Baker in it for the dough

Making a spectacle ... Simon Baker

From:Northern Territory News
Date:04aug05
By Michael Bodey


SIMON Baker left Australia to try his luck in Hollywood when Australia wasn't so hot. Today, Australian actors are so hot over there, it's bad for our industry and bad for the actors.

Now the local industry is dominated by first-time filmmakers, Baker says, and our actors are at risk of becoming deluded in Hollywood.

"Because of these guys, Russell, Nicole, Naomi, Geoffrey, Hugh, Americans associate Australians automatically with good work, straight away," Baker says.

"It used to be the English could do no wrong but I can't tell you how many kid's birthday parties or whatever I go to and Americans go, 'You guys are the best actors in the world'.

"That's a leg up. So even if you've done diddly squat, don't know your way around a set and you're just out of acting school, NIDA or what have you, and you show up there, they're assuming, whether it's a good thing for you or not, that you're a decent actor."

Baker can speak with some insight. After leaving Australia with a Best New Talent Logie under his arm, he's worked long and hard to make it there. His run as TV's The Guardian helped while his latest film, Land Of The Dead, is another lead role in a major studio movie after his role opposite good friend Naomi Watts in The Ring 2.

It also marks the return of zombie film legend George A. Romero, and a change in tack for the normally serious Baker.

"I look at it like this. I had a great time doing it and didn't regret it for a minute," he says. "It was liberating because in the past I've had a highbrow sort of snobbery and hang-ups of certain things."

Land Of The Dead isn't highbrow but in the realm of popcorn movies, it's not exactly lowbrow either.

Romero is the master of zombie films, a genre of horror film that has been used and abused since his first low-budget cult hit, 1968's Night Of The Living Dead. He's made other films since but it's his zombie films, including Day Of The Dead and Dawn Of The Dead, that ensured his place in cult history.

Baker was first approached to star in a remake of Romero's Dawn Of The Dead while he was filming The Guardian in the US.

"I was, like, there's no way," Baker says. "Why? It's been done.

It was relevant to the time it came out and that was the beauty of George's films. Why do a remake of that movie now when the whole essence of that film was political comment back in the 70s?"

Then Romero soon beckoned with his own project, Land Of The Dead, in which zombies finally infiltrate the last human outpost.

"When George was doing it, I thought, hang on, here's this post-9/11 world where people are able to use fear as the tool to manipulate and kind of control the masses.

"The parallels with what's going on in Western society at the moment were too great."

Besides, the raffish 36-year-old has got to a point where his self assessment is far sharper.

"I take the work seriously while I'm working but I won't take myself too seriously. They're movies for God sakes, people sit and eat popcorn and drink fizzy drink and go out half way through to take a p***. You're not saving the world."

Baker's stoicism comes from a US career that has had its ups and downs. After breaking through with a distinctive cameo in LA Confidential, Baker couldn't find the film that would propel his career forward. Until he became The Guardian, and was watched by 12 million Americans a week.

He knows only too well it's a flighty industry.

"A lot of people take themselves way too seriously," he says. "It's something that hit me just as I'm getting older. I've been working now for years and I'm not an Oscar-winning actor, I'm not an iconic character, I'm just a guy who works as an actor and makes a living doing it to support my family."

* Land Of The Dead opens today

From Northern Territory News .