Alec Baldwin [LIVE]

24:47And those adaptations and things like that. So Hunt for Red October, which is not Dickens, but I love Tom Clancy. And I love Tom. He was such a gentleman to me and so kind to me. And I get on the plane to go to L.A. to shoot the film. And as I walk into the plane, this is a true story. Everybody's sitting in what was the first class cabin back then and they're all there and probably out of, you know, eight seats, ten seats in first class. Probably five or six men have a hardcover copy of a Tom Clancy book. Red Storm Rising, Cardinal of the Kremlin, all the hunt, all that stuff. And I thought these people, millions of people around the world are reading Tom's books.

25:26I mean, we're there because of Tom. And millions of people are reading Tom's books and I'm going to play that part in that book. And I was like, it really got to me. You know, I was like, wow. Intimidating. It really, really, it really hit me hard. You know, I sat in my chair and I was like, shit, I hope I come up with something, you know what I mean? And then I go do the movie, and I just want to mention that Sean was the greatest guy in the world. He was so nice to me. I said, are you going to the rushes, boy? I'd say, what? He goes, are you going to the rushes? I'd say, no, because I have lunch with Sean.

25:58We watched the rushes together. And I go, oh, I wasn't invited. And he goes, how do you expect to ever learn if you don't go to the rushes? And I go, well, I'll go to the rushes. And they're sitting there watching the film. And I'm like, I don't want to watch it myself. I'm going to vomit. But Sean was the man. And he was so, we're on the con of the ship at the end of the movie when I say, welcome to the new world. And he had this jacket on. I go, man, that's the most beautiful jacket. Where'd you get the ghost? you don't have a leather blouson jacket. No, I don't. I don't have a leather blouson jacket.

26:36And he goes, I must have the wardrobe department make one for you. And he says to the woman, Kathy, come. And the wardrobe woman comes. He goes, I'd like you to make a jacket for Alec just like this. And put it on my tab. He probably has a whopping tab at Paramount that he's never going to pay. And they had to make me the... He was the loveliest guy you ever met. I always tell the story, I'll just do this real quickly because he's so funny, he's like a little cat and his wife Micheline is this little fire hydrant and his wife is this woman and I go, where did you two meet? and she goes, of course we meet on the golf course she is French and she goes and we do the fursum and I am married and he is married and by the time we finish the 18 holes he must get the divorce and I must get the divorce And then we are married.

27:28And we go to a party. And he's there. Mace Neufeld had a party. And we're there with all these famous people in Hollywood. And waiters and champagne. And the guy goes by with the champagne. And Sean goes to get a glass of champagne. And his wife hits the sand and goes, no, no, no, Sean. Not to drink the champagne. And he's like. The guy goes by with the can of face. He goes for the champagne. No, no, Sean. Not do it, it's a kind of bass. And he turns to me probably goes, not going to be very much of a party. And his wife was like a lion tamer who like ran his whole life, you know. I imagine that something you might have wanted to pick his brain about is the idea of being a leading man.

28:15This was your first kind of leading man role in a film, which the way I've heard you and others talk about it, it's sort of a feeling of being a bit naked because as opposed to immersing yourself in a character, you're sort of hired to be a version of you, right? How did you acclimate to that? Did you like the idea of being a leading man? Because you've now, obviously, over the course of the decades, done it, all sorts of things, character, supporting. How did you like that versus the other one? Well, let me say, that's a very good question because let me say that making films, by and large, can be challenging.

28:51And it's really painful. It's really stressful. I never smoke unless when I'm shooting. I don't smoke anymore at all, but I used to smoke all the time when I would make films, only films, because I would be really nervous, because it was like, we've got to get it now. So I'm like the Broadway theater or off-Broadway where you do a show, and I say, I'm going to do tomorrow, I'll make a note in my script, we make notes, put a post-it on my mirror, tomorrow I'm going to make sure when I come around that chair, whatever your little things you want to refine in the theater. You can do it again and again and again.

29:19And the goal is that every performance is the opportunity for refinement. and when you do movies, they're not really that much fun. They can be, if the people are fun. When I did 30 Rock, that was fun. You know, those people were nuts. It was like being in a loony bin all day, you know what I mean? But the, no, it was crazy. But in films, it's really stressful to get it right. We're not going to come back. We rarely come back and reshoot. They do, but rarely. And you don't want them to rely on that. You know, the whole leading man thing, I was like, John would turn to me in the beginning and say, do you always have to be doing something?

