to use the change of scene to ponder his "inabilities” as a movie idol and spend time with his brood.

 

"I took a year off, bought a house, did a bit of remodelling and hung out with the kids,” he recalls. "And I turned down everything. It was a good year – I’d done well enough with real estate to not have to be earning an income for a bit. Then a mate called. He’d written a 10-minute commercial for Martin Scorsese, for (Spanish wine label) Freixenet. My agent put me up for it and Marty chose me.”

 

The commercial, a Hitchcockian homage in which Scorsese also appears, screened between movie trailers in cinemas in Spain.

 

"I found (Scorsese) incredibly inclusive,” says Baker. "He’s so into what he does, his enthusiasm and his passion were infectious. I love to hear people’s stories, particularly those who are good at what they do, people who are effusive about imparting knowledge – Marty is all that.”

 

And ‘Marty’ prompted the former model and E Street alumnus to re-evaluate his ambitions. "I had a ball. I hadn’t worked for almost a year and I came back from it really wanting to work.”

That renewed verve landed him the role of Patrick Jane in The Mentalist, a show about a fake-psychic-turned-California-crime-consultant. First airing in 2008, it became the most watched new drama in the US and recently netted Baker an Emmy nomination for best actor in a drama.

 

"The Mentalist is the season’s only new series that can be called a bona fide hit,” proclaimed The Washington Post. "Baker elevated a routine crime-drama with a suave but self-mocking style reminiscent of the original Bond, James Bond.”

 

I mention the positive reviews and the show’s whopping weekly audience of about 17 million.
"Yeah, it’s going well, don’t you think?” Baker says as we walk towards two chairs in the shade of an evergreen. Far from a Bond scene, our new setting evokes thoughts of Little House on the Prairie – I half expect Michael Landon to appear across the field and call us in for dinner.

 

Baker chuckles at the thought. He’s in a good mood today. Prior to our meeting, a few LA hacks had described arduous interviews with him. The obligatory interview, as much a part of an actor’s life as the innumerable hours spent waiting onset, can apparently annoy him. When he’s in the mood, he’s fine, I was told, but catch him on a bad day and his answers are curt or, worse still, indulgent rants that meander off at unnecessary tangents. There are no such struggles today.

 

Gazing at the scene below us – crew and cast chatting and setting up for the next shot – Baker gives a hearty smile and sighs.

 

"Man, I love this. You know, I really f*cking love this. Not necessarily this side of it,” he says, aiming a friendly jab at today’s enforced publicity. "But I love being onset and seeing how everything works. I love cameras, I love lights, I love all of it, you know? I love how all the different pieces come together and you end up with a story. I feel at home on a set.”

 

It’s a feeling he admits he lost after three years on TV series The Guardian and a slew of supporting roles in film. The rigours of serialised television – up to 15-hour days for a lead – had got to him, and his inability to snare top billing in blockbusters also weighed heavily.

 

"There are guys who walk into that first film and, bang, they’re there,” he says. "I’m the guy who walked up the path on a few occasions. These guys know I’m coming, but then nothing happens.

It’s as if they’re looking out saying, ‘Oh, there’s that Baker kid lurking out the front again.’”

 

His first such experience came after 1997’s L.A. Confidential, a perceived Hollywood break he scored two years after landing in the City of Angels with Rigg and baby Stella. The irony of playing the film’s struggling actor with big-screen dreams wasn’t lost on Baker. He was a fledgling import trying to make it big. But the roles he craved never came.

 

By the time the family returned to Sydney in 2006, Baker had worked with Ang Lee and Tobey Maguire (Ride with the Devil), Val Kilmer and Terence Stamp (Red Planet), and Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), among others. But the roles were either supporting or minor, and some of the films on limited release.

 

Again, he points to the 12-month hiatus as key to rediscovering a relaxed approach to his career.
"I guess, approaching 40, I just had a good think about things and decided not to take myself so seriously. The film business seemed to be shrinking, particularly for an actor like me. I’m not a top-tier guy and they were making blockbusters. I’m not in that queue; I’m not even allowed to join up.”

 

Instead, television was his calling and he finally learnt to accept it.

Born in Tasmania, Baker was two when his parents split. His mother, Elizabeth, a teacher, later remarried butcher Tom Denny and the family settled at Lennox Head on the NSW North Coast.
Baker says he "just” made it through school – using free time to surf instead of study – and scraped into a nursing course in Sydney.

 

Today it’s difficult to imagine him as a nurse. His tailored indigo shirt and matching waistcoat block any images of him shuffling along hospital corridors in oversize green medical garb. He quit the course after three months and a clichéd acting apprenticeship followed – barman, kitchenhand and bricklayer. "Not that I was looking for an acting career at that stage, but there was a desire to give it a go,” he says.

 

His ‘go’ came in a national TV commercial, which led to some memorable dancing in the Melissa Tkautz music video for ‘Read My Lips’. Looking past the young star’s dubious ’90s dance moves was E Street creator Forrest Redlich. In 1993, a year after Baker joined the successful soap, he walked away with a Logie Award for Most Popular New Talent and a future wife in E Street co-star Rigg.

 

Appearances in A Country Practice, Home and Away and Heartbreak High followed, before he decided to escape the soapie net and head for the US. It was 1995, and the young family began their LA story with $3500. Baker says the move was about "adventure” and exploring, rather than the search for a film career.

 

"When I moved to Sydney, it was so big, so exciting, you know?” he recalls. "I craved that again. So what if things didn’t work out? We could always go back to Australia.”

 

When they did return, Baker wasn’t impressed with the harbour city he’d left 11 years earlier.
"Sydney is more like LA than LA is. It had changed so much since I left. Back then, actors could afford to live in the Eastern Suburbs and there was a real mix of people. Now, forget about it – it’s only wealthy people in the east.” (I refrain from mentioning he bought a terrace in the Eastern Suburbs.)

 

In LA, the family has settled in the coastal enclave of Santa Monica, in a six-bedroom home that reportedly cost in excess of $5.3 million.

 

"I have to be near the water,” Baker says. "If I get the occasional glimpse of the horizon, I know where I am. I’ve come to terms with the fact I have two homes: There’s ‘home’, the motherland, and the home where I tuck the kids in and watch the footy on Sundays.”

 

There are also friends – such as his children’s godmothers, Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts – who help the family feel settled.

 

As the sun dips below our tree, Baker dons a pair of retro sunnies. For a sun-loving bloke in his 40s, he’s aged well. With his cheeky smile, ponderous eyes and tousled locks, he has a hint of James Dean. It’s easy to see why the New York Post named him TV’s hottest man of 2008.

 

He deflects such accolades. "I’m just an actor among a bunch of people who work hard, who work with relentlessness and passion. This isn’t about me – there are many people who make this show what it is. I’m blessed to work with them.”

 

He’s also blessed to have a long-lasting union in an industry where most fail. Discussing Rigg, he crinkles his nose and starts fidgeting. Though he doesn’t avoid talking about "the family pillar” who guided him through the tough times, he becomes uneasy. "She’s always been a rock for me. She’s been there, always.”

 

With that, it seems our time is up as Baker rises from his seat and looks towards the set. No one’s called for him and it’s clear the crew isn’t ready for him yet. But it’s not the job that’s calling this Lennox lad. Offering me a sturdy handshake, he strides past the set and mounts the tractor, eager for another round of childlike cheer.