Tackling the zombies of Hollywood

Simon Baker in Land of the Dead.



From:Sydney Morning Herald
Date:Jul 15 2005
By Mary Colbert

It's a long way from Summer Bay to Land of the Dead, but Simon Baker has no regrets.

As a kid, Simon Baker was never a fan of horror movies. "I had too vivid an imagination; they freaked me out too much," he says. And when he saw a George Romero zombie horror flick as an adolescent kitchenhand and surfer on the Gold Coast, he didn't know what to make of it.

"I'd just inhaled a funny cigarette and it was like, 'Man, what's this?"' He pauses and adds, "Are they likely to put me under house arrest for that admission?"

Yet the former Australian soap dish (E Street, Home and Away), who rose to international fame as the troubled lawyer Nick Fallin in the American TV series The Guardian, finds his biggest American movie role yet is in Romero's upcoming Land of the Dead.

"I never imagined myself doing a zombie movie ever. But I like the idea of not limiting myself. The aim is to mix it up and have fun."

There's still a lot of the surfie about Baker: tanned, slightly freckled, sun-streaked hair, with a laid-back irreverence and, at 35, exuding the boyish adrenaline prompted by his latest cinematic adventure and first action role.

When Baker met Romero, the connection was Pittsburgh - the writer-director's home town and Baker's professional base during the three years of The Guardian series. They knew the same people, spent time in the same hang-outs and discovered they shared similar political views.

"That first meeting inspired me to watch all his films," Baker says. "And then I became really intrigued. I realised they weren't just about zombies, blood and splatter, but a subversive take on American society. It's really a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"The current political climate often makes you want to scream. And I thought what better way to do it than through entertainment, which is pretty much how we've been sold the bill of goods that we have now. I loved [Land of the Dead's] political undertone and allegory, though some critics just don't get it."

Baker co-stars with Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo and Asia Argento in the long-anticipated sequel to Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Romero is regarded as the father of the modern horror film, redefining the genre with explicit violence and satirical overtones in what became cult movies.

Throughout The Guardian years, Baker simultaneously attempted to straddle a movie career. His brilliant three-minute cameo in LA Confidential as the gay actor who had his throat slit gave him some prominence. But co-starring roles with pedigree actors such as Adrien Brody and Hilary Swank in Affair of the Necklace (2001), fellow Australian Frances O'Connor in Book of Love (2004) and close friend Naomi Watts in this year's The Ring Two did not bring him major film kudos.

"I'm not a mainstream guy," Baker admits. "I'm not what you'd call a movie star. I'm a working actor who's always going to have to work hard to make a living. But the beauty is that I get to take a few more risks. A lot of people are bigger than their movies, and I prefer to disappear a bit.

"It's tricky because since the huge success of Australians like Mel Gibson and others after him, we're almost like Olympic athletes now ... I'm not representing my country as an actor but as an individual, though the sporting, competitive side of me makes it feel like a footy game and I have to tackle someone to win. But power is really to be happy within yourself."

Considering the celebrity status induced by The Guardian, Baker seems to have attained an enviable balance. It could be attributed to his working-class background, his real-life training in odd jobs as a nursing student, bricklayer, pizza maker, time-share salesman and pub cellar worker, or it could be the influence of his family.

It may stem, too, from lack of a professional master plan. "I went [to LA], in all honesty, because I was sort of bored." He'd done his share of modelling, music videos, commercials and soaps, but Australian feature films eluded him.

At 26, he left Australia for Los Angeles with his "bedrock and soul-mate" Rebecca Rigg, an actor and now his wife and mother of his three children. (She's a close friend of Nicole Kidman, who is the godmother of their youngest child, and Naomi Watts, their bridesmaid.)

"The Americans make a lot of stuff; some of it's good, some of it's crap, but at least there are a lot of options," Baker says. "In Australia, that wasn't happening for me. We had a child, enough money in the bank for three months and I said, 'Let's just see what happens.' And we're still there."

The pair didn't take Tinseltown by storm. "Since we've been discovered as some freaky genetic talent pool, an actor can arrive with one Australian film and get work. It wasn't like that back then."

How tough was the struggle? "I don't look at it that way," he replies. "Instead of reading one good script in three months, I was going to three auditions a day. It was invigorating."

Then The Guardian transformed Baker's life. "It was a blessing in many ways. With three children, some acting choices are based on pragmatic survival. I did it for a sense of stability."

The effervescent Baker is the antithesis of the show's emotionally detached protagonist, a corporate lawyer in his father's firm sentenced to serve 1500 hours of community service at the children's legal service for a drug arrest.

"I loved that he was a flawed character struggling with issues. The first year I had an absolute ball but continuing to play the same role for two more seasons became difficult.

"One of the reasons I became an actor was that I despised the idea of a regular nine-to-five job. I come from a working-class family and I've always felt that acting was one of the ways of expressing myself and communicating with people ... But for an extended period I was working from 5am to 9pm. Sure, you get paid very well but I'm not obsessed with money so I began to wonder, 'Have I signed a pact with the devil here?"'

After three gruelling years, Baker was somewhat relieved when the series was cancelled. As an actor without formal training, Baker gained confidence from the series' professional relentlessness. "There's a lot to be said for being on set and having to deal with scripts and different directors and the immediacy of it." It set his family up in a house in Malibu, where he surfs regularly, increased his visibility and opened doors. One of them led to Land of the Dead.

Baker plays Riley, a paramilitary leader of mercenaries. In an apocalyptic struggle for survival in a devastated world ruled by ruthless opportunists, survivors live in anarchy behind fortified city walls. Outside, an army of the dead is on the rise and mercenaries have been called in to protect the living.

"I didn't want to do it as a fist-pumping kind of American action hero," Baker says. "[Riley] is more of a throwback to the '70s, a loner who feels responsibility for his people though he doesn't relish it."

Baker can be seen next in Something New, an interracial romantic comedy drama set in LA and directed by Sanaa Hamri. And according to the local industry grapevine, he's been approached for two Australian movie roles, pending financing, rumoured to be in Clancy of the Overflow and Bruce Beresford's Tent Hill Road. But Baker refuses to confirm any speculation, saying simply he'd love to "return for an Oz film".

He would love to make a movie that his kids could see. He would love to live in Europe. Or try directing - "If I ever grow up, that is!"

From Sydney Morning Herald