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Sunday Life 08/03/2009

Sunny boy Simon Baker has come a long way since his soap opera days on E Street. The laid-back star of hit US show The Mentalist reveals the devil insde to.

Simon Baker is on all fours, sniffing for clues, Literally. As The Mentalist’s unconventional investigator Patrick Jane, the 39-year-old actor is often called to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Today, he’s stuck it into the palm of a bloodied, dismembered hand. “It smells like almond moisturizer and tobacco. “ he announces.

Relax. That hand is as fake as Jane’s old gig: conning people that he could speak to the dead, It’s the opening scene of an episode entitled – what else – Red-Handed, in which Jane and the team from the California Bureau of Investigation(CBI) have to figure out how a man’s hand ende up on a desert highway near the California-Nevada border.

Actually, they are in Palmdale, California, an hour and change from Los Angeles, and there’s a small sandstorm brewing. After finishing a take. Baker returns to his folding chair, slips on his specs(he’s short-sighted) and describes today’s acting challenge. “it’s like talking on the back of a motorcycle with a helmet on,” he says. “The wind was so strong that the dead man’s hand was waving at me.”

Critics and audiences have given Baker and The Mentalist high praise since the first episode. The show, which screens locally on the Nine Network, is a top-10 hit in the US averaging around 16 million viewers per episode. “It’s the kind of show people want to watch in hard times like this.” Says its creator Bruno Heller. “The bad guys are going to get caught.”

And even though the often-cocky hero is a master manipulator seeking revenge and redemption for the murder of his own wife and daughter. He remains an intriguingly uplifting character. “he can be most honest when he’s lying and most dishonest when he is telling the truth,” says Heller. “He carries tragedy on his back, but it’s important o understand that when he is being mischievous, that’s a positive affirmation of life.”

It’s a role that requires natural charisma that just can’t be faked, Heller says, and Simon Baker has it in spades. “We were looking for a Cart Gant guy and Simon was always top of the list. People like to be in his presence and the success the show has had so far is because of that. He is the team leader, but he doesn’t put on airs.”

Even on a rugged location, Baker shows no signs of stress of eg. After four hours of examining a hand in the middle of a dusty road, the affable actor sits under a canopy with the rest of the cast and crew, a big grin on his movie-star mug. “my life is pretty hectic, but I’m really into it,” He says.

“here’s the weirdest part: I’m a devil and I finally found a role where I get paid to be a devil. People ask me, ‘how’s it going, mate?’ Are you f—king kidding me? I’m having a ball.”

Baker, a veteran of tow other US dramas(The Guardian and 2007’s short-lived Smith), is already tight with his castmates. He regales co-star Robin Tunney, who lays tough CBI leader Teresa Lisbon, with the story of when Willem Dafoe played Jesus in The Last Temptation Of Christ and they had to have a “penis wrangler” on hand for the crucifixion scene to make sure THAT ALL OF Dafoe stayed in his loincloth. Tunney looks up from her BlackBerry with a look of disbelief on her face. “It’s true,” says Baker. “I heard it from a make-up man who worked on the film.”

A week later, Baker is back the Warner Bros. lot where the CBI office scenes are shot. It’s 5pm –lunchtime in the world of TV – and he’s in his trailer eating a chicken salad. “Can I get you anything?” he asks. “ I fell a little bit rude sitting here chowing down. Normally I’d be sleeping. Maybe I can lie on the couch after I’ve eaten and pretend this is therapy.”

Sounds like a plan, except Baker isn’t one of those actor who like to go on and on about their childhood. But interrogation does yield some results. He was born on july 30, 1969, in Launceston, Tasmania. At two, his parents separated. Baker and his older sister moved to Lennox Head on the NSW North Coast with his mum and stepfather, who then had a son of their own. There were other half-siblinos on Baker’ father’s side, but it was hardly The Brady Bunch. “More like the plot of a bad B-movie,” say Baker, who had problems with his stepfather and didn’t see his birth father again until he was 18. “One day I might write an autobiography and that section will be very interesting,” he says, smiling. “ It’s very complicated.”

