Rove: Please welcome to Rove Live, Simon Baker

[ Simon enters through the door in and raises his eyebrows to the camera, in a acknowledgment and walks over to Rove, he shakes his hand and sits down.]

Rove: How you doing?

 

[Simon is staring at the coffee table, which holds a dish full of a huge pile of Smarties (M and M’s). He points at the dish.]

Simon: You need a snorkel for those.

Rove: They’re very deep

 

Simon: They are

Rove: Now, how was your night Sunday by the way, how was the Logies for you?

 

Simon: It was really good, I was actually a little bit nervous, because, uh, it had been a long time since I’d been there, er ten years or something so-

Rove: Was that the first time you attended since you won best new talent?

 

Simon: Yeah, that’s right yeah [nods head]

Rove: And er, were you happy with your performance on the night?

 

Simon: Oh, my performance or the current - [points to himself surprised]

Rove: The current one, yeah!

 

Simon: Well, I’ll tell you something, if you have to present an award present it early, because otherwise your sitting- where I was sitting was right up the very front and I was looking up like this the whole night [rolls his head right back on his shoulders and to the left side] drinking. I drank about 15 glasses of water, and I had to go to the bathroom to wee about twenty times. [Laughs] And because of Don Lanes speech, because of his speech, you know it was basically his autobiography [laughs] I uh, the guy, the guy the warm up guy, what’s his name?

Rove: Michael Pope is the warm up guys name

 

Simon: Michael Pope, yeah, he wouldn’t let people leave at certain times-

Rove: For fear of the room being empty

 

Simon: Right, but at the side of the room there’s these great mirrors and at one point he said ‘This is just a fifteen second break, you can’t leave’, and I was like ‘pfft crap, I’m leaving mate, I’m going now, otherwise I’m going to..you know’ [laughs]. So, I saw the mirror, and I thought that was the door open [pauses and gives a big smile]. And I did the old, almost did the old, you know, very cool, like, walking past all the people, you know, [swings hands and pretends to be looking cool in front of people] out the door when I wasn’t meant to be. And I almost did the bird caught in the house and the window [pretends to smack himself in the head]…broken nose…that sort of thing

Rove: Now how does a night like Sunday night, the Logies, compare to some of the ceremonies you’ve been to in the States, like the Golden Globes or I guess the Emmys, is the closer equivalent in the states

 

Simon: Uh, well for me, a lot more, a lot more fun, because uh, everyone has a good time, and it’s not so work orientated. In America there tends to be, a lot of those award shows, people take it very seriously, and it’s very, there’s a lot of fists pumping, and a lot of high fives.

Rove: A lot of handshakes.

 

Simon: Well there’s a lot, psh, no no they’re not big on the handshakes.

Rove: Oh really?

 

Simon: [switches to an American accent and raises his hand to be high fived] Oh man they’re like this all the time.

Rove: Oh yeah! [high fives]

 

Simon: Alright, and that’s a little bit hard- that’s probably one of the first times I’ve done it [laughs]. It’s a little hard for me to come to terms with, but uh, people relax and its, I was sitting there with my wife and we leant over a few times and it was comforting to see how parochial it was. How small and intimate and everyone knew each other and everyone actually…drank!

Rove: Ohhhh Yeah! [Laughs]

 

Simon: Yeah, and you didn’t have to, if you want to have a cigarette, you didn’t have to walk two miles west and take a left, and make sure no one can see you!

Rove: Now are you happy with the success of The Guardian? Especially back home? Simon: Oh absolutely, yeah, no it’s good Rove: And how’d you think, when they announced it was going to air here, were you a little bit more nervous to how Australians would take to it?

 

Simon: I was worried that, that uh, they wouldn’t embrace the fact I speak with an American accent on the show. [Looks at rove and smiles] I was a little nervous about that.

Rove: How did the Americans take to, like if you were to do an interview in the States, I saw you on Letterman and you did a wonderful job there.

 

[Simon raises his eyebrows and looks towards the floor then looks up and smiles. Audience laughs.]

Rove: Now when you, but when they hear you open your mouth and an Australian accent comes out, are they expecting it?

 

Simon: Uh, yeah they are now, just because there’s so much hype, there’s so much hype surrounding Australians over there.

Rove: What about the first couple of times?

 

Simon: First couple of times it’s a massive shock. In fact I get a lot of people that do come up to me and say ‘You know you look a lot like that guy from The Guardian’ [laughs], and I literally do say [frowns] ‘er, what’s that? Just to play around with it, you know. Cos I don’t often - I wore a tie tonight, because, you know - you’re a gold Logie winner [laughs]

Rove: I appreciate that

 

Simon: I made an effort, I made an effort. But I noticed you didn’t so -

Rove: I never wear a tie, I don’t even friggin tuck myself in (laughs)

 

Simon: Well that’s a little passé, I gotta tell you

Rove: Oh it is?

 

Simon: Yeah. And in fact you actually made a comment about my collar

Rove: I did

 

Simon: And you know, I want you to know something, that was 1992 or 3 or something, that’s a long time ago alright, And Brad Pitt actually tried to pull that off about a year ago

Rove: Actually, in hindsight -

 

Simon: I think I was maybe a little bit ahead of the curve

Rove: I think you were, in hindsight, the footage of Peter O ‘Brian, now White Collar Blue star and Logie award winner

 

Simon: Right

Rove: He had big shoulder pads in the footage with him

 

Simon: You’ll never catch that, that’s a shocker

Rove: And the great look with the suit with the sleeves not rolled up

 

Simon: [big smile] Yeah I know, that’s the Jason Donovan do, used to do that

Rove: Yeah it was great

 

Simon: Back in the day

Rove: Do you have any fond memories of the eighties? Like do you have any fashion faux pas?

 

[Simon sighs and looks around shaking his head grinning and everyone laughs]

Rove: Not to put you on the spot, Cos I was a bandit for the novelty waist coat [laughs]

 

Simon: Yeah I know yeah [grins and shakes his head]. With or without shirt? Because without shirt was a shocker

Rove: Oh with shirt, but it had to have cartoon characters on it!

 

Simon: Oh no!

Rove: So embarrassing

 

Simon: I think for my year ten formal, at the, I went to Ballina high school, for my year ten formal, it was at the Hoi Sing Restaurant, which I think in fact is still there, the token Chinese restaurant in Ballina, I think, actually there’s two, The Oriental Pearl, in case your… [Rove laughs]

Rove: "We don’t want people ringing up, going, Excuse me!

 

Simon: Yeah. But I wore uh, which I thought was very revolutionary, I wore pastel, pink pastel pants and a grey, a grey leather tie [audience laughs and groans]

Rove: Nice!

 

Simon: With! With matching grey leather Dunlop vollies with the Velcro! [huge laughs]

Rove: Velcro, how good was Velcro!

 

Simon: It was very sharp, that was something straight out of Dolly Magazine [laughs].

Rove: Well I’ll tell you what, it’s been very great having you on.

 

Simon: Thanks mate.