29:51Can't you just stand there? And I thought, no, I don't think I can. You know what I mean? But I realize now looking back, that's what you need to do. I mean, these guys always pitch you, this is Lucchese and a couple of other guys, I'm having lunch with them, and they looked at me and they're telling me that possibly some interesting things are gonna happen. And they looked at me and he goes, he goes, Mel's at 30 ,000 feet. He goes, Kevin's at 20 ,000 feet. and he goes, you are next. And I sat there going, I'm so stupid. I'm like, to fly on a plane? You want me to get on a plane? You mean you want me to fly somewhere?

30:32I don't understand. And they're like, movie stardom to them is their attitude. It's like, we don't invite just anybody to do this. To where you are now sitting here, it's really hard to get here. And I did not necessarily find that all that interesting. So I bailed on the Hunt sequels to go do Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. Well, I wanted to ask you because that's another one of these kind of turning points where it's been described. It's like a Rashomon situation. Over the years, the suggestion was that you, I know you've, I think, said that you think they may be, in order to make it up to Harrison.

31:08They owed him money. They owed him money. They owed him money. So that they maybe all along were looking for it. They got rid of me to pay him the money. But then they blamed it on you. Supposedly, you were being difficult and you wanted to go do streetcar on Broadway. Well, that's what they say. The studios are always going to be... My attitude toward the studios is this. This is the best way to define movie studios and producers. And I'm going to try to tone this down and not make it too vulgar. They go to your mother's house and they rape your mother. They attack your mother. They beat her.

31:38They rape your mother. They take the whole weekend to rape your mother. It's a horrible, horrible thing. 18 months later, you run into them at a party or a screening. And they go, hey man, I'm sorry. I know we raped your mother. But I got a script that is so good for you. It is so good. You know what I mean? It's like, let's do business. Let's let anything stand in the way of doing business. And so I could tell they wanted me to go. I can tell they weren't that keen on me doing it. And I went to go to Streetcar and went to go see Brando once. I wanted him to do a TV movie with me. and I go to his house and I went through the whole circuit.

32:22You got to call this woman and you leave a message that she calls you back and this is the way you connect with Brandon. Then she puts him on the phone and he says to me, I'm leaving to go to London on Friday and if you can come here on Wednesday, that would be perfect. And I go, wow, let me tell you, I was supposed to have open heart surgery Wednesday, but I'm going to cancel that. So I come to your house. And I go there, and it was this four hours having lunch with him and picking his brains about this and that. And he talked a lot about his environmentalism and his islands in Tahiti and everything in the South Pacific.

33:04And a lot about environmental. He was going to open up an ecology camp, an inn, a place you stay that's all kind of native materials. Anyway, so we talk about streetcar quickly, and I go, you know, I did streetcar. And he goes, yes, my friends, they saw you do that in New York. they came to New York and they saw you. And they said you were very good. They said you were very funny. And I always used to say to Kazan that the part is really, there's so much there that's funny. And I wish I'd made it funny and more funny because my friends tell me you were great. And I go, but you're happy with the way it worked out, correct?

33:39Like when you did Streetcar, you were happy that how it all ended up, right? And he laughed. But to do that changed my life. It changed my life. Because you want to, you're there to act. I'm not there to get paid a lot of money and go buy a castle in the northern part of Italy I'm here to work and refine and refine and refine and when I did Streetcar it changed my life in ways I never thought was possible and even though I lost a lot in the process and it really was the beginning of me turning away from playing leading roles in studio films and doing a lot of indies I wouldn't change anything because the play was really such an extraordinary experience for me I loved it.

34:20The same year as that play was a, I guess you could call it a cameo. Maybe it was a, not a cameo, a small but unforgettable supporting part in the film adaptation of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. Where, just to remind folks, you play Blake, a big shot who comes in to scare the shit out of these underperforming real estate salesmen. The scene in which you appear, I watched it again last night just to be fresh on it. seven-minute tirade, absolutely eviscerating. Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Spacey's behind you. He's not one of the ones you're targeting, but from that, which everybody remembers, always be closing, coffees for closers, that watch cost more than your car, all of that, none of which was in Mamet's Pulitzer Prize winning play.

35:07So first of all, how did you come to be involved in this, and what was the explanation you were given for why this scene was added? I called Mamet, who had won the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross, and I called him and I said, you won the Pulitzer Prize. Why would you want to change it? And he said, I believe that these men are not of a criminal mind. They don't have a criminal nature, and they're going to commit a crime. And I need to provoke them more. You are going to come in, and they're going to turn criminals based on your threats. I need another person to come in and tighten the ratchet on them.

