SUBMITTED BY Lincoln

July 11, 2003 — Young Canadian actor Simon Baker was interviewed for Ron Howard's "The Missing" in The Vancouver Province.

The director, working on a follow-up to his Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind, gave Baker the part without even meeting him first, after seeing clips of his work in the Vancouver-filmed drug drama On the Corner.

"When I walked in for the read-through, Ron comes up to me and says, 'You must be Simon Baker -- you're the first actor I've ever hired sight unseen.'"

The notoriously gruff Jones wasn't nearly that talkative.

"He is a man of few words," Baker says. "One of the actors gave him a compliment, said, 'Tommy, you have great instincts.' Tommy looks over at the guy -- I was sitting right next to him -- he said, 'You know what instinct is? It's when two dogs are mating.' The actor curled up in his chair."