August Man January 2015 - Transcript

I had parked myself in the office conference room to wait for Simon Baker to call. Problem was I  didn't know when. An email from his assistant had informed me that Baker was held up at filming. "He'll call soon," he assured. That "soon" had me trapped in my seat just as the coffee was kicking in. I was convinced he would choose that precise moment to ring if I wandered to the bathroom. So I waited, watching YouTube clips of Baker as Patrick Jane in The Mentalist as intently as I could.

Then the phone rang. "Hey there, mate," came the greeting. There was an awkward pause as I wondered why the Simon Baker who I had been watching was speaking in a thick Aussie accent. "I just had a 12-hour day and had a lot of things to do," Baker continued. "I'm about an hour out of town and am on my way home now."

The fact that Baker was Australian had momentarily slipped my mind. After all, he left Australia for the United States in 1996, where he was cast in a small role in the neo-noir crime film LA Confidential and has been based there ever since. Before that, Baker had made appearances in various music videos and Aussie television shows such as E Street, Home and Away and Heartbreak High.

"It was a rather profound moment after I watched my first film as a child. It was Old Yeller, which is basically a story about a family dog and a child's relationship with it.  I honestly don't know why but it really had a big impact on me," Baker laughed, "I was having trouble learning to read at the time and the ability to express feelings and tell stories through actions and behaviour was just fascinating. I guess the seed was planted after that point, which made me want to go into acting."

To him, the move to the United States was simply a natural progression after giving the Australian television industry a pretty healthy go. "I was in it for about five or six years. But Australia doesn't have an audience big enough to sustain the industry," Baker explained.

Baker is part of the old guard of Aussie actors, which include the likes of Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, to make a mark in Hollywood in the mid to late '90s. Just like that, they paved the way for a new generation of actors to do the same. Today, Hollywood is seething with big-name Aussies like Isla Fisher, Rose Byrne, the Hemsworth brothers Chris and Liam, et cetera.

"Australians like to travel. We've always had this geographical chip on our shoulder about being so far away from the rest of the world," Baker highlighted. "But that's not necessarily a bad thing because although a lot of us leave, we do it with the intention of some day returning to Australia"

That was precisely Baker's intention moving to the United States. "I never dreamt of making it big over here. I merely wanted to make some money to support my family before going back to contribute something back to the Australian film industry and work on projects that I'm genuinely interested in."

But Hollywood wanted to keep Baker around. After LA Confidential, he went on to star in a slew of films such as Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil in 1999, Sunset Strip the year after and shortly after, Baker was cast as the male lead in CBS's The Guardian, which ran for three seasons.

It was that period which helped develop what he described as "a pretty decent work ethic of getting up early and working late" - something he hadn't experienced back in the land down under. "I would read a script a month in Australia but in the US, it was non-stop. Even when I wasn't working, I was," Baker recounted. "I've heard people say, 'Yeah I've been to Australia and it's fantastic. It's like California in the '50s.' I kinda get what they're getting at but I've always found that somewhat insulting," he laughed.

As Baker's popularity rose, so did the calibre of his films. He starred as an altruistic hero in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, before taking on the role of an up-and-coming magazine writer in The Devil Wears Prada, which turned out to be a box-office success.

All that led to Baker being offered the lead role of Patrick Jane, a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation who uses his experience as a con-artist psychic to solve cases, in CBS's The Mentalist in 2008. For a role that many Hollywood actors might have jumped at, Baker was initially reluctant. "I was very reluctant about the commitment of doing TV again," he admitted.

It was as if Baker possessed his character's powers of deduction to somehow foresee that the show would run for a long time.

He insists he was just playing it safe. "If you're going to find any sort of happiness in doing a TV show, it has to be through enjoying the character and his or her development," he explained. "I was making a decision after only having read the script of the pilot. I had to be prepared to play Patrick Jane for a long time. Imagine if the pilot was good but the rest of it was crap, you're not going to be able to escape once they've got you signed up."

Baker eventually said yes after understanding the potential of Jane and discussing the role's development with the show's executive producer Bruno Heller. "I was drawn by the potential of the character. Bruno was also very receptive to my ideas for Patrick Jane during our initial discussions."

The first season of The Mentalist received mixed reviews. Although critics described the show's setup and plot to be "far from original", they all agreed that his seamless integration into a cocky, smart-alecky character, typically seen in a three-piece suit, that's both annoying and charming at the same time, set it apart from other procedurals.

According to Baker, that didn't come as naturally as it looked. "I'm quite introverted. To play a character so verbose and confident with his bravado was an enormous challenge."  Still, he snagged an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his role. He was also named TV Guide's Sexiest Man on Television in 2009.

