Simon Baker is making his grand return to TV, nine years after hit series The Mentalist wrapped up on-air.
The Aussie actor is starring in the new Australian drama series Boy Swallows Universe in an emotionally-charged role as a functioning alcoholic father-of-two.
However, the 52-year-old tells 9honey Celebrity that part of the attraction to the Brisbane-set project was that he wasn’t the main character this time around.
Watch the video above.
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“[A] good positive for me was that the burden of the show is not on my shoulders, it’s nice to be part of an ensemble,” Baker says.
“Felix Cameron and Lee, who play Eli and Gus, they had the burden of responsibility with this but then all of the the other characters, they all have great stories within the bigger piece and so it was an interesting role.
“There’s not many times as an actor that you get opportunities to get more into character, like do more character stuff, and I’ve been looking for that a bit more more recently in my career.”
Alongside Baker, the adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name by Australian author Trent Dalton also boasts the likes of Bryan Brown, Travis Fimmel, Phoebe Tonkin and Anthony LaPaglia.
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Plus, Aussie actor and director Joel Edgerton is one of the Executive Producers of the seven-part limited series.
It’s something Baker, who is also a director, wishes he’d jumped on earlier.
“The book had a feeling to it and then the book was hugely successful,” Baker tells 9Honey Celebrity.
“I remember my mum reading it and telling me about it and she was like, ‘I think you should read this, you’d love this’ and my agent called me early on when the book first came out, and I think she was even saying to me, ‘you should try to get the rights to this’ but other people already had them, I missed that boat, but it was nice to be involved anyway.”
After making a start in acting on shows like A Country Practice, E Street and Home & Away, Baker’s big breakthrough in Hollywood came from his role as Patrick Jane on The Mentalist.
In terms of films, arguably his biggest role so far has been in the cult-classic rom-com The Devil Wears Prada but Baker tells 9Honey Celebrity he’s “never seen the film” so unlike his former co-stars Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway did recently, he couldn’t say what his character – journalist Christian Thompson – would be up to these days.
“I can’t even remember what the character [does at the end of the film] I don’t know – maybe he’d be working at Nine.com,” Baker tells 9Honey Celebrity with a laugh.
Boy Swallows Universe will have it’s red carpet premiere in Brisbane before all episodes stream on Netflix from January 11.
Nine Entertainment Co (the publisher of this website) owns and operates the streaming service Stan.