It's Mr Nice Guy
Herald Sun guide, 21 May 2003
Robert Fidgeon

Success has been a slog but Simon Baker is now grateful, writes Robert Fidgeon.

Outwardly, he was returning home as one of the international headliners at the Logie Awards. But for The Guardian star Simon Baker, the visit carried far greater personal significance. It was the conclusion of an 11-year voyage of self-discovery.

"From my early TV days here I always had this sense of being second-rate. That what I was doing wasn't much good. That it was inferior,” says the former E Street star, who won the Most Popular New Talent Logie in 1992.

"To be honest, I had a chip on my shoulder. I found it difficult to accept a compliment.”
It's something that still doesn't sit easily with him. Aussie actor friends in America have tried to "teach” him how to accept praise graciously.

But it was buddy Nicole Kidman who took him aside and put it most succinctly. "Nic said to me: 'Simon, just learn to take a breath and say thank you',” he recalls.

"Which was one of the reasons I was excited about coming back to do the Logies.
"When I first started my career here, I was fortunate enough to be embraced by the industry, but I did everything I could as an angry young actor-man to get in the way of that.

"To be at the Logies this year and see the young actors coming through, I realised how great it was to have that support when you're young, even if I rejected it.”

The Launceston-born Baker was raised on the north coast of New South Wales by his mother and stepfather after his parents divorced.

At 17 he studied nursing in Sydney, but three years later was "accidentally” cast in a TV commercial and made his acting debut in E Street in 1991.

Short runs in Home and Away and Heartbreak High followed, before Baker, actor-wife Rebecca Rigg and baby daughter Stella headed for Hollywood in 1995.

With no agent, no job offer and barely $2000 between them, they saw it as nothing more than an "adventure”.

"We figured if the worst came to the worst, we always had the safety net of being able to come home.”

In 1997 he won a role in the movie hit LA Confidential, and almost three years ago signed to star as attorney Nick Fallin in The Guardian.

"People see LA Confidential as a breakthrough because it was successful, but often some of the most personally memorable films are the not-so-sucessful,” he says, pointing out that between LA Confidential and The Guardian he did eight films, which no one mentions.

"When I left Australia I was unemployed. Now I'm gainfully employed and fortunate to be working on something that's successful and of which I'm extremely proud.”

Baker, who recently directed his first episode of The Guardian, sees the show as a "dark, bleak program dressed up as a warm, sentimental drama”.

"But it's not really a legal drama. It's a show about relationships and the hope of harmony.
"Nick is a guy struggling with a cocaine problem, who has a very dysfunctional relationship with his father and a gutful of self-loathing.

"It's a challenge to get away with that on mainstream United States TV.”
But it's the fact that many in the US see Baker as an "overnight success” that brings a smile to the boyish handsome face.

"Truth is, I've worked damned hard over there for eight years.
"Was it an easy ride to get here? No. Was it a fairytale existence? No.
"It was a damned hard slog. At times, a really tough struggle. I wasn't here on my own. I've always had a family to support.

"So, in a practical sense, the greatest feeling that comes with being associated with a successful show is one of relief.”

Career connected to wife support Simon Baker paid tribute to his wife Rebecca Rigg for her support during the tough times when he was attempting to establish his career in Hollywood.

"She's always been amazing. I'm very lucky,” he says.

Baker recalls being approached at this year's Golden Globe Awards by the casting agent who selected him for the role in LA Confidential.

"She said one of the most complimentary things that has ever been said to me,” he says.
"She said how happy and proud she was that Rebecca and I were still together after all these years, enjoying the good times after battling through the tough times together.

"I felt really good about that because someone was recognising we had done it together.”

Along with eldest daughter Stella, Baker and Rigg have two sons, Claude and Harry.
"They're wonderful,” he says. "I couldn't ask for anything more.”