Simon Baker''s film

From:Sundance.com
Date:December 2003.

If you miss the moody brilliance of a story told with a stolen glance or a telling smile, Alan Brown' s Book of Love is for you. Setting his sights on the vulnerable heart of contemporary middle-class America, Brown unspools a seductive tale of the choices we make in daily life and the weight of their consequences. Elaine (Frances O'Connor) and David (Simon Baker) are on the verge of marital complacency, that state of submissive acceptance of who they are and how marriage is. Then they meet Chet (Gregory Smith), a 15-year-old employee at the local ice cream store who is full of youthful energy and hungry to live life to its fullest. An instant bond forms when Elaine and David welcome Chet into their lives as a surrogate child. But trouble arises when a momentary lapse of restraint threatens to rupture the core of the trio's seemingly idyllic lives. A year after having his short, O beautiful, in the Festival, Brown returns with a delicate story charged with emotion that refreshingly refrains from taking a moral stance. The depth of character development, shadowed by the ambiguity of blame, leaves the viewer's sense of values shaken. O'Connor's portrayal vibrates with tangible feeling, while Baker undergoes an intricately textured, unraveling transformation. Book of Love will make you reflect on what is versus what should be, and the split-second decisions separating the two.

Reality Bites in the Moral Maze of The Guardian

From:Sunday Telegraph
Date:7th,Dec 2003
By Sheryn George


The Guardian, a gritty series based on children's legal advocates and starring Simon Baker, opts for true-life resolutions rather than Hollywood's trite endings.

Nick Fallin, lawyer, works in hell. For those who haven't watched Ten's visceral moral thriller The Guardian, Fallin is serving 1500 hours of community service for a drug arrest. His punishment consists of using his legal smarts to protect children through the Children's Legal Service of Pittsburgh.

As a kind of “fallen” angel, Simon Baker's character has to negotiate his way through a never-ending moral quagmire in this under-funded area.

Even fans used to the claustrophobic and gritty atmosphere of this taut TV drama will find the new season's movie-length opener shocking. Fallin and his father, en route to a charity concert, beat up a man who takes their parking spot. The vicious father-son beating is another brave opener for the series that revels in showing us its characters' dark sides.

Baker, part of Australia's senior acting alumni, is in the right territory here. His expressive face conveys Nick's paradoxical character – this guy seems to want to do the right thing, but he gets caught in the moral cracks and shades of grey every time. And it's far more interesting watching a bad guy going good, than a good guy going bad.

“There is a longing to be a better person and lead a better, richer, fuller life. He's just not really capable of doing it,” Baker says of his character.

Dabney Coleman, as Nick's amoral lawyer father Burton Fallin, provides a great foil. In the third-season opener, Nick is dealing – in his repressed fashion – with the aftermath of a friend's death. Simultaneously, his relationship is floundering; and he is working on a custody case involving a boy whose mother works as a snake-handler in a carnival. Her child has accused the carnival owner of abuse, and Fallin must resolve the situation.

It's the classic Guardian examination of outsiders and their difficulties in living in the real world. And, of course, in true dark-horse Guardian fashion, the issue doesn't get resolved.

“I thought I could walk a line with Nick, that I could make the character very internal, where he was not likeable but I could still make the audience root for him,” Baker says.

“There was this challenge: I thought I could play the sort of thing where you're hoping he makes the right choices and you feel for him when he makes the wrong choices.”

While some critics have attacked Baker's portrayal, he stands by his minimalist interpretation.

“I love the stoic nature. Growing up in Australia, I saw so many of those characters,” he says.

“You constantly reach down into your bag of tricks – and I don't mean that in a sense of cheap magic tricks. I mean you reach down into your bag of history and experience – and that can be cathartic.

“Not always, not every day and not every line, but when it is, it can also be difficult and painful.”

This decision to let Nick Fallin make the wrong choices, and the writer's refusal to provide upbeat endings, has left some long-term fans complaining that The Guardian is too relentlessly dark.

But that morally ambiguous approach is true to series creator David Hollander's vision – that of a film-noir-influenced study of human flaws and frailties.

Overtly, it's about the contrast between lawyers who work for the community and ones who go for the corporate dollar. Fallin works in both worlds (clocking up the requisite hours at his father's firm and for troubled children in court).

“I remember going to a halfway house with my brother in Denver a few years ago, and watching him talk to the kids there,” says Hollander.

