Interview By: Jeff Wilser
Alec Baldwin is an easy guy to hate. He's good looking, he's smug, he's politically flamboyant, he's a tabloid monger, and during the '90s, he rocketed to a level of superstardom that tends to leaves a sour aftertaste. Once the hottest thing in Hollywood as the original Jack Ryan, more recently, Baldwin provided voices for the videogame Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The bigger they are . . .
That's the Alec Baldwin you know. Here's the one you don't. After sitting down with him for just fifteen minutes, I learned that: 1) he's far kinder to the press than is reported; 2) he cares passionately about his charitable causes, and not just for show; 3) he's always wanted to do a tv sitcom; 4) he thinks that Fox News is, in his owns words, a 'crypto-fascist ministry of information'; and 5) yes, he really is that good looking.
Thanks to his role as a shady casino owner in The Cooler, which garnered an Academy Award nomination, Baldwin's career has made something of a comeback. Next up on the road to recovery is the quirky comedy The Last Shot, in which he plays an FBI agent who pretends to make a movie so that he can entrap a mob boss. In a hotel room at New York's Regency Hotel, he sat down with TheCinemaSource to discuss The Last Shot.
In person, Alec Baldwin looks exactly the way you imagine him: crisp navy suit, slicked-back hair, and the same imperial stare that's so commanding onscreen. The tough-guy demeanor softened, though, once he opened up about his enthusiasm for the film and for writer/director Jeff Nathanson. 'I wanted to do the film because Nathanson is such a great writer. I loved Catch Me if You Can. When I get scripts, so much of what I read is more cute than funny. But Nathanson's script was just so dry and clever.'
Baldwin stars alongside Matthew Broderick, and the unlikely pairing is comedic gold, the same kind of opposing-acting-styles-alchemy that worked so well with De Niro and Stiller in Meet the Parents. He explains: 'When Jeff told me that he was getting Matthew for the part, that was really the capper for me. Matthew's one of those people that just is funny himself. He doesn't really have to do funny things or say funny things. He's like Jack Benny. He just has to say, 'Oh, waiter' and you laugh. The little things he does. When they got Matthew to do this with me I thought, oh God, this is perfect.'
Of course he's known for his bijllion movies'some good, some great, and let's face it, many bad'but underneath it all, he's longed to do a television sitcom of his own: 'For a while I was interested in doing a tv show'for a variety of reasons, one of which was so that I wouldn't have to travel as much, so that I could stay at home with my daughter. Some of the biggest people in the sitcom business would pitch me these ideas, and it was really upsetting. Because none of it was funny. Comedy is so binary'either it's funny or it isn't. Finding good writers is tough. I watched Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond, figuring out what works .'
He pauses, then flashes his patented Alec Baldwin smirk. 'You know where you watch sitcoms now' On the airplane. So I would watch Everybody Loves Raymond on the airplane because it's a very funny show. And I realize everybody's chasing the same four sets of writers. And I thought, what if I didn't have one of the good sets of writers' I'm dead. But I'd love to do a sitcom. I did an episode of Friends and I thought, God, they're each getting a million dollars a week to do this! That seems perfect. But when tv doesn't work, it's very costly. You can think of some film actors that have had some disasters in tv. So I'd rather just keep doing what I'm doing.'
The gossip columns love to rummage through his family's dirty laundry, but they're less likely to share his genuine devotion to charitable causes, such as the 'Wounded Warrior' project. He tells us that, 'The Wounded Warrior project provides these gift bags'I don't want to confuse them with Oscar gift bags'they give these welcome home packages to returning veterans who are injured. When injured veterans come home, many of them have nothing, coming over in surgical gowns.'
He looks me in the eye. 'It's not that any one death or injury is greater than another'it's all tragic what's going on over there'but some of them seem to be more attention-grabbing than others. Whether that's right or wrong. There was one woman who was a star basketball player for Notre Dame; she lost her arm in Iraq. She's one of those people that the Wounded Warriors will visit and present with the gift bag.'