He's less interested in the titular benefits of the job. Baker once brushed off his Sexiest Man title in an interview, commenting that people would too if they saw him fresh out of bed in the morning.

It may have scored him some side benefits, such as being the face of Longines, ANZ bank and more recently starring in the ad campaign for Givenchy's new men's fragrance, Gentlemen Only. He doesn't consider himself a gentleman, however, let alone proclaim it in public.

"You wouldn't do that, would you? Introduce yourself and say something like, 'Hi I'm John and I'm a gentleman'," Baker Laughed. "Proclaiming you're a gentleman just isn't anyone's right."

The Mentalist is in its seventh and final season. "Day after tomorrow, I'll begin filming the last episode ever, and then I'm done," Baker said. "I never got bored of Patrick. In fact, I'm humbled to be a part of something that was so successful for so long. But I think it's enough. I was asked if I wanted to keep going but I felt it wasn't right. The story was getting old and doing more of it would only serve the financial side of things and nothing else."

Baker was referring to his character finally apprehending and killing Red John. The serial killer who was the archvillain of the show had murdered Jane's wife and daughter five years before the events in the show's pilot.

As to the sexual tension and attraction between Jane and female lead Teresa Lisbon, that was finally concluded when he professed his love for her after charging through airport security this season.

It appears that Jane has finally found some closure and is moving on. So is Baker. The only thing left to answer is what are his plans for the future. "That's what's so overwhelming. I feel like I'm going through a weird mourning period right now. After everything is done, I'll wake up and realise that I won't be playing that character anymore," Baker said. "I honestly don't know how I'll feel about it when it happens. I'll go through some high periods and some low ones before levelling out I guess."

It's clear that Baker has no immediate plans to work yet, something that is hardly surprising considering the fact that he's made an estimated US$300,000 per episode on the show. "Look, obviously I need a rest. People also need a rest from me," Baker laughed. "I'm looking at the landscape at the moment and thinking about the sort of opportunities that are available to me and what are the ones that really excite me. Because often they're both very different things. I've worked very hard for seven years and I can afford to be selective about what I want to do."

What others might see as a simple need to go on ice for a bit of R&R, Baker insists it's more about rehabilitation. "The thing a lot of people don't realise is that when you immerse yourself in a TV show for seven years, you go into a tunnel where you do almost nothing but focus on that job," Baker explained. "The relationship you have with your family and friends suffer as a result. I'm really looking forward to surrendering myself over to those relationships and being around them."

As such, the next few months will probably see Baker revert to what he called, an Australian cliché of drinking and surfing. "I'm just going to hang in Australia for a bit to take care of myself. Surfing, drinking and probably get a couple of sleep-ins in along the way," Baker said with a tone of anticipation. "I grew up in Ballina, a town on the north coast of New South Wales. The essence of me is still that guy."

And once Baker fees rested enough to get back into the grind, which, he assured me wouldn't take long: "I can tell you I won't sit still for too long", he's planning to produce and direct for a change. It's something he knew he wanted to do, having made his directorial debut in a second season episode of The Guardian in 2003. It led him to direct an episode per season from the third season onwards of The Mentalist.

To him, it brings something to the table that acting can't. "It's the complete immersion into a project from logistics to editing. You just get to use a lot of different aspects of your brain," Baker explained.

The first project that Baker wants to focus on is to bring to the screen a book by Australian novelist Tim Winton entitled Breath - a story set in the small Western Australian logging village of Sawyer. The story follows the journey of two boys and their youthful urge to test the limits of courage and sanity by performing stunts in a local lake and eventually taking up surfing in an attempt to escape the ordinariness of their lives.

Baker hasn't started the process of producing Breath, but he knows it will be a challenge to film. "A lot of it takes place in the water, which is difficult logistically," he commented. "But hey, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't try."

In the end, Baker is a man who is more than comfortable in his own skin, one who is thankful for his past and fearless about his future. Fellow Aussie actress Nicole Kidman who opened her LA house to Baker while his was being painted in 2001 echoed that what makes Baker so inherently cool is that he just doesn't care. "I've lived with the guy, so I know," she said in another interview.

That sense of adventure and a ready-for-anything joie de vivre, according to Baker, came with age.

"I'm 45 years old," he lowered his voice. "It's a time when you realise you're not young any more but you also know you're not necessarily old either. One thing's for sure though, you know there's no turning back. And I'm at a point in my life where I've got nothing to lose. So I don't feel scared when faced with uncertainty. In fact, it is when things are going too good that I question the situation. I've learnt to accept that time doesn't wait for anyone. So if something isn't going perfect at the moment, it doesn't faze me one bit".

Thanks to sarapettarini http://sarapettarini.tumblr.com/post/107123495784/

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