Simon Baker has been a crime-fighting psychic, lawyer and gay movie star during his career, but he was playing the role of art connoisseur at the opening of the Tom Roberts exhibition in Canberra. 
The former Home and Away actor and star of The Mentalist was at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra on Wednesday as spruiker of its major summer show.
But Baker sought to play down his Hollywood star power and artistic expertise. "I'm not here as a politician, I'm not here as an art historian," he said. "I'm just a general punter."
As the gallery's inaugural "ambassador", Baker was anxious to emphasise the show's appeal beyond art historians and snobs. "I think it's something as Australians, you don't have to be an art historian, you don't have to be a snob to want to come and see the art."
The Tom Roberts retrospective features more than 130 works, from iconic paintings such as Shearing the Rams and A Break Away! to pastels, prints and portraits. It also includes the enormous The Opening of the First Parliament, which was moved from Parliament House.
Many of the works are borrowed from the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of NSW and private collectors.
NGA director Gerard Vaughan said the retrospective, the first in three decades, would provide a deeper understanding of the artist. He said it was an "experiment" to program a summer blockbuster of an Australian artist's work rather than the usual imported show.
Vaughan said the gallery had "definitely" hired Baker's star power to attract a different demographic: "That's absolutely true. A lot of museums around the world have ambassadors - well-known people, celebrities, who stand up and say, 'This is worth looking at'."
He added: "We're going to begin a program of recruiting a number of well-known people ... who will become NGA ambassadors and Simon's first cab off the rank."
Vaughan said the gallery, which has also rehung its collection, was confident of attracting more than 100,000 paying customers.
Baker credited his wife Rebecca Rigg with introducing him to "the idea of taking time to wander around art galleries around the world". "What thrills me about Tom Roberts is that, you know, his landscapes really capture Australian light," he said.
The Tom Roberts exhibition is open from   December 4 to   March 28, 2016.