Who is Simon Baker? We take a look inside the decades-long career, net worth, and more about the Mentalist actor, who now stars with Nicole Kidman in Amazon’s new crime thriller, Scarpetta.
The Mentalist’s return to Netflix signals one thing: That Australian actor and director Simon Baker, who recently dusted off his procedural crime drama hat for Amazon Prime’s Scarpetta alongside Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis, is once again ready to step into a leading man era. Whether you’re a newcomer to the Mentalist universe, or starting your next rewatch after falling in love with Patrick Jane in the early 2000s, we’re here to shed some light on who Simon Baker truly is, from his humble beginnings in Hollywood to his career, net worth, and more.
When Amazon Prime first announced an upcoming series based on author Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta book series, fans of Simon Baker, whose most notable role is arguably that of consultant detective Patrick Jane in The Mentalist (2008 — 2015) immediately rose up to rejoice. A darling of the 1990s soap circuit in Australia, the 56-year-old actor and director’s induction into Hollywood came not as a lightning bolt, but as a slow-burn that has brought him into the quiet, yet powerful echelons of seasoned celebrities whose works prioritise performance over paycheque, and authenticity over fame.
But before the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown, there was a young surfer of Tasmanian origin with a charming ease, a pleasing smile, and a knack for performance.
Who is Simon Baker?
Simon Lucas Baker was born in Launceston, Tasmania, on July 30, 1969 — a Leo native, whose charisma and charm are easy evidence of his zodiac sign. His father, mechanic and school caretaker Barry, and mother, high-school English teacher Elizabeth, separated when he was two, an event that led to his estrangement from the former until their reconnection when he was an adult. With an older sister, two half-brothers and a half-sister, Baker’s family tree also includes a stepfather Tom Denny, whom his mother later divorced.
As a youth, Baker moved between towns and countries. Notably, at just nine months old, his family relocated to New Guinea in Papua New Guinea.
However, they eventually returned to Australia, and he spent part of his youth living in the Sydney suburbs, attending Ballina High School and Trinity Catholic College in the Northern Rivers coastal town of Lennox Head in New South Wales.
Baker is an ardent fan of sports. He is both a supporter of the Parramatta Eels rugby league club in the National Rugby League, as well as a passionate surfer, a love that led him to seriously consider a career in professional surfing prior to acting. While Baker first started modelling at age 6, his earlier years saw him dabbling in multiple odd jobs in search of the right fit, including stints as a brick labourer and in the hospitality industry.
Interestingly, Baker even considered a nursing career before ultimately deciding it was not the right path to pursue. His foray into acting came about by pure serendipity, as he landed his first acting role in a commercial whilst waiting for his friend, who had been auditioning for the part.
Success and sincerity
Before taking his striking good looks to Hollywood, Baker made his mark in local television. The earliest years of his career saw him acting in Australian television shows, including E Street (1992 — 1993), where he starred as Constable Sam Farrell over 112 episodes. Between 1993 and 1996, he appeared in yet more homegrown productions, including A Country Practice (1993), Home and Away (1993 — 1994), Heartbreak High (1995 — 1996), and Sweat (1996).
In 1997, Baker got his first Hollywood break when he scored a supporting role in L.A. Confidential, a neo-noir crime thriller where he worked alongside established actors from Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe to Guy Pearce and Danny DeVito. His captivating on-screen presence quickly took Hollywood by storm, and by 2001, he had appeared in multiple other roles in films including Restaurant (1998), Judas Kiss (1998), Love From Ground Zero (1998), Sunset Strip (2000), Red Planet (2000), and The Affair of the Necklace (2001).
Having established a significant portfolio on the silver screen, Baker moved on to television, appearing as Nick Fallin in legal drama The Guardian between 2001 to 2004, before appearing in crime drama Smith in 2006. While Smith was sadly cancelled after only three episodes had aired, the best was yet to come: The Mentalist.
The Mentalist years
Between 2008 to 2015, Baker thrilled audiences in The Mentalist, a procedural crime drama beloved by fans of the genre. In the series, Baker portrays former psychic and conman Patrick Jane to great aplomb.
Notably, Jane uses his exceptional intelligence, observational skills, and cold reading abilities to help authorities solve crime, all in the pursuit of a notorious serial killer Red John who is responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter.
For his performance as Jane, Baker earned numerous award nominations, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (2009), a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama (2010) and Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series (2010).