35:44And I was like, okay. Now they had offered me the part that, because Pacino was legendary for engaging and disengaging. I'm in, I'm out. I want to do the play, but not then, whatever. And, you know, great devotion to the theater, legendary. But he backed out again. And actually my agent said to the producer, Jerry Tukowski, if he backs out again, will you give Alec the role of Ricky Roma? And Tukowski said, yes, we will. Because they don't want to wait anymore. They got all the other cast. they're ready to go. I would like to have played Ricky Roma. And they go, and Mamet says, I wrote another part for you.

36:21Your cast is Ricky, but you're gonna not do that. Al's gonna come back. You don't want a director looking down a lens and seeing an actor and he wishes another actor was there. So I backed off. And that's when Mamet said, I wrote this other part for you. And I was like, oh, okay. And I read it and I'm like, wow, this is gonna be a fun day. It's gonna be a picnic, you know. And I go there with those guys and we rehearse that summer in New York in a rehearsal space. I think it was the set we rehearsed on. I didn't know all my lines and I improvised some and I left and I came back and they were all like sick when I showed up.

36:55They were all by like the coffee machine. They were like laughing going, oh shit. You know, I showed up and we go and do it for like two and a half days or something. And it was tough. It was really tough because I idolized all of them. I idolized Lemon. I idolized Al. I didn't have a scene without, but the bottom line was that Foley, who just died, Foley said to me, this is like that scene in Patton when George C. Scott slaps the soldier in the tent and says, you call yourself a soldier. And he says, this is the scene called, you call yourself a salesman. You're doing it for their own good. You're not doing this because you're a mean guy or you're an abusive guy.

37:34You're doing this because this is your job and you need to get these guys straightened out now, right now. So I do this speech and I do it all. and it was really not fun, because I love all of them. I go into the makeup trailer one day, and the woman who's the makeup artist, she was one of the biggest makeup artists in New York in film, is Rob Lowe's wife. Rob married her, that's why he looks so good, because his wife was a makeup artist.

38:00I'm in there with Spacey, and we're reading in the New York Times about a play off Broadway, we're sitting there reading, and Arkin walks in, and Arkin goes, And I go, my God, this play, Kevin and I are talking about would have been great. This is the kind of thing you would have done, you know, when in your younger career, because this is like a really kind of edgy kind of thing. And Garkin literally goes, my God, out there, in here. And he walks out. I look at Kevin and the young woman, I forget her name, who was Kevin's, Rob's wife. And later on, I go and I knock on his door. This is at Kaufman, which had real dressing rooms inside the building.

38:40not trailers outside. And he's in his dressing room and I knock on the door and he opens it and he goes, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have said that to you. He goes, but you're so awful. You're so fucking awful out there. And that's when I knew I was onto something. I was like, okay, here we go. Now I'm gonna kill you tonight, the way we shoot it tonight. And we did that. I mean, I, again, here's another thing. Forgive me, because I'm rambling, But the other thing you always cry over, and you're so lucky, is cinematographers. And the cinematographer on that film was a legendary Spanish photographer named Juan Ruiz Anchia.

39:22And when the films I've made, I've worked with Ballhaus and Bob Richardson and Don McAlpine. I mean, all these people. John Toll, one of the only people to earn the Oscar back-to-back years. He's one of two cinematographers. He won it for Legends of the Fall and... Braveheart. Braveheart, yeah. So I'm almost done. Oh, it's good. But cinematographers, I mean, my God. You know, what a joy. Could they make the movie? This is movie making. It's a camera and film and lights. And they're just, you watch them work. And you see what they do. I'll never forget, Tol, when we did... It's complicated. Tolson, someone's crying because they're remembering.

40:12Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.

40:16Tol, they say to me, and they're all very monastic. They don't talk. And he says, would you like to see? Come, come and see. And I'm thinking to myself, what do I care? I'm not going to change what I do. But I go in and I'm learning a little bit about that. But the greatest example, forgive me, I think this is funny, was I'm doing the movie Alice with Woody Allen, which was his take on Julian and the Spirits. He won the Academy Award, I think, for Best Original or Adaptive Screenplay. Do we have a baby here? I think we do. I love babies. I don't want another baby, but anyway.