To promote this cause, he did a guest spot on The O'Reilly Factor. Recounting his time on the show fires him up and he speaks with intensity: 'O'Reilly's an interesting guy. Because he's not without talent. I think he must be frustrated that there's a certain broadcast level that he's never going to get to, because he's affiliated with such a radically fundamentalist group of people. Fox News is a fundamentalist operation. And I think that O'Reilly'who is a very gifted guy'he probably could have grown into becoming a very formidable broadcaster. And he must feel terrible to know that he's never going to win a Peabody, he's never going to win a Pulitzer, so long as he's anchored there in that crypto-fascist ministry of information. There are these profound limitations in his career, and I think that must be painful for him. He's not a bad guy; he's not without his charms. He's bright. He's not a hectoring monster'a role that he can play on tv. I kind of felt bad for him while I was there.'
Talk of politics, naturally, leads to talk of the political climate in New York City. Baldwin's voice is calm but compelling. 'We have a Republican mayor'who's really not a Republican, I guess he said he was a Republican because it was convenient for him, but we're really not sure what he is, on any level . . . He's a mayor of a Democratic city on a five to one basis, who wouldn't let them have a protest in Central Park. Bloomberg should be deeply, deeply ashamed of that decision. It was a horrible, horrible decision.'
His New Yorker pride is on full display as he continues: 'This is not like California, where people sit back idly and don't get involved. This is why I live here. People in New York care more. Santa Monica Bay is as contaminated as you can possibly imagine over the past twenty years, but the average Californian doesn't go to the beach'it's about private homes, and pools, and private ownership. The average Californian is not fundamentally interested on what happens on a community basis. Whereas in New York, when medical waste washes up on the shores of New Jersey, it's on the front page of the Daily News and everybody's head pops off. People go nuts here when the beaches are contaminated and the beaches close. New Yorkers care. And political exercise is just a quotidian reality for New Yorkers. So for Bloomberg to say we're not going to have a political protest in New York'that we're going to mess up the grass'you gotta be kidding me. What an idiotic, ignorant thing to say.'
The hotel room door opens, and Baldwin is interrupted by his PR rep, who tells him that time's up. Baldwin looks at us, looks at the rep, and asks him, 'I thought we had fifteen minutes''
The rep looks at his watch. 'It's been fifteen.'
'We'll do this a little longer,' Baldwin says, smiling at us. He picks up where he left off. 'But you know, the Republican Mayor and the Republican Governor haven't done anything for us. I don't know why New York has less juice in Washington than ever. The difference between the outflow of federal dollars from New York state and the inflow of federal dollars to New York state is about $30 billion dollars. New York gives $30 billion more than it gets back. You should check those figures, because maybe I'm off. I'll do the research and make sure I have the right figure. It's definitely a deficit for New York.'
Speaking as smoothly and as assuredly as if he was on the set of Crossfire, he continues, 'I'm very worried about New York as a state. I'm very worried about infrastructure here and bridges and roads and schools. New York is really at risk of becoming like Louisiana if we don't start getting more juice from Washington and getting more federal dollars to stay here. New Yorkers helped the western and southern parts of the United States by building them schools, electricity programs, and dams. And now New York needs some help from those people.'
Ignoring his watch, Baldwin sticks around for one last question. When asked about his upcoming guest appearance on the show Nip/Tuck, he says that, 'I really enjoy the show so much, that I actually adopt the vow of secrecy for the show. I have taken the Nip/Tuck vow of silence. So I can never tell you just how psychopathic the episode I'm in is. It's bizarre.'
As he gets up from the table someone asks, 'In the show, do you get plastic surgery''
'Oh, of course! I'm in the movie business!'
Alec Baldwin. Philanthropist, aspiring tv actor, and super-nice-guy to the media. Who knew'
JeffWilser@TheCinemaSource.com
