While I always felt the sociopath, antisocial side of the Patrick Jane character, which actually made the show click for me, other journalists on the junket point out that his role in Limbo isn’t one we are used to seeing Baker in. He does continue, perhaps explaining himself since I must look disappointed with his short answer, “most people who have a lot of personal armor are incredibly vulnerable beneath it, so understanding the psychology of why the guy was like he is was kind of a key for me.” Baker continues, explaining even further, “how that manifests physically on the screen, whether that’s a posture, or the adornment of tattoos, or the sort of disinterest and lack of emotional availability, the character then does kind of come back to connect, emotionally, to this family, through their trauma.” Baker admits that the character’s arc proved an interesting journey for the actor playing him. “As a general statement, you could say it was a darkish character but it was a guy who had a lot of personal armor.” I’d dare to say, in that sense, quite similar to the actor playing him - who keeps his grey tinted glasses on for the duration of his interviews. I enjoyed the departure,” Baker answers, speaking softly, almost whispering. What was it like to play this character, Travis Hurley, someone so different from Patrick Jane, and yet in some ways so similar? “It was good. If you substitute Australia for middle America, and the indigenous cast with an African-American one, it could be a story that plays all too frequently on US soil, of police indifference when faced with crime perpetuated on the Black community. ![]() Personally, I’m surprised the film isn’t submitted for any award race, as it is both visually stunning but also socially important. Plus the way he shoots up heroin and slowly begins to collapse on the bed of his motel, in junkie slow motion, it is everything one could observe in Tompkins Square Park, during the days when New Yorkers called it “Needle Park”. Even Baker’s extended stomach in the film feels real - and we checked, he definitely didn’t sport one in real life. In Limbo, Baker once again messes with our impression of him and his golden boy looks, by playing a junkie cop sent to the mostly indigenous region of Coober Pedy in Southern Australia, to reopen the investigation on a 20 year old cold case. He will also be In Conversation in the next days, gathering more fans and re-engaging his old ones in the process. Baker is in Morocco to attend the Marrakech International Film Festival, with his latest film, Ivan Sen’s moody Limbo. In the process, he’s out to get the psychopath who killed his family… Now that wouldn’t sound like a heroic role, but in Baker’s hands he turned Jane into not only every woman’s dream around the world, but also a likable lead who helped explain why bad boys, and broken men are so good.įast forward to the present day and Baker has left Hollywood in favor of his homeland Australia where he lives on his, what he calls “little property, I’ve got some cows,” he confesses, during an interview conducted inside La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech. Never one to get by just on his good looks alone, Baker then embarked on TV’s The Mentalist where, for 8 years, he played Patrick Jane, a golden curls sporting sociopath ex con man who helps the California Bureau of Investigation as a consultant. What I mean is, for someone that handsome, he possessed some serious acting chops. The young Australian actor’s method seemed so unorthodox, he immediately found a fan in me. While we may know the Australian star for his popular TV turns, including the long running American show ‘The Mentalist’, he’s a cinematic acting force to be reckoned with in Ivan Sen’s Aussie black and white moody outback noir.įirst time I ever watched Simon Baker act, it was in Ang Lee’s American revisionist Western Ride with the Devil.
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