40:54Carlo De Palma is the cinematographer, and Carlo De Palma walks up to me and goes, Alec. He doesn't speak English. He's Italian. He goes, Alec, you, Mia, the couch, you, the couch, you, I go, you want me to lean back because the light's going on, Mia, through the window. He goes, yes, yes, yes, Alec, you are so good. You are so good, Alec, you're so good. You took back the light for Mia, you know. Okay, you're so good, Alec, you're so good. My character's a ghost. I'm dead. I sit on the couch to talk to her in another scene and the couch depresses and he comes up to me and he goes I go I go he goes Alec Como se dice?

41:41You the couch sit no to sit you couch you and I go I go you don't want me to sit on the couch because I'm dead and I wouldn't make a depression on the couch because I'm a ghost so you don't want me to sit he goes Alec you are incredible Yes, I like it. Yes. You'd know to sit on the couch. So then Woody goes, I want him to sit on the couch. So they made a ceramic arm. So it didn't depress for the shooting. But if you don't get in touch when you make movies with the DP, you're going to be in pain. The year after Glengarry, you had another movie, which not only another great monologue, which was Malice, the movie where you're talking about, you asked me if I have a God complex.

42:28Let me tell you something. I am God. I know how it goes. Well, I'm telling you. This is the trauma surgeon who gets himself into trouble. But the other thing was that one was Gordon Willis. Gordon Willis. Gordon Willis. Speaking of great cinematography. Gordon Willis was this curmudgeon. He did The Godfather. He did a lot of Woody's movies. He's a legend. He's probably one of the three greatest cinematographers of the modern era. Woody's movies, many movies for Woody, and did The Godfather. And Bill Pullman, at one point, I looked at Bill Pullman, and he was known, he was renowned for very dark lighting.

43:01I turned to Bill, I go, do you think if we left, they'd even know that we left? Because it's lit so, our standards can come in, would they even know the difference? Do the scene. So, and Gordon was really taciturn. He and, what's his name? The director. On Malice? Yeah. Harold Becker. Harold Becker, who I loved. I just went to his book party that day. He's 93 years old. They would stand there in the morning, and the crew would be milling around having their coffee, and Gordon Willis would literally go, Will you all shut up? Scream at the crowd. And I'd bring him his, I knew every morning the way to get Gordon.

43:39I'd bring him his coffee every morning. He'd scream at the crew and go, Shut up! And I'd go, Gordon, your coffee? And I'd be like, thank you, Alex. He called me, thank you, Alex. I'm like, okay. And we do the movie, and it was really an honor. And I love Harold. I love Harold. He's a good director. I mean, Citi Hall, a lot of the films he did are underappreciated. And then Gordon did The Juror that I did with me and then quit. So he quit. He didn't want to work on that film. But anyway, another person who, I mean, I can't name to you all the DPs I've worked with. Then, of course, we had this incident in this tragedy in New Mexico where Helena Hutchins was killed on the set of the film, and that was unspeakably difficult to deal with, but she was also very special.

44:31DPs make the movie good. Actors, you can only make bad material so good, but if you don't have a strong hand behind the camera, if you don't have a strong composition and lighting, if you don't have a strong design with the camera, you can never make a good movie. Never. You can never. It's movies. It's an art that involves cameras and film. And if you don't have a great DP or a good DP, you can never make a good film. Never. We recently lost the director of Ghosts of Mississippi in which you played the assistant district attorney. Rob, yeah. Rob Reiner was the director. And your character's looking into the, or wanting to revive the Medgar Evers murder investigation.

45:11but I guess obviously in light of recent events, like any special memories of Rob Reiner? Rob. Well, Rob is very funny, as you can well imagine. Rob's very funny. And he's very lively. He was very lively and chatty and avuncular. When we're doing Ghosts of Mississippi, I had gone to Jackson, Mississippi to meet with Bobby DeLaure, who I played in the film, the prosecutor, who reopened the case against Dela Beckwith. And Bobby, who I met with his wife, Peggy, I hung out with them for like a week. I mean, I didn't stay with them, but I would go have lunch with them. And we'd drive around a little bit.

45:46I was there rehearsing for a week and talking to people. And I wanted to get into that character more. And I swear to God, Bobby, this is Mississippi. And I'm not saying this to put them down, but it was like it was just incredible. Bobby would talk to me like this all day long. he was the slowest talker of anybody in the United States of America and I go do the movie and they go action ladies and gentlemen of the jury I want you all to understand cut cut cut he takes me aside the movie is going to be 6 hours long what the fuck are you doing you got to pick it up you can't be him You can't be him.

