Baker in a black hat in 'Margin Call'

Actor Simon Baker rarely reads the financial pages in the newspaper, but in 2008 when the economy cratered, he started paying attention.

[...] the arcane details of the crisis struck him as almost like a foreign language.

[...] he's come to a deeper understanding of it, as one of the key players in "Margin Call," writer-director J.C. Chandor's sleek thriller set in one of those "too big to fail" investment banking firms at the dawn of the debacle.

Realizing that they are teetering on the brink of disaster, a group of executives spring into action to save their Wall Street firm, regardless of the consequences for Main Street at large.

In a powerhouse ensemble that includes Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto and Penn Badgley, Baker plays a decisive top lieutenant in the firm who acts without panic or pangs of conscience.

That's what the stock market was all about, it was all about keeping the money flowing, so that we could make things.

[...] we just juggle money backward and forward and try to make more money out of it.

Margin Call" is an unusual movie in that there are no heroes, but Baker argues that there are no villains either, not even his own "black hat.

After getting his start in Australia, where he won a Logie, a television award, for most popular new talent in 1993 for his role in the series "E Street," Baker came to the United States.

[...] there's always this desire to be around people who know more than me, who I think have more experience and who I look up to and who will challenge me a bit.