Interview: Simon Baker of CBS' The Mentalist
Aussie actor plays psychic-turned-detective in new fall drama
Jul 28, 2008
Simon Baker wooed Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, wooed Sanaa Lathan in Something New and played a lawyer in The Guardian and a thief in the short-lived Smith. He returns this fall in the CBS drama The Mentalist, playing a (fake) psychic-turned detective. He spoke to TV critics in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Suite101: Your character is humane, like your character on The Guardian, but also someone who's got kind of naughty side, like your character on Smith, but not as creepy.
SIMON BAKER: Oh, you see too much! Don't look too closely. What else am I ever going to do if I get another job? Yeah, the deliciously attractive part about this role was the humor and the irreverence of the character, and having to swing between being reactive and active constantly is kind of a challenge. But, yeah, I'm stealing from both things. That's all it is -- without the creepiness.
Suite101: A lot of people who aren’t from here have an idealized version of California. Did you grow up like as a surfer dude in Australia, kind of idealizing what California would be like? And how is it different than your image in your mind of what you thought it would be?
BAKER: I had two television stations where I grew up. One was a commercial station, and one was the ABC. It's a little different there now, but I grew up
watching Quincy and Columbo and all of these shows. So yes, I did see the cinematic – you know, the TV version of California, seeing the mountains and the ocean and Venice. So yeah, totally. Where I'm from is -- regarding like the
beauty and the beach, and the surfing is very different and prettier and cleaner. But has it been a fantastic experience being here? Totally.
Suite101: In The Devil Wears Prada you play a heel…how’d you select the role?
BAKER: I'm uncannily bad at choosing films, generally. I'm going to give my daughter credit for that. She was 11 at the time. She asked me one day, bored out of her mind, she said, "Have you got any scripts that I can read?" And I said,"Sure, there's one here called The Devil Wears Prada." She goes, "The Devil Wears Prada, I've heard about that book. I'll read that." She readit in record time. She came back and said, "Well,Dad, you know what, the character's a bit of adick, but I really think you should do it."
(Laughs)
I said, "Why is that?" She goes, "Because all my friends are going to see it. We can all go and see it. It will be cool because I'm sick of going to see movies where you die or you're having sex with someone. So please, Dad, do this one." That was kind of pretty much it.