46:36That's a mini-series. You can't be him. And so we do that. And then my other famous Rob line that I love was he said, can I put the camera up here on the wall in the back of the courtroom? I'm going to put the camera up there. And he's obviously from New York. And he goes, put the camera up there. And I'm going to shoot the whole scene. Just do one more for me. It was like a three-page monologue of my summation. He goes, I'm going to put it up there. So you're going to do one couple takes, one or two takes of it wide. I might be able to cut it in there. Do you mind? I go, no. I'm here. I'm here to act.

47:05Let's do it. He goes, great. Don't you like? That's because you got good material. That's because you know you got a good piece of material. Because you know the next movie you're going to do, you're going to shoot the whole day, and all you're going to say is, get down. Everybody get down.

47:21And I'm like, he's right. He's right. So, I mean, when you're acting, you do as many takes as they like you. You love it. The next movie that you actually did was an uncredited cameo as the Hollywood boyfriend of Julia Roberts' character in Notting Hill, who kind of crushes Hugh Grant's dreams there for a little bit. that was in 99 and then you've said that the years 2000 to 2006 quote I can barely tell you what I did for those six years close quote I know it was a personal you know challenging time but I I think that you've overlooked in your memory then some pretty interesting varied things that I'm going to just quickly mention you if you want to even just the cooler well we'll certainly get there but first in 2000 back with Mamet this time he's directing State in Maine which you produce Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle in Pearl Harbor.

48:14Love that too, yeah. Was that the biggest scale thing probably since Hunt for Red October for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I went there, when we did Red October, we went to Point Loma, and we went on to the USS Salt Lake City and dove to 600 feet and spent the night on the ship, or the actors, and John. I think John was there. And we go down there, we spend, we're overnight on the ship on a nuclear submarine. And the guy that was the captain of the ship was a guy named Tom Fargo, who later on when I go to the premiere of Pearl Harbor, in Pearl Harbor, Tom is there, and he's the Admiral of the Pacific Fleet by then.

48:49Wow. And you just see how your career and your life's going and everybody else is moving up in their lives. He was the loveliest guy, the loveliest guy. But I think that Pearl Harbor was, it's Bay, so it's like the acting is not necessarily featured. You know what I mean? Yeah. That same year, 2001, you were the narrator of the Royal Tenenbaums? for Wes Anderson, who I think works in an unusual or unique way. He asked me to do the narration for him. He said, I'm never going to use it. The studio has asked me to lay narration over a track, which was minimal narration. He said that they want me to do this, and I love Wes.

49:27And he said, you want to do this? He goes, I'm never going to use it. It's like with Black Klansman with Spike. And he gives me a monologue, and I memorize the whole thing, and I go to his studio in Brooklyn, 40 acres, and he's got a little floor with some staging, and he shoots stuff there if it's minimal, you know, if it's not like a big sweeping thing. So we're shooting there, and he got me there early in the morning, I was tired, I memorized my lines, he goes, I changed the script, he goes, I want you to memorize this. And I'm like, shit. And they're putting the makeup on me, I'm half dead, I'm guzzling coffee, I go out there, and I go, I'm gonna give you the best I can, but I'm gonna have to work toward this, I don't think I can really get it, and I said go off for an hour and try to memorize this I said I really don't.

50:10He goes don't worry about it so when I do it I keep going, I keep flubbing and I say some very choice words. I'm really angry so I'm sitting there going you know everybody here I want y 'all to remember that shit god damn shit fuck shit I got it I got it y 'all gotta remember that one time we came down that way He, God, shit, fuck, shit, fuck. He puts that in the movie.

50:46My friend says to me, I went to go see Black Klansman. I said, how was it? He goes, man, that whole Tourette thing you were doing in the beginning was fantastic. Man, that was so cool. Who gave you that idea? That crazy Tourette shit you were doing, man, you were great. I call him on the phone and he goes.

51:09I go, you son of a bitch. And he wanted the guy to be flubbing and swearing he's not a pro. So he puts that in the movie. He never tells me. So the movie business is tricky. Well, sticking in that six-year period, as you mentioned, I mean, one of your best performances, the one for which you received an Oscar nomination, Shelley Kaplow, this deranged casino boss in Wayne Kramer's The Cooler, 2003. This is a little indie produced by Ed Pressman. First time director, Wayne Kramer. You go in with like a nothing... I think he'd done something before that. Not a feature. No, maybe not. I don't know.