Growing up by the beach was idyllic for a kid who started surfing at seven, even in a community where there were six guys to every girl. “There was some pretty savage chest-thumping,” he recalls, “and I had my share of fights. I used to try to talk my way out of it with logic and they’d get confused and punch me.”

Although Baker identified with surfers, he hung out with everyone at school: the science nerds, the tough guys and, of course, the girls. “They called me the ‘ping-pong ball’ because I bounced around a lot.” He was “moderately intelligent”. But not a good student, “I was sportistic,” says Baker. “ I couldn’t pay attention in class, all I thought about was sports.”

He started acting for an audience of one. “I would skateboard down the driveway and occasionally when my mum was at the kitchen window, I’d do a fake fall and lie there on the ground until she would start screaming,” he says. “It was a childish, negative way to get attention and it worked.”

His mother, who watched Jerry Lewis and James Bond movies on TV with young Simon and is now a drama teacher had a theatrical streak that she employed as a lain-clothes security guard at the local Kmart. “ She would walk around pretending she was shopping for stuff and spying on people,” he says, demonstrating with a coy and hilarious pantomime.

When asked about his first professional gig. Baker plops down on the trailer floor and re-enacts his role as “the triple-choc kid” in a commercial for Drumstick ice-cream cones. “They kept giving me a spit bucket and I didn’t use it. I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m eating this!’ “He gets off the floor, busting up with laughter. “I’m really f—king up my chances of scoring myself a woody Allen type of film.”

In his early 20s, Baker met his future wife, actress Rebecca Rigg, and was soon co-starring with her in the soap E Street. He played an earnest young cop and she was his girlfriend. “We were the feuding couple and I remember after every take I’d get so caught up in it, I’d be like, ’Honey, are you all right? Are we OK?” Soon, they set their sights on Hollywood. “We had a young daughter, Stella and enough money to eat for about two months, “recalls Baker. Happily he was cast in the 1997 hit film LA Confidential. They put down roots in Malibu – “I’ve got to live near the coast” – and had two boys, Claude, 9, and Harry,7.

Although they hung out with other “old-school” Aussies, including Nicole Kidman and “this little girl named Naomi Watts who could barely get arrested”, the Bakers yearned to return home. A few years ago they bought a huse in Australia. “I never unpacked my suitcase,” says Baker, who flew seven time in five months to work on two romantic comedies, Something New and The Devil Wears Prada.

He doesn’t find it particularly difficult raising a family predominantly in Hollywood. “I don’t like the idea of talking down to kids. I think I was talked down to and you rebel against that. I try to be straightforward and honest with my kids and I believe nothing beats good old hard work.”

In The Guardian, he played a hotshot lawyer sentenced to work with a children’s services agency. “It was depressing character,” he says. “He had issues with his father. I fought a lot on that show and took myself a little too seriously.”

In the Mentalist, baker often bonds with children involved in the cases. “My character looks at everything in a different way and having kids gives you a direct link into that, “he says. “The connection Jane has with kids is a kinship. It’s games, it’s play and that’s what separates Jane from his emotions.”

Baker’s research into psychic phenomenon has also enhanced his performance. “I’ve seen the odd tarot reader and had my palm read in various countries and explained to me in many strains of broken English. Did I believe a word? To be honest, I didn’t understand much, but I loved watching the presentation.”

Looking around Baker’s trailer, It seems like an appropriate time to channel the Mentalist’s powers of observation,. On the bulletin board is a photo of a flashy 1960s sports car – Jane’s ride in The Mentalist. “It’s a Cirtoen DS21,” Says Baker, eyes lighting up. “I’ve always coveted them myself. I just didn’t see my character in a brand-new car. You may have noticed he catches rides with other people because his car is always in the shop, but I will get to drive it.”

OK then, what is the significance of a playing card and a pair of 3D glasses clipped to the curtain with a peg? “The glasses are from a surfing magazine I had in the bathroom,” explains Baker. “And one day the lighting department clipped a playing card to the front fork of my bicycle so it makes a v-r-r-r-r-r sound when I ride.” Upon closer inspection, the card turns out to be most appropriate for Patrick Jane and Simon Baker. That’s right: it’s the joker.

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Ecrit par kateanddin 
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