“There was this one kid who was 16 years old and in and out of trouble. He'd had a brush with the law and was lying to my brother about what he'd done. It's one of those things where we feel badly for him, yet we fear him.

“He and others struck me as being such an interesting collection of victims and victimisers – and victims on their way to becoming victimisers. It was powerful. When I saw them, I thought, this is the kind of character I want to write about.”

It's also the kind of character that has seen the series become a stealthy kind of hit. It's the type of show that many people watch, but many don't talk about. It has a huge Internet fan base, and is a forum – or a kind of dramatic springboard – for discussing moral issues without clear-cut guidelines. These are the same kind of issues many of us face.

“The kinds of stories we're telling depict a certain kind of human helplessness,” Hollander says.

“It's about doing our best under difficult circumstances and not always prevailing.”

Which sounds like the best definition of heroism going, when you think about it.

The Fabulous Baker Boy

From : Herald Sun
by Maree Curtis

"You can all leave now." Simon Baker seems a little tense and the tone in his voice stops the three female PR's ?one from Australia,two from the US who are travelling with him (not his idea) ?mid-sentence. Unfortunately they are standing behind me so I can't see their faces,butthe sudden, indignant silence is worth a million words.Assumingthey'd be staying for the interview they were chatting and making coffee. But Baker is exhibiting most un-celebrity like behaviour. Is he seriously suggesting he can handle a journalist on his own? Apparently so. He repeats himself, slightly louder. "You can go now. I'll call if I need anything."

It's so Nick Fallin: arrogant, curt, dismissive. You should never make the mistake of confusing an actor with the roles he plays, but in this case it's impossible not to do so. If Baker were wearing a dark suit and tie (instead of jeans and a jumper), and if his curly blond hair was short and neatly combed (rather than cutely messy), you would swear you were in the room with Fallin, Baker's troubled lawyer in the enormously successful TV show The Guardian.

But, as the hotel room closes behind the hapless three, the change in Baker's demeanor is striking. He relaxes. "God, I hate all that shit." He puts his feet up on the couch, makes himself comfy and smiles. A zillion-megawatt, light-up-a-room smile that at such close range almost takes your breath away. Which is a good thing, it makes me look at his face: Baker's jumper has ridden up and his tanned trimmed tummy was proving somewhat distracting. After all, this is a man who last year made US magazine People's list of the world's 50 most beautiful people.

Just as we are settling in for a chat, his mobile phone rings. He apologises, checks the caller ID, and says he has to take the call, it's his wife, Rebecca Rigg, ringing from their room several floors above. Naturally, I listen to every word: Yes, he is fine. He's just starting he interview. Is everything OK with her? "Bye sweetheart. I love you."

Later, he will tell me that Rigg provides a foil for his natural impulsiveness. "I'm incredibly in the moment, to the point where sometimes it's annoying to people because I want to go, `Let's do it, let's be here, come with me on this ride'. It can be fun, but it can also be very destructive. Bec is my grounder. It's very good, it's necessary."

Rigg has been grounding Baker since the two met on a blind date at Paddington's Royal Hotel in 1991. At the time, it was Rigg who had the acting career (Fatty Finn, Spotswood, E Street), while Baker (who was then known as Simon Baker Denny) was making his living as a model. "Bec still gives me such shit about that. "

And she has been there for the whole ride: the early soapie fame in Australia that saw Baker win a Logie for best new talent in 1993 for his role in E Street, and for the six years he worked his "arse off" as a jobbing actor in the US before being catapulted on to Hollywood's A?list and earring a Golden Globe best actor nomination last year with The Guardian. "In the early days in America, Rebecca did a couple of TV series and since then she has been offered a couple of opportunities, but we have three kids and she has decided it's too difficult for her to work at this point. She has been incredibly generous in allowing me the opportunities. She has sacrificed a lot."

In some ways, Baker is Australia's most unsung Hollywood success story. He has worked steadily since arriving in LA on Christmas Eve in 1995 with Rigg, the then two year old Stella and what he estimated would be enough money to last three months. Almost immediately he was cast, along with Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, in a small but critically acclaimed role in LA Confidential and has since worked with some of the biggest names in film, including Oscar winners Adrien Brody and Hilary Swank (The Affair of the Necklace) and director Ang Lee (Ride With the Devil). "I don't think people realise I've made nine films. There's a couple I'm really proud of and there are some I'm glad didn't see the light of day. But I've had to support a family. I was eight days into being a 24 year old when Stella was born. There are a number of jobs I've taken that I can definitely say I should never have done and I despised taking them artistically. But I needed the money. And I've also worked with some amazing people."