51:47But Bill knew him. With no money, you go in and do this. No money. Roger Ebert writes in his review, quote, this is one of Alec Baldwin's best performances, close quote. You wind up with an Oscar nomination. All of this, and you almost turned it down. Well, I was in my apartment, which is often this happens, you're laying in bed, and when you're reading the script, you got to be careful, you know what I mean? Like Harold Perrineau, who did The Edge with us, which is my favorite movie I've ever made, only because I love the Canadian Rockies, the whole, what's that province? No, next to that. Alberta, all of Alberta, and we cried.

52:25When we left, we cried. We do The Edge, and Harold Perrineau goes, he leans over to me during the rehearsals, We had a real week of rehearsal. And he goes, Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, and me. I wonder which one the bear's going to eat first. And I was like, you know. Then he has to shoot the scene where he gets killed. It's freezing cold. They're putting the rain on him. It's freezing in the park there in Banff. And I said, that script reads a lot different when you're tucked into your bed, doesn't it there, Harold? Like you read it, and you think to yourself, as I learned to do eventually, which is, is this a movie I want to go see or a movie I want to make?

53:04I'll tell people, oh, I'd love to see that movie. I don't want to make that movie. I'm buried in a pit with my head sticking out for like six weeks or some goddamn thing they've got. And that was with the cooler in a scene. So the cooler, Macy said, come meet him. And I read the script in my bed. I'll never forget this. And it says, I kick the pregnant woman in the stomach. My son's girlfriend is pregnant. I kick her right in the stomach like I'm Pele. And I put the script down and called my agent and go, are you out of your fucking mind? I'm kicking a woman. Don't I have enough problems as it is?

53:42I'm going to kick this woman in the stomach. I can't do it. He goes, read the next page. And then you read the next page and it says, I knew she was faking and it's a pat. And I knew it and I exposed that. So I go do the movie with him and I loved Wayne. He doesn't make that many movies. That was the fourth thing I think I did with Bill. I did Gosa, Mississippi, State and Maine, Cooler. I think I did one more with him. I'm going to go do a movie ethic with him this summer. Again, it's just, there's a guy who was a DP on that name, James Whitaker, Jimmy Whitaker. And he was like, he was such a, he was so beautiful.

54:18Because we didn't have a lot of time. And he moved quickly. He could move that camera. The Cooler looks good for me. We didn't have any money. and I'm kind of an eye toward the lighting and the photography. Jimmy Whitaker, one of the greatest DPs I've ever worked with in my life, and I've worked with them all. It was a great pleasure because the movies are such a collaborative business. The making of the movie is such a collaborative art. And so you want to, Jimmy Whitaker will say to you, could you walk that way an inch? Whatever they tell you to do, you're like, oh yes, yes, please. And they're seeing what you can't see.

54:53and so I always love working on films because of the relationship you can have with a DP. The next year in this period that you've kind of pooh-poohed was you're playing a character who I think is one of your absolute funniest I've ever or anyone's funniest, Stan Inderski, the boss of Ben Stiller's Ruben. She's a no good whore, that wife of yours. I knew she was a whore the moment I met her. This is a long K, Polly. And I just remember, I don't think I've ever laughed hard. You pull up alongside him at the urinal, and you're talking to him. Yeah. I smack him on the ass. And rub his ear. Rub his ear with my urine-stained fingers.

55:34And you say, like your character always is saying, good things. Because I had a lawyer who'd say that. My lawyer, Ron Connachy, he'd say, you're going out to Long Island this weekend? What are you going to do? Are you going to go to dinner at Smith's? What are you going to do? Are you going to go to the beach with the kids? Okay, good things. Good things, he'd say to me. Good things. And he wasn't vulgar at all. He was a very elegant man. So I bring that into the scene. And I say, all right, what are you going to do? Then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right, good things. I smack him on the ass, good things.

55:58And they were going to name the movie Good Things. Was that improvised, the whole thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, some of the, no, no, no, some of the, when I said good things. No, I wouldn't improvise John Hamburg, because John's a great writer. And I wouldn't do that in Ben's movie. But they were going to name the movie Good Things, John told me. But they wound up not doing that. But again, John's a great writer. You know, when it's the writer-director, John's a great writer. And John's pretty much a writer now. he doesn't really want to direct anymore I guess. And Ben, I mean Ben is like, you know, I watched that, what was that thing he did?

