The Sunday Telegraph AU
21st March 2010
Ballina boy Simon Baker waxes lyrical
WHEN you live life in the public eye, it is good to have an escape.
For Hollywood-based Aussie actor Simon Baker, he finds his personal space in the ocean. The 40-year-old star of hit American crime series The Mentalist has been an avid surfer since he was a kid living in Ballina on the NSW North Coast.
"Surfing is always something that has been very special to me," Baker tells The Sunday Telegraph in an exclusive interview. "I am not your extreme surfer. I just like to dance on a wave every now and then."
Baker, whose big-screen CV includes films such as The Devil Wears Prada and L.A. Confidential, has lent his voice to a documentary about surfing's shortboard revolution, narrating the feature film Going Vertical.
Legendary Aussie surfer and surfboard designer Bob McTavish is at the centre of the film, which looks at whether or not Australians or Americans led the worldwide craze and established the sport of surfing as we know it today.
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