It is interesting, given his now high profile and the plethora of scripts it brings his way, that for his 10th movie Baker has chosen a small indie production called Nights in Phnom Penh by first time feature film director Alan Brown. The film, which he describes as a "look at the psychology of infidelity", also stars Australian Frances O'Connor. "It's just a little film, but I found it a wonderfully lean, interesting script, not overwritten. I like artistically what we do with The Guardian, but at the same time it's commercial TV. I wanted something different."

Apart from the security of knowing that if he felt like it, which he doesn't, he would never have to work again, thanks to the "ridiculously handsome amount of money" a hit US series brings, life hasn't changed much for Baker. The Guardian has bought him a house with a private beach at Malibu where he surfs every morning,and a driver for the 45 minute each way commute to the studio, but Baker isn't into the LA party scene. When he does make a rare red carpet appearance, he does so with aplomb: last year when he presented an award at the Emmys he was the only male to make the 10 Best Dressed list. An interesting leap from his early days in Australia appearing in commercials for Drumstick ice creams and dancing in Melissa Tkautzs music video Read My Lips.

With 16 hour days (having the driver allows him to learn his lines travelling to and from the studio) while The Guardian is being filmed, spare time is spent at home with Rigg, Stella, 10, Claude, 5, and Harry, 2, surfing, which is a passion, kicking a ball with the kids, barbecuing and hanging out with good friends including Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts. "I'm pretty much a homebody. I love being with Bec. I don't have a lot of very close friends. Although I have a lot of 'associates' now. I skirt around the edges of being involved in the society there. Nicole and Naomi are good friends of
ours. Bec and Nic and Naomi are inseparable. Bec went to school with Nic and they're very thick."

Indeed, when Kidman made her first public appearance following her separation from Tom Cruise at the premiere of her film The Others in 2001, she was supported by Watts on one side and a very pregnant Rigg on the other. Kidman is Harry's godmother and Rigg went into labour with Stella while she and Baker were attending Watts's farewell party when she left Australia for LA in 1993. When Baker and Rigg married in 1996, Watts was the bridesmaid. "The three of them are like the Witches of Eastwick."

Kidman calls Baker "Hippie Boy" and once described him in an interview as "incredibly masculine and strong, but he has a very sensitive side. You see that when he's with his wife and children". According to Watts, he's a great dancer, despite being shy. If he has had a couple of drinks and there's some good Stones playing, he's apt to jump into a Mick Jagger characterisation."

He laughs when I read the quotes. "I am incredibly shy and sometimes I get antisocial because I'm shy. Sometimes I don't like people because I'm shy, and sometimes I don't feel like giving of myself."

For a naturally shy person the public recognition that comes with a hit show can be difficult. Like the time Baker was in a deli in LA and was accosted by a fan wanting an autograph. Not having any paper, the braless woman lifted her shirt and asked Baker to sign her breasts. He ran away. "Herein lies the challenge of celebrity. To maintain a normalness in your existence. To be able to walk into a restaurant and see people turn their heads to look at you, the challenge is to not let it affect who you are."

It took Baker a while to work out who he is, and you sense it is a journey he is yet to complete. He was born Simon Lucas Baker, grew up as Simon Denny after his parents' marriage broke down when he was two and his mother remarried, changed his name to Baker Denny when he found his biological father and, four years ago, settled on Baker. "It was very frustrating for me: Who the f_ am I? I didn't know my name. Can we not talk about this?" Well, we don't have to talk about it, but he might as well tell me the details himself. He sees the sense of this.

"There was nothing Hollywood about me changing my name. It was about wanting to find out where you fit in the world and where you come from. A lot of that became more potent for me when I was about to become a father myself. So that was the beginning of the saga and it took me to 30 to change back to Baker. It was really a process of letting go a lot of emotional baggage and guilt and all that sort of stuff and realising I am of my own self who I am. So it was going full circle. Who you are and the moments that you have just before you go to sleep-if you're at peace in those moments, then nothing else matters."

And is he at peace in those moments? "I sometimes get anxious and regretful. On the whole family stuff, I'm trying to catch up on my extended family because it was somewhat of a disenfranchised experience, so I missed a lot. And now I have my own family, instead of going woe is me, I didn't have the wonderful family experience growing up, the buck stops here. I'm very protective of my family."