56:28Oh yeah, Stole and Mara. The what? The thing about his parents? No, no, the one he did the series where they were in the prison. Oh yeah, Escape at Dannemora. Escape at Dannemora, I watched that because I wanted to see a certain actor in that and I wanted to see a certain writer's work. And I loved Escape from Dannemora and I was so amazed that Ben did that. I mean Ben is so versatile, you know what I mean? And my kids, I mean, to this day, they have to do like some kind of Zoolander thing every day. I'm not kidding. I got four sons. They're 10, 9, 7, and 5. That's right. 10, 9, 7, and 5. And they literally will walk in front of a mirror.

57:04They'll walk by the mirror. They'll go.

57:08The pose. Again, just rounding out this period. I'm in no hurry. Are you? I'm not at all. You're going to get out of here winning? No, I'm thrilled with you. I just don't want you to. We'll stop a little while. Okay. Well, okay. So. I love these people. It's Google. It's Google. Thank you. Thank you. It's been fun. That six-year period, you closed out with two movies with Martin Scorsese, one of which almost won the Best Picture Oscar, The Aviator, and the other of which did The Departed. This is two and three years. You're the Pan Am founder, Juan Tripp, in The Aviator, and a Boston detective in The Departed.

57:47as a huge cineast, as we know, you going back to childhood, how much did it mean to you to be brought into the circle of Martin Scorsese? You're very smart there because it's like, yeah, I mean, when Marty calls you, you just, I don't work in the summer. I take the summer off every year. The only time I worked in the summer was for Marty twice. Went up to Montreal. And, you know, when I was doing the Aviator, and I have those scenes with Leo in the beginning of my first day shooting, I'm blowing the smoke in the keyhole. And he's in the other room naked with all the milk bottles and urine bottles.

58:20And, you know, nuts. Nuts. And John McGinley's there as his sidekick. And when all of our scenes were over, Leo, who I worship, I love Leo. He's such a great movie actor. And he said, I'm so glad I don't have to hate you anymore. Our two characters hated each other. In fact, the woman, Betsy DeVecchi, who was Juan Tripp's daughter, Betsy Tripp. She was married and she lived on a little street in a very pretty neighborhood on Long Island where I live in East Hampton. And she agreed to meet with me because my friends know her from the country club or whatever. So I go to Betsy DeVecchi's house. She could not have been nicer.

58:58And I said, well, you know, and later on I came back to have another session with her because I wanted to ask her more. I don't want to keep her for too long. So we did like an hour and I left and I came back. And she said to me, may I ask you a question, Alec? She's a very older woman. And she goes, I go, yes, please. And she goes, I don't think my dad would say that word in the movie. The F word. And I go, oh, okay. And I said to her, I thought she'd understand. But she didn't go, well, it is a Scorsese movie. You understand, right? They're going to say that at least 25, 30 times in the movie.

59:32She goes, I don't think my dad would say that. He was a very elegant man, a gentleman. I call Marty on the phone. I go, she doesn't want me to say fuck. And Marty takes a pause and goes. I need you to say fuck. I need you to say it. I need you to say it. I need you to say fuck. I need you to say fuck. And I go, okay, you got it. But Betsy DeVecchi was very lovely because her father, Juan Tripp, who founded Pan Am, was the president of the Maidstone Club. They're the country club for all the elites out there. And doing that scene, and then we go do The Departed and that cast, all those people, you know?

1:00:06And it's like, how can you add a little something? Nothing too grandstanding, nothing too nutty, nothing too inappropriate, but you can add a little something that people might remember. So I do that crazy line where I go, I'm going to have a cigarette. You want to go have a cigarette? No, you're one of those fitness freaks? Okay, go fuck yourself. And I try it. And Marty's in the... And Matt says, you've got to say it. And Marty says, you've got to say it as fast as you can. And I do like three texts. And I'm like, I'm going to have a cigarette. I'm going to go have a cigarette. You want to go have a cigarette?

1:00:34You don't smoke. What are you, one of those fitness freaks? Go fuck yourself. And Marty's like, ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! loves people, silly lines. He said to me, that guy over there, because he wants to shoot the stars first. And you know that they're going to shoot the stars first. They're going to shoot Leo and Matt and Wahlberg and everybody, and Jack. And then he comes to me and goes, if he has time, if they have time, they expand. And so he said to me, that guy over there, the guy at the table, the guy over there at the table, that guy over there at the table, the guy at the table, that guy right there, that guy right there, that guy right there.

