Interview with Kristy Meudell – August 2005

Simon Baker is every bit the charmer when he meets me in the hallway of his Sydney hotel. Squeezing my hand and pulling me in to kiss his cheek, he has a mischievous school-boy twinkle in his eye when he refers to his publicist and says, "He told me you were cute.” Livelier than I expect after a full day of press commitments (the first of which was for an early morning breakfast show), he's much cheekier than I had imagined and about as far removed from the stereotype of a Hollywood movie star as you can get.

"How much do you think a bottle of Fiji water costs?” he asks me incredulously just before we sit down. Then, without waiting for a reply, he states: "Seven dollars! Can you believe that? And that’s not even for a big bottle, it’s for one of those small ones.”

While his horror at the outlandish prices of the hotel mini bar is somewhat out of sorts for someone of his calibre, he is the first to point out that he isn’t your typical movie type. Simon Baker describes himself as someone "too old” for a fan club, and certainly doesn’t see himself as any kind of star.

"Everyone I think has a different definition of what a movie star is. I think Gregory Peck is a movie star, I think Carey Grant was a movie star, but I’m not a movie star,” he says with a laugh. "I’m just an actor that works in movies.”

At the end of 1995, Simon Baker left Australia for the US with his wife and son and enough money to last a few months. Steadily, he’s been able to make a living out of his craft. There have been roles in movies including L.A. Confidential, The Affair of the Necklace, Book of Love, but his real claim to fame has been his starring role in the drama series The Guardian, a TV show which lasted three years and attracted 12 million viewers a week in the US alone.

"I didn’t think we would still be there [in LA] after so long. I didn’t really think anything. I know we didn’t have enough money to stay this long – we only had enough to stay for about three months! It doesn’t feel like 10 years. It feels like a long time, but not that long. I can remember the day we arrived, definitely. I found a baseball in the gutter of the house we were staying in. It was almost like a good luck charm – until a friend took their dog for a walk and threw it and lost it.

"They’re not my friend anymore,” he jokes with a big movie-like grin.

Adjusting his heavy rimmed glasses, Simon says he is grateful to have worked consistently. He emphasises that it hasn’t been an easy ride, but there’s not even a hint of bitterness when I suggest that acting has more to do with luck than with anything else.

"A lot of it has to do with luck,” he admits. "Some of it has to do with talent, but more of it has to do with luck. Some actors just do one movie and that movie makes loads of money and then they can pick from any script they want. They can say that they only want to work with Martin Scorsese. And you can vent and moan about it, but then you just have to go, ‘OK, I’m still a working actor’.

"It’s hard work and it’s a tough struggle at times, but it’s not rocket science, it’s just making movies, it’s just pretending to be someone else. You’re not saving the world.”

While he makes a valid point, Simon does agree that not just anyone can act.

"Well, that is, as they say, why we get the big bucks. But I tell you, there’s only a select few who actually get the big bucks. I’m fortunate enough to be able to make a decent living out of it. Am I up in the high echelons of earners as an actor? No, I’m not. I’m not a big movie star who commands huge amounts of money and a lot of the roles I come across that are really, really interesting, you’ve almost gotta pay to play them, to be in the movie. It’s a funny sort of business. It’s hard and it always has been because it’s the marriage of art and commerce and I don’t necessarily think that it’s a happy marriage a lot of the time.”

His family – wife Rebecca, who Baker describes as his "rock”, and his three children, Stella, Claude and Harry – are a welcome contrast to the realities of his work. For Baker, his family and their happiness are paramount and consequently, there is more to his life than just work.
"It’s important for me to be challenged,” he says. "I’m pretty odd like that ’cause I really do like to be challenged and be absorbed by what I’m doing and let it just sort of soak me up. But at the same time, I’m inherently lazy. I don’t like to work too much. When I work, I really like to get into it, and then when I’m not working, I just like to put it aside.”

This healthy outlook perhaps makes Baker overly critical of the scripts that come his way.
"You never know with movies what will make a good one,” he laments. "There have been a lot of roles where I’ve gone, ‘Phew, lucky I didn’t do that’ – plenty of those – but there have also been roles where I’ve gone, ‘Well, actually, that wouldn’t have been so bad’, ’cause the movie turned out pretty good. But you can’t wonder what might have been.”

He doesn’t even wonder about what yet might be. He’s never been one to plan too far ahead, not five years or even six months. If big-time movie success comes his way, then great, but if not, he’s not bothered. He understands that fame and celebrity often come with a price.

"It’s not the be all and end all. It’s not the only reason for doing it. You know, there’s something nice about the certain perks related to it, absolutely, but the loss of identity, the scrutiny which you come under can be not so desirable, it’s not something I’m interested in. I like the idea of being a little anonymous, but at the same time, I like going to places like the Cannes Film Festival and staying in a nice hotel. I want all the good things, but I don’t want the bad things. I also want the big bucks,” he adds with a laugh, "’cause that means when I’m not working, I can have a really good time!”

For all of Simon Baker’s time in Tinseltown, his Australian accent and ethos have remained intact. In his heart, Australia will always be his home and though he dreams of Paddlepops and meat pies at the mention of a visit back to Oz, a move home isn’t on the cards.

"There is always a chance and the chance is always increased whenever I come out here,” he reveals. "Yeah, I get to munch on Paddlepops, but just to be here, it’s almost kind of healthier for me to not come back because when I don’t come back, I miss it, but I can sort of ignore it 'cause it’s the other side of the world.

"When I’m here, it’s like, ‘What am I doing living in America for, what am I doing?’ It’s a funny balance. And a lot of people say, ‘Well, why don’t you just move back?’ It’s not that easy for me. I have three kids, two of them that were born there, you know. My kids have established social groups and friends and relationships in the States. I can’t be that selfish.”

Our best bet to enticing the fabulous Baker boy home is through new work opportunities.
"I think what the Australian film industry really needs is to make a film that captures the Australian spirit,” he says. "I would like to do a film here. And yes, there’s been talk of Clancy of the Overflow,” he says, "but it would depend on how they were going to do it. If they were going to do it right, I would be interested.”