Indeed, family seems to be the over-riding priority in Baker's life. "I have a certain element of self destruction, self?loathing and the fact that I have a family and a wife has given me a sense of responsibility and a purpose and I owe a lot of where I am to that. My wife has always been a real rock for me."

Baker was born in Tasmania, his mother Elizabeth was a teacher and his father Barry was a school caretaker. They split when Baker was two and Elizabeth married a butcher named Tom Denny; they have since divorced. The family moved to Lennox Head, near Byron Bay in northern NSW. Baker's older sister Terri became a doctor and he has three younger half siblings. After scraping through Year 12, Baker moved to Sydney to attend nursing school. "It was a weird get out of town thing. I would have made a terrible nurse, I wouldn't have had the patience, 'Stop your bloody whingeing, I've got a hangover'."

After three months he quit nursing and worked in a pub with stints as a bricklayer, a waiter and a poolboy/bellboy at Sanctuary Cove in Queensland. "I met this guy who was doing commercials. We were going for a surf and he said he had to stop for an audition. I was in the waiting roomand the woman asked me if I wanted to audition. I got the commercial." Acting came about more by accident than design when E Street producer Forrest Redlich spotted Baker dancing in a music video. "I'd always thought Id like to be an actor, but I think everyone has that sort of fantasy. I was always the entertainer in the family. I think I adopted the role of the caretaker, make it all OK, make everybody laugh, come out of my room, 'Everyone OK now?' Go back to my room."

There's a knock on the door. It's the PRs telling us our time's up Baker is lying on the couch and makes no move to rouse himself. "We're still going," he yells at the door. "Go away." And they do.

"You know," he continues, "acting is the only way I've been able to articulate certain things. It's why I love acting, I want to be able to express things to people or for people that I can't necessarily rticulate. Acting is a form of _expression I wouldn't have had "

How interesting that he should find such a vent for self _expression in The Guardian's flawed Nick Fallin, a high flying corporate lawyer brought back to earth with a thud after being arrested for drug offences, and then sentenced to work in legal aid. The somewhat surly character is sorely tested as he trudges between the two disparate worlds. "But through that stunted personality there is so much I can explore," says Baker. "Nick Fallin is the kind of guy you'd like to love but he doesn't have a phone?line to the rest of the world. He's isolated from the world and he just can't make that leap. You will him to do it and when he does make the leap you see what a struggle it is for him. It's not about what he does, it's about what he doesn't do and what is not there, what's missing. "

Simon Baker is a bundle of contradictions - a sociable introvert who spurns self-analysis, a man who likes to live in the moment while worrying about education and health and the state of the world. "Yes, there are things about me that are diametrically opposed and I shift between them constantly. Not comfortably. I'm someone who craves simplicity. I am a worrier, absolutely, but you always have to look for the simplicity.

"I remember someone who was going through real emotional turmoil saying to me, 'If you look at the sky, it's still there'. The simplicity of things like that are the things that keep me centred. I think I probably am a bit of a mixed up mess of a man. But that's all right, I think if I was able to work everything out, then where is the mystery and challenge of life?"

Gina Torres will take a recurring role on the FOX drama "24."

After spending last season bouncing around the Joss Whedon universe between "Firefly" and "Angel," actress Gina Torres will take a recurring role on the FOX drama "24."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Torres will play the wife of a major donor to President Palmer's (Dennis Haysbert) political campaign. With Penny Johnson Jerald's Sherry Palmer also set to return, perhaps sparks will fly.

Developing a reputation for small, but colorful parts, Torres' other credits include a recurring role on syndicated "Hercules" (and appearances on "Xena: Warrior Princess"), the starring gig on "Cleopatra 2525," a stint as the nefarious Anna Espinosa on "Alias" and visits to the likes of "NYPD Blue" and "The Agency."


After the cancellation of "Firefly" last season, Whedon wrote Torres (who played Zoe on the sci-fi Western) the part of unstable, god-like Jasmine on "Angel."
On the big screen, Torres has been seen this year in the second and third films in the "Matrix" series.

In other FOX casting news, Sherilyn Fenn will return to "Boston Public" for at least four more episodes, playing the former stripper dating Anthony Heald's vice principal character.

Meanwhile, "The Mummy" co-star Patricia Velazquez will drop by freshman comedy "Arrested Development" as a Latin soap star involved with star Jason Bateman. Velazquez has also signed for 13 episodes on Gregory Nava's PBS drama "American Family."

