2010 (June) CBS Watch article - Interviews 2008-2011 - File Catalog

The Mentalist star shows us around his former haunts Down Under. * It wasn't that long ago that Hollywood's Australian mafia was dotted with names like Mel, Nicole, Hugh and Russell. But since his show became one of prime time's biggest hits last season, there's been a new addition to the list: Simon, as in Simon Baker, star of CBS's blockbuster hit The Mentalist.

The Tasmanian Native has become an overnight sensation to American TV audiences as a wily former "psychic" who helps state investigators crack California's hardest-to-solve crimes, applying the same powers of observation that once made him a star among the likes of Miss Cleo. And Baker positively shines in the roll, balancing mischievous charm with a haunting past that has made him one of television's most complex and tortured character studies. In person, the actor is much more personable, relaxed and gregarious, and graciously led our team across Sydney for a daylong shoot throughout his former home. Between stops at Bondi Beach, where he met his wife, and the famous Sydney Opera House, Baker regaled us with storied about his time in the city, his love of surfing and how the locals help keep him in check. Watch! Contributing editor Hud Morgan was on hand to capture it all, and it's a fantastic read from beginning to end. "

LOOK" Says Simon Baker. "The busiest beach in Australia, and look at the color of the water." The cerulean sea in question is Bondi Beach - that fabled stretch of flesh and bod outside Sydney - where Baker is about to hotfoot through the sand for the Watch! Photo shoot. Before long, a crowd of teenage girls, tourists and paparazzi starts to swarm, but the 39 year-old Aussie actor (clad in a suit that's more evening than bathing) still manages to play it cool. "Do you have a permit for that thing?" he quips to our photographer in his unmistakable Oz-stralian accent. "Make sure you make me look fat."

It's exactly this kind of casual panache that has made The Mentalist one of the biggest hits on television and Baker one of the biggest stars in prime time. Perfecting just the right recipe of self-deprecation and self-satisfaction as criminal swami Patrick Jane, Baker has snagged more than 16 million viewers a week and a recent Golden Globe nod, not to mention the critical accolades he deserves. And now that he's back on his home surf, his countrymen want to make sure their prodigal son hasn't lost his way in Hollweird.

"Australians are the proudest people in the world, and want to double-check that you're still OK," Baker explains. "They're like, `Oh, he said a g'day, and he took a photo with me, so he's all right.' But then they're like, `Have a beer with me'. And I go. `I can't have a beer, mate.' And they go, "What's wrong with you?!' And turn on you like a dime!"

WELCOME BACK, BAKER Lights hazing aside, returning to Sydney - even for only a couple of weeks to kick off the Australian summer - is an opiate (opium-containing drug ) for Baker, who is usually confined to shooting The Mentalist in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, Rebecca Rigg, and three kids, Stella (16), Claude (11) and Harry (8).

Within 24 hours of landing in the motherland, Baker can usually be found: a) swimming, b) beachcombing between Bondi an Bronte or c) tucking into a meal at promo eatery North Bondi Italian. (World travelers, take note: He also recommends lunch in Centennial Park, water taxis at sunset and seaplane up to Palm Beach.) And, of course, participating in the unofficial Australian religion: surfing. Instead of keeping a woman in every port - sorry, sailors! - Baker keeps a surfboard. He has no fewer than 30 stored with his friends around the globe, and an impish gleam catches in his eye when he mentions his newest toy, a custom 6-foot-8 inch single-fin 1960's replica.

Baker first learned the motion of the ocean growing up on the north coast of New South Wales. "I was about 7 or 8 when I bought my first surfboard." he recalls, " and that was it." So thick is his nostalgia for the north's immaculate shores that when he recently went back to visit, he began to weep. Wait - literally? "I cried!" he insists. "You can find a beach and be the only person on it. There is nowhere in the world more pristine."

Contrast that to Baker's neighborhood of Santa Monica - L.A.'s approximation of a seaside paradise, where paparazzi have begun to camp outside his house with cameras attached to long poles - and you'll begin to understand his need to come back as often s possible. "Some people hike in L.A. and it's not bad," he says "but it doesn't compare to sitting on Bondi on a beautiful day, packed with people." to hear Baker tell it, even the mob mentality is different Down Unda. "There's a sense of, "We're all in this together' when you're in Australia, and sometimes in America it doesn't feel like we're all in this together.

