20-06-2025
Simon Baker cuts a casual figure in Birkenstock slides at Italian festival
Simon Baker has stepped out on the world stage in true Australian fashion - in open toed footwear.
The acclaimed TV actor, 55, attended the opening night of the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival in a crisp shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of Birkenstock slides.
He is among the Hollywood talent attending the 8th edition of the unique festival designed to promote Italian and international cinema and support young talent.
Simon looked every inch the laidback A-lister as he posed with Twilight star Ashley Greene and General Director of the festival Tiziana Rocca at a press conference on Thursday.
Simon, who returned to Australia last year to star as Gus and Eli's alcoholic father in the acclaimed Netflix hit Boys Swallows Universe, will receive the Filming Italy Excellence Award.
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Simon will engage in masterclasses with young students from schools and universities of the Academy Cinema, alongside actors Alec Baldwin, Heather Graham, Jane Seymour, and Fran Drescher.
In 2016, the Emmy-winning star traded the Hollywood studios of Los Angeles for his childhood home in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, and 'indie' projects far from the world of The Mentalist.
'Once you start to assimilate back into our culture, you also realise there's a beautiful frankness to Australians that is priceless,' he told Esquire Australia in April.
'There's no flowery way of putting things, it's just direct. And that level of authenticity is grounding. It's like a cosy blanket. It's very comfortable and familiar for me.'
Simon, who played the elusive Christian Thompson in The Devil Wears Prada, recently broke his silence on whether he will appear in the long-awaited sequel alongside his old co-stars Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep.
'I haven't got the call up yet,' he told SkyNews. 'So I don't know- probably not, no.'
The actor, who landed the career-changing role in 2006, went on to reveal that his very blonde eyebrows have put him off ever watching the movie.
His friend's wife had pointed out his bizarre look in the popular film.
'What the f*** is going on with your eyebrows in that movie?' she asked him.
When he probed her for more details about his appearance in the movie, she told him: 'They just had like their own f***ing thing going on.
When asking another friend about his eyebrows in the flick, they told him they were just 'surfy', sun-bleached and needed a bit of a 'trim'.
The comments have left a lasting impression on actor, who decided to never watch the film as a result.
'It's gotten to the point now where The Devil Wears Prada is such a beloved movie that it's literally like baiting the hook and throwing it overboard and getting a bite straight away, whenever I say that I've never seen it,' he said.