From Zap2it

Fran''s Sundance double(It''s about Simon''s new film)

From:The Age
Date:December 5, 2003
By Peter Mitchell


Picture: Reuters

Perhaps Robert Redford should rename next month's Sundance Film Festival the Frances O'Connor Festival.

The Australian actress will be highly visible at what has become one of the most important dates on the calendar for independent filmmakers to showcase their work.

It has also become a must visit for Hollywood studios looking to buy Oscar-worthy or box office potential films.

O'Connor, 34, is the star of two films at the 10-day festival in Utah - Book of Love and Iron Jawed Angels.

"Sundance is the premier independent film festival, so it's great for Frances to have one film there," O'Connor's Beverly Hills-based manager Rob Marsala told AAP.

"But to have two is fantastic."

ompetition among filmmakers to win a spot at Sundance is intense.

Sundance organisers had 688 entries for the 16 spots open in the festival's prized dramatic category.

O'Connor's Book of Love, set in New York and co-starring another Australian actor, Simon Baker, was one of the 16 features selected.


Iron Jawed Angels, co-starring O'Connor, Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston, will have its world premiere at Sundance. The film is entered in the premieres section of the festival.

In Iron Jawed Angels, O'Connor and Swank play young activists who risk their lives in the early 1900s to push for women to have the right to vote in America.

"It's a fantastic story about two women who got the vote for women in America," O'Connor, who is now based in London but grew up in Perth, told AAP.

"They went to prison, went on hunger strikes. It's an amazing story."

Also carrying the Australian flag at Sundance are Naomi Watts and director John Curran. Their film, We Don't Live Here Anymore, was selected in the dramatic competition.

Redford established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers in 1980 and its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential.

Appearances at Sundance by Geoffrey Rush's Shine and Sissy Spacek's In the Bedroom in past years helped launch their Oscar campaigns.

This year's festival takes place from January 15 to 25 at Park City, Utah.

New drama sounds like "The Guardian"

Sci Fi Exhumes 'Dead Lawyers'
(Wednesday, December 03 10:07 AM)


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.

What is the difference between a dead lawyer and a squished skunk in the road?

The vultures will eat the skunk.
Aware that there's always room for another lawyer joke, Sci Fi Channel is developing the drama pilot "Dead Lawyers," from Zanuck Co. and Sony Pictures TV. Sean Patrick Flanery and Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham have signed on to star in the project.

The drama, which sounds like a cross between "Dead Like Me" and "The Guardian," features Flanery as Jimmy Quinn, a ruthless, soulless attorney to the rich and famous. When he dies in a car crash, Quinn is sent back to Earth where he must work pro bono cases until he can undo all of the harm he has apparently done to society. He joins mentor Abraham at a law firm of dead attorneys, all of whom are similarly trying to atone for their corporate sins.

Emmy winner Paris Barclay ("NYPD Blue") will direct the pilot, written by Christopher Murphey.

Flannery had his big break as one of the stars of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles." His feature credits include "Powder" and "Boondock Saints," while he has been seen on the small screen in "The Dead Zone." This past pilot season, he starred in "Then Came Jones" for ABC.

Abraham won his Oscar for 1984's "Amadeus." Since earning that honor, his track record has been decidedly mixed. The thespian has appeared in "Surviving the Game," "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "Star Trek: Insurrection" and "Thirteen Ghosts."

Production on "Dead Lawyers" is set to begin this month in Toronto.

'Guardian' crew ensures city references are authentic on CBS drama

Office of Burton Fallin (Dabney Coleman)
on the set of "The Guardian."


Story and photos by Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

CULVER CITY, Calif. -- It's Pittsburgh by way of Hollywood on the set of CBS's legal drama "The Guardian." Midway through its third season, the Pittsburgh-set series continues to export our city to the rest of the country and the world (an Australian fan visited Pittsburgh earlier this fall because of the show, which also airs overseas).

Aside from occasional week-long shoots on the streets of Pittsburgh, most of the scenes featured on "The Guardian" emanate from the Sony studios in Southern California, where the production crew takes great care to throw in little Pittsburgh touches.

Of course, not every Pittsburgh reference makes locals happy. Last week's episode included a put-down of Dormont that upset some residents and Mayor Tom Lloyd. In the episode, Lulu Archer (Wendy Moniz) tried to win a case for a poor client who'd been squatting in a home slated for demolition. Burton Fallin (Dabney Coleman), lawyer for the developer, offered the man a free apartment in Dormont as compensation.

"Dormont?" Lulu said. "That's not a very nice neighborhood."

