The Mentalist’s Patrick Jane is not your common or garden TV ‘tec – and that’s just the way its star, Simon Baker, likes it .....

 

The TV schedules are packed with American police procedural dramas, but there’s something about The Mentalist, whose third series resumes on Channel 5 this week, that makes it stand head and shoulders above the crowd.

 

At the heart of the show’s distinctiveness is its lead character, Patrick Jane, one of the more unusual sleuths to grace the small screen. The intuitive ex-psychic, played by Australian actor Simon Baker, uses his ability to ‘read’ people to help the California Bureau of Investigation solve crimes.

 

"In most American shows of this kind, the lead characters are very black-and-white”, explains Baker. "They’re either wacky and zany or deadly earnest. But Jane vacillates somewhere in between, and he’s more of an eccentric”.

 

Jane’s mission in life is to track down the serial killer Red John, who slaughtered his wife and daughter. Yet while their deaths have left him emotionally damaged, Jane also presents a confident and humorous face to the world.

 

"He is a complex bag of tricks”, says Baker. "You could easily mistake Jane for a bit of a simpleton, but there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye. He’s essentially a very dark character who has a good sense of humour. It’s far more interesting because there are more areas you can go to in every scene”.

 

The Mentalist’s fresh take on the crime drama formula has earned the show a huge following and 41-year-old Baker a lucrative new contract. He is now reported to be US television’s highest-paid star, receiving some $430,000 per episode, surpassing Hugh Laurie’s pay-cheque for House.

 

"I’m very fortunate to be able to make a living from this”, he admits. "I’ve spent many years scratching a living from acting and I’m lucky enough to work in a profession where, most of the time, financial freedom comes with success”.

 

Baker’s previous credits include Home and Away, and he is one of a growing number of Australian stars to have graduated from soaps Down Under to land leading roles in American shows.

 

"Working on the soaps is a great way to get a lot of experience in a short period of time, and there are a lot more Australians in LA than there used to be. When I first came over there weren’t so many and we all knew each other and were pretty close”.

 

The film that broke Baker in the States was the 1997 thriller LA Confidential, and he recently reunited with Kevin Spacey on Margin Call, a forthcoming movie about the banking crisis. "There are a couple of Limeys in that one: Paul Bettany and Jeremy Irons”, he laughs. "LA Confidential was my first gig in the States and it got me started over here. It was a lucky break because the film turned out to be a modern classic”.

 

Watching crime drama is a bit of a busman’s holiday these days for the expat Aussie – "I tend to over-analyse it”, he admits – but he was a big fan of the genre as a youngster. "I used to love Columbo when I was a kid”, he reveals. "And there was a great show in Australia called Homicide in the 1960s. But I always thought the English ones were the best. Prime Suspect is pretty fantastic”.

 

Baker’s last visit to the UK was to take part in Soccer Aid last June, lining up alongside fellow thesps Mike Myers and Woody Harrelson in a Rest of the World side that took on an England team in a charity football match at Old Trafford. Baker’s team won on penalties, even though he had a spot-kick saved by Jamie Theakston in the shootout.

 

"My two sons play soccer, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and they loved it”, he explains.

 

Meanwhile, his new life in America makes him appreciate his native Australia even more. "They say absence makes the heart grow fonder”, he smiles. "I don’t take it so much for granted now when I go back. I have friends in Brisbane who were affected by the floods, and that experience really brought out the strength of the community and the Australian character –‘We’re all prisoners in this together!’”

 

The riddle of Red John

Speculation is rife among fans of The Mentalist regarding the identity of Red John, the serial killer who murdered Jane’s wife and daughter as retribution for some on-air comments the former TV psychic made about him.

 

One video on YouTube even goes so far as to out a character called Brett Partridge, played by Jack Plotnick, as the culprit, while other fans maintain Partridge is just another of Red John’s stooges. One particularly tortuous piece of evidence points to the fact that Red John quotes from a William Blake poem at one point, and Blake also painted a picture entitled ‘A Brace of Partridge’.

 

"I just love all the speculation” says Simon Baker. "It seems that all TV these days has to be something that people want to chat, argue and communicate about, which is good. I love talking about it with the show’s creator Bruno Heller, setting out different possible scenarios and playing little hypothetical games. But he never lets on how it will play out. He’s a cagey character”.

 

 But if Red John were finally unmasked, would that be the end of Jane’s crime-solving days? "That’s a good one to debate. Is that the thing that drives him? I never watched the original TV series of The Fugitive. Did Richard Kimble ever catch the one-armed man?”

 

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