He also received two People’s Choice Award nominations in 2010 and 2015 in the Favorite TV Crime Fighter and Favorite Crime Drama TV Actor categories. While Baker ultimately failed to win the honours, the nominations themselves are proof of his acting prowess and presence, signalling to Hollywood that he was primed and ready to lead productions.
In his Mentalist years, Baker also continued to rack up Hollywood credits. He famously appeared in The Ring Two (2005), and financial thriller and drama Margin Call (2011) alongside Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci among others.
Along the way, he also picked up the role of Christian Thompson in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), though he has since shared that he will not be making an appearance in the upcoming sequel.
A return to Australian roots
Following the end of The Mentalist, Baker relocated back to Australia, where he made a distinctive, and welcome shift in the selection of his projects. Notably, his filmography in the post-Mentalist years reads like a carefully-curated list of projects selected not for their earning potential, but for the depth of the roles offered. Here is a man honing his craft, unapologetic in his discernment.
Speaking to The Nightly, Baker shared that he made this decision because he ‘wanted to do something different, something more’. “I was constantly trying to get some sort of artistic relevance into that as much as possible,” he said, adding, “But at the same time, I knew what it was. You’ve got to build the building that you’re building and exist with that. I came back and made my own film and I was looking to work on projects that I felt had some sort of emotional resonance for me.”
Since then, he’s worked on multiple projects that have spoken to his personal passions. In 2016, he directed, starred in, co-produced, and co-wrote Breath (2017), a sports drama film based on the 2008 novel by Tim Winton, where he delved into the world of his first love — surfing. He later appeared in High Ground (2020), a drama based on the historical events in Arnhem Land in the North Australia, set just after World War I.
What followed was Blaze (2022) and Limbo (2023), as well as Netflix’s coming-of-age series Boy Swallows Universe (2024) and Australian drama miniseries, The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2025) alongside Jacob Elordi.
Scarpetta, and his relationship with Nicole Kidman
In Amazon Prime’s upcoming drama Scarpetta, Baker makes a triumphant return to procedural crime solving as Benton Wesley. Wesley is an FBI profiler who is married to the eponymous protagonist of the series, forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta, portrayed by fellow Australian and Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman. The series is based on Patricia Cornwell’s highly popular Scarpetta books, and also stars fellow Academy Award winner Jamie Lee Curtis, The Mentalist alum Amanda Righetti, and Bobby and Jake Cannavale.
While fans are understandably excited to see Baker’s charm play out alongside Kidman’s heroine, this will be the duo’s second time playing husband and wife on-screen, with the first being Roar, an anthology on Apple TV+. In the episode “The Woman Who Ate Photographs”, the pair portray Robin, a woman struggling with mental decline while dealing with her mother’s dementia, and her husband Adam.
Speaking on Scarpetta and how it has lured him back into the fold of Hollywood, Baker said, “I thought this was quite ambitious, and I think this is a richly layered show, and I’m curious to see how audiences respond to it because I think it’s quite good.”
He added, “I’m a bit snobby about TV stuff, which sounds interesting given I was on The Mentalist, which was sort of straight-up free-to-air fodder. But in this day and age, when shows like Chernobyl had come out, and you’ve got these great prestige series, I’m in for that, I’m all about that.”
Personal life and relationships
Baker was married to actress Rebecca Rigg for 29 years, between 1998 to 2020. The couple shared three children: actress Stella Baker, and two boys, Claude Blue Baker and Harry Friday Baker. The actor dated fashion designer Laura My Gibbs, but the two split in late 2021 after she attended an anti-vaccination protest in Australia, following the harrowing events of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, Baker has been linked to photographer Brigette Clark, and the two were recently spotted strolling together in New York.
What is the net worth of Simon Baker in 2026?
With a successful decades-long career, it comes as little surprise that Simon Baker has amassed a significant net worth of USD 40 million in 2026. While he has appeared in multiple high-profile shows, Baker’s top-earning project is undoubtedly The Mentalist, from which he reportedly netted over USD 30 million, with reports suggesting a per-episode salary of USD 350,000 to USD 400,000 in the earlier seasons, plus producer fees and syndication profits.
By 2010 to 2011, Baker was reportedly making between USD 350,000 to USD 435,000 per episode, with a 2010 contract for another season valued at USD 30 million. According to Forbes, Baker stood among the highest-paid TV actors by the time the series ended in 2015, when he earned an estimated USD 12 million.
(Main and featured image: The Mentalist/TheMovieDB)
This article first appeared here
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.