Series creator David Hollander, a native of neighboring Mt. Lebanon, described it as a simple negotiation scene between two lawyers, one attempting to win more money from the other.

"It certainly wasn't meant as a personal jab at Dormont ..." Hollander wrote in an e-mail yesterday. "If feelings were hurt, I send my apologies."

Upsetting Pittsburghers is rare for "The Guardian." Usually crews have little difficulty getting cooperation from locals in making the show as realistic as possible. For an episode earlier this season, property master Matt Cavaliero tried to duplicate body bags used by the Allegheny County Coroner for use in a scene.

"We try to make it as accurate as possible," he said, crediting the coroner's office for providing photos of the body bags as models. "A lot of people would say it's incidental, but we try to the best of our ability to make it so that it's the way it's supposed to be."

Cavaliero has put Iron City beer magnets on refrigerators, a University of Pittsburgh mouse pad on the show's police station set, uses to-go coffee cups from Coffee Tree Roasters and Nicholas Coffee in Market Square, and got a box from A&B Donuts in Munhall.

In his office, Pittsburgh detritus is everywhere. Printouts from the Port Authority Web site are taped to the wall, Pittsburgh phone books are on a nearby shelf and files of Pittsburgh "stuff" fill the room.

"My difficulty is not getting the stuff; it's getting the stuff on the air," Cavaliero said. "A lot of times we have more stuff than we can handle."

"The Guardian" is pre-empted tonight (a new episode airs Dec. 16), but these pictures will at least give you a glimpse behind the scenes.

From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Crew brings touches of Pittsburgh to Hollywood

Story and photos by Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Displayed prominently on the wall of the office occupied by Burton Fallin (Dabney Coleman), a photo of Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy at PNC Park hangs on the wall beneath a clock. It's signed to a "Joe."

Property master Matt Cavaliero said the photo came from Mayor Murphy's office. "Here's an example of trying to be authentic," he said. "We used the real mayor of Pittsburgh to help place the setting and people who live there recognize that."

The identity of "Joe" remains a mystery, although production designer Caty Maxey suspects it may have been the name of a "Guardian" staffer who requested the photo.


Inside The Incline bar/restaurant, it's a treasure trove of Pittsburgh paraphernalia. From Heinz ketchup on the tables to a Rolling Rock metal sign on the wall, Western Pennsylvania is well-represented.

Cavaliero said the crew changes the taps at the bar regularly, always trying to have a Pennsylvania beer represented. "We have Yuengling, [one from] Penn Brewery and Iron City. My favorite is the Iron City tap because I think it looks the coolest."

The show's art department created the menu for The Incline. Series creator and Pittsburgh native David Hollander described to his staff the feeling he wanted the place to connote. "In his mind he knew places it was like in Pittsburgh, and he tried to explain it to us in terms of restaurants in Los Angeles that reminded him of what he was going for," Cavaliero said. He dined at one L.A. eatery Hollander suggested to get a better feel for what the show's creator envisioned. "It's not just the stuff you see, but also the stuff that's not there intentionally," he said. "We very rarely use Corona in there because it's more Southern California than it is Pittsburgh."


On the set of Legal Services of Pittsburgh, Simon Baker and Wendy Moniz (back left) prepare to film a scene from an episode that aired earlier this season. The camera is inside the office that once belonged to James Mooney (on the left, behind Baker), preparing to film Baker and Moniz as they enter. The director watches the scene on a monitor at the "video village" set up inside what used to be Alvin Masterson's office (straight back with bright light reflecting). That office once held this print showing the Pittsburgh skyline, but none of the current designers knows its origin.


Stage 21 at Sony houses "swing" sets, those that are used occasionally but not every week on "The Guardian," including Lulu's house, Nick's home, the police station and the hospital.

There's also a sign wall featuring street signs used when the show goes on location in Los Angeles and tries to double for Pittsburgh.

"Our main challenges are architecture -- we try to get brick or clapboard buildings and try to stay away from adobe and stucco -- and palm trees are always an issue," said Maxey.

Cavaliero said Hollander always tells the crew what part of Pittsburgh an exterior scene is to be set in to help them better replicate a realistic sense of place.


"He has an idea if it's Shadyside or South Side and we try to pick a place that will simulate to that," he said. "People watching at home won't always see that, but we try to arm ourselves with that kind of information."


Photo of Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy at PNC Park hangs on the wall beneath a clock. It's signed to a "Joe."


"Incline" menu


thePittsburgh skyline print

From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette