From:The Age
Date:July 26, 2005

Australian actor Simon Baker knows his looks have opened doors for him.

"It is Hollywood, it is all about aesthetics," Baker says, adding tongue in cheek: "Do you think I would be having a career if I was really ugly?"

"This is the reality of it.

"Thankfully I am just a guy that likes physical activity so I have always remained in reasonably good shape."

Baker, who will be 36 on Saturday, has lived in Los Angeles for 10 years with wife Rebecca Rigg and their three kids.

He is back in Sydney this week to promote his latest feature film, Land of the Dead, which opens nationally on August 4.

"I could turn into the fattest bastard there is because I love food and I love wine," he said.

"The fact that I have got to stay in reasonably good shape is kind of the thing that keeps me on the straight and narrow."

In Land of the Dead, Baker plays Riley, a man trying to escape a world where zombies are returning to life.

In his quest to stay alive, Riley is joined by Slack (Asia Argentos) and goes up against bad-guy Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) along with thousands of zombies, referred to as "stenches".

"He is the moral compass of the film," Baker said of Riley.

"I wanted to establish the guy in a sense that he was a leader but didn't want to be responsible for the people that followed him."

"I wanted to make the guy complex and conflicted."

Land of the Dead is the fourth instalment in the George A Romero directed 'Dead' series, following on from Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

Although a fictional story, Baker said Land of the Dead was extremely complicated with comparisons to the current world.

"Every little moment for me, there was some kind of parallel as to where we are in our society at the moment," the father of three said.

"It is pretty much about the elite eradicating the middle class and keeping the underclass down."

Locally, Baker is probably best known for appearing in television series from E Street to Home and Away and Heartbreak High.

He moved to Hollywood in 1996 and was first noticed after making a cameo appearance in Oscar winning film LA Confidential.

Baker has since starred in a number of films including The Ring Two, Book of Love, The Affair of the Necklace, Red Planet and Secret Men's Business.

He became a household name in the US playing lawyer Nick Fallon in hit TV series The Guardian.

In his next film, Baker will play a landscape gardener in an inter-racial love story, called 42.4 Percent.

"I don't want to take myself too seriously as an actor because I think it can be kind of limiting for your career.

"I just want to have fun and do different things and be prepared to fall flat on my face and to take a few risks because it is one life."