AUSSIE INVASION Baker and his wife first washed upon American shores not too long after the tidal wave of Aussies--Kidman, Watts, Crowe-who not dominate Western cinema. "I'm reasonably tight with Nicole and Naomi and Russell and that whole group that were around when I first got there," says Baker. (Kidman and Watts are now the godparents to Baker's children, and he refers to them as family.) "Then came Hugh Jackman and Eric Bana and those guys. And now there's a whole new crop- I don't know who Sam Worthington is and he's in Avatar! There's people getting off the plane all the time."

The idea of overnight success is all relative to Baker, who has spent almost two decades on both the small screen (the late, great Smith and The Guardian) and the silver screen (The Devil Wears Prada and the upcoming The Killer Inside me, costarring Casey Affleck, which premiered at Sundance). "Nothing's ever been as big for me as the success of this show," he says. "People will always joke about overnight success, but I've been doing this for 17 years and the magnitude of success that the show has created is almost overnight." And so new doors have swung open: While Baker finds himself with less time to read scripts, the ones that do cross his desk are "more real and interesting. "

Of course, with opportunity comes scrutiny, and Baker has had to master the metaphysics of fame - even if he's a little embarrassed by his own celebrity. "People are gonna go, `Oh you're that guy from the blah blah blah,' but it's not really about me," he says. "It's about someone's experience watching the show. It's actually nothing to do with me! Because I walked past them two years ago and they didn't bat an eyelid!"

Baker has also drawn the bright glare of the American media firmament (People's "Most Beautiful People." ahem), but he's not paying much attention in return. The only magazine he subscribes to is The New Yorker. To watch Baker traverse the surf and turf of Sydney for the Watch! Photo shoot is to watch a one-man variety show. Here's Simon at Sydney Harbor with the iconic Opera House in the background: "You're going to Photoshop that out right?" Here's Simon ribbing a couple of Asian tourists taking his picture: "You want a photo? Five bucks." Here's Simon doing his best Sundance Kid: he takes a step forward, looks down at his toe, and then gazes wistfully into the distance. "Robert Redford! He does it in every movie!" Baker says gleefully. Being around him is also a lesson in how to speak Australian, from slang such as "healthy shelias" (hot woman) and "daggy" (not cool, not trendy, and maybe even not clean) to the proper term for that two-syllable vowel in the Australian "no" (a diphthong).

One person who's slightly more impervious to Baker's charms is this teenage daughter, Stella. "I was a pretty young parent with her, but it doesn't matter how young you are, you're still old in the eyes of your children," Baker says with a laugh. He like to go to Stella and her friends for all questions pop cultural, usually with the same result: "Dad, you're so tragic. You're so daggy. You're so embarrassing. " When Baker recently asked about Twilight, Stella replied, "You just don't get it. Granted, the books are better than the movies-and the books aren't even that great-but it's all about the angst."

Ah, hormones. I ask him if he's ever going to become the Father from Hell with her potential suitors. "Not really." he says. "She's not ditzy or naïve, and she doesn't suffer fools, which I think is a good quality in a young woman." Suddenly he points out the window of our BMW sedan as we pass a nondescript building in the suburbs. "In fact, Stella's first preschool is right around the corner from here. My wife and I were living in Bondi at the time. We walked her to school and she was so chilled and relaxed while we cried our eyes out." (For those keeping score at home, this is Baker's second admission of man tears, and it still manages to be endearing rather than saccharine.)

SON OF SYDNEY Back on Bondi Beach, Baker wraps up the shoot and tosses around a rugby ball with a couple of onlookers, who immediately seem convinced that, yes, their fellow Aussie is in fact still OK. And even if he doesn't have time for a drink with every single one of them, he does take the posse of photo shoot crew for beers on the Icebergs deck overlooking the beach. "It's fantastic, the quality of life." Baker says kicking back in his chair. "I think a lot of people in Sydney get it, and that's why they don't want to leave. But you really get it when you move away and then come back."

A couple of hours later, the sun dipping in the sky, Baker says his goodbyes and leaves us with a few works of wisdom as we debate our recreational options for the evening. "Have your fun," he says, "but know your limits." The same couldn't quite be said for him: He's certainly having fun, but his limits … well, they expand everyday.