Adelaide Now - 27th February 2011

HE'S the highest-paid actor in a US television drama, the star of one of the biggest shows in the world; and one of these days, he'll get around to getting a US passport.
But Simon Baker remains a diehard Aussie right down to the VBs in the fridge in his trailer.
It's a stinking hot day in Los Angeles and, on the set of The Mentalist, in which he plays sham psychic-turned-crime-investigator Patrick Jane, Baker is up to his eyeballs in a scene.
Slick in one of Jane's signature suits (he confides later Jane's biggest flaw is "his lack of versatility in his dress sense"), Baker is all Patrick Jane-style aloofness, slippery sharpness, arrogance and piercing intellect.

 

They call cut and Baker is transformed, losing the American accent as he strides over with a ready handshake, revelling in hearing Australian accents and a nickname during introductions.
By the time he's relaxed into a lounge in his trailer, his own Aussie accent has broadened and you get the impression that, while he's needed in almost every scene today, the offer of a getaway car, a surfboard and an esky full of coldies might tempt him into playing hooky.

But playing the lead in a hit show, especially one that late last year saw Baker signed to a $30 million Warner Brothers deal to extend his Mentalist contract for another three years (he receives about $425,000 an episode), means wagging probably isn't an option.

 

And, for all his laid-back Aussieness, Baker is, first and foremost, a professional. Albeit a modest one. He doesn't speak of "the craft" of acting, saying only that in season three the challenge has been keeping it all fresh and balancing the idea of a procedural show with a touch of serialisation.

 

"We sat down at the end of the last series and threw down a few ideas," Baker says.
"My five cents' worth was we needed to balance more of the drama and comedy, and serialise it a little more - which we have. So my character is getting a little darker, a little more tormented."

 

Baker has also taken the directing reins for a couple of episodes, but ask if directing makes him a better actor and Baker's blunt honesty rears its head. "Nope," he says. "I don't think I can get any better than I am. I think I am pretty limited as an actor. I've hit my ceiling."

 

It's said with honesty, not arrogance, and Baker is at pains to emphasise that doesn't mean he thinks he's so good he can't get better; quite the reverse. "The only way I would get better as an actor is if I get directors that make me look better."

 

Baker agrees his character, Jane, is hard to know. He admires him for his humour and likes him because "he's not an apologist". "I've got one mate who said, `He's a bit of a p ... .' but he kind of liked him because he's a character," Baker says. "He's not perfect. He is who he is."

 

Baker has made Los Angeles his home with wife Rebecca Rigg and their three children, and says it is his Australian-ness and his family which keep him grounded in Hollywood.

 

Which is why hackles rise when he's asked about taking up US citizenship.
First, because he hasn't, and second, because when he does, he'll be taking up dual citizenship, not forsaking his roots.

 

The question has rankled since it was incorrectly reported he'd become a US citizen.
"It was ridiculous. It came out of an interview in New York, right after Barack Obama was elected President, and I was asked how I felt. I said we had said we should become citizens.

 

"Suddenly my mum's calling me, saying, `I was at the doctor's and New Idea is saying you don't want to be Australian any more' and every interview I've done since has said, `So what, you don't want to be Australian any more?'

 

"I'm an incredibly proud Australian, ridiculous to the point where my American friends get sick of hearing me say, `But in Australia it wouldn't happen like that'. I'm that guy. So it broke my heart when people were saying, `Ah, you don't want to be Australian'.
"I was like, you don't understand.

 

"There's no rejection of my Australian-ness. That's something you'd have to beat out of me with a stick."

 

Seconds later, he unintentionally illustrates that when asked how he puts his complex character to rest at the end of the day. "I drink," he says, opening the fridge in his trailer with a mischievous grin, to reveal a stash of ice-cold Victoria Bitter beers.