1:01:06You're mad at him, aren't you? I go, yeah, I'm mad. He goes, how mad are you? I'm really mad. I go, I'm at you. I go, I'm fucking furious. He goes, you're fucking furious? What do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you want to do? I go, uh, uh, he goes, you want to beat the shit up? I go, yeah, I want to beat the shit up. He goes, let's shoot that. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Let's shoot that. He goes, over there, you're going to beat the shit up. I want you to go over there and grab him and beat the shit up. So we go work out a couple beats with the guy, and we do the scene, and I pick him up, and I throw him against the wall, and the wall is embraced.

1:01:31It's a cosmetic wall. It's not functional. So the guy hits the wall, and the wall goes, like all the way down to the floor almost. So they cut, they brace the wall, and they do the scene with the guy. And you're doing the take. You're rolling the camera. And Marty's in the hallway. You hear him in Video Village going, he's in Video Village going, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. There's nothing he likes more than the three stooges, you know what I mean? Like violence. I would like to stay here all day and do this, but I'm told that there's another event that's going to be in here. So I'm going to, we are going to cover, if it's all right with you, a few other things, but I'm just going to.

1:02:09You want shorter answers? No, I love your answers, but I just want to, I love it. Okay, so that whole period that we've been talking about, which also includes in 2006 Running with Scissors and The Good Shepherd, leads into a rebirth in a way, I think, that seems to have been as surprising maybe in a way to you as anybody, which was 30 Rock. And Jack Donaghy, and this is seven years of your life, one of the greatest sitcoms, workplace comedies in TV history. And I just, to set it up, you had hosted SNL a ton of times going back to 1990. As I mentioned, you now hold the record of hosting 17 times.

1:02:50I know you'd gotten to know Lorne well. You'd consistently killed it on SNL, maybe most notably with a sketch that goes back to 1996, in which you were Pete Shwetty pushing your balls. Yeah. You can't beat my Shwetty balls. Everybody knows that. Still kills. I understand you'd even at one time joked with Lorne about joining the cast. That's what I did when I played Trump. Yeah, I joined the cast. Well, in that time, you essentially did, yeah. No, no, no, no. It's crazy. But why, before we even talk about 30 Rock, because I think this is related, why were you such a great fit for SNL whether it was hosting or all the way through 2016 well you either come in and you send up your own persona like Schwarzenegger and I wasn't that or you come in and you join the troupe you become one of them and you pull your pants down you don't care what they make fun of you know Adam McKay went on to have a great movie career we do the guy running for governor and I shoot Lassie in the living room at the beginning of the sketch and it says gubernatorial candidate shoots Lassie.

1:03:59And I'm sitting there going, I'm in front of a group of people and I said, I'm sorry. I know I shot Lassie, but I think that this campaign still has a lot to say. And people are throwing eggs at me and booing me. And I grab the American flag and I wipe the eggs off my ass. A gubernatorial candidate wipes ass with the flag. And then finally they come up to me on the night of shooting and they add one more beat. There was one more beat where I yell at the woman and with her baby. And then I go, there's one more beat they're gonna add it for the air show, which is always kind of freaky, but we're gonna change it right before we go on air.

1:04:30And the woman comes toward me with the baby and they throw the eggs and I take the baby, I grab the baby and I wipe my ass with the baby. Gubernatorial candidate wipes ass with baby. And I looked at him and I go, are you out of your fucking mind? I'm like, no, no, it's gonna be great, it's gonna be great, it's gonna be great. And they'd have you, why I go back was your question because there's things you do there that you only do there. You never do that anywhere else. It's like so loopy, you know. And again, just to bring it closer to the, to connect it to the more recent times with Trump, that was not something you ever imagined you'd do.

1:05:04Lauren calls me up and I go, I want to go see this screening of this film out in East Hampton with my friends. And the great Bruce Weber, the photographer and artist, made a documentary about Mitchum. So he made a documentary about Mitchum. My mind is going. He did the documentary about Mitchum. I'm going to go and Lauren goes, okay good for you good for you you don't want to come in and be part of the hottest comedy sketch of the year so you can go watch your robert mitchum documentary and i come in and i do it and he goes to me it's only going to be two shows man he's never going to win i'm laying in bed with my wife on election night we don't have a tv in our room i got my computer we're both asleep it's three o 'clock i wake up and i turn to my wife and i go he won he won And my wife literally just goes, she groans.

1:05:53And then I go, I got to do this thing for the next four years. He's going to ask me to do it for four years. So you start watching tapes of him. In acting school, they taught us, watch the footage with the sound off. The voice comes last. The voice comes last. So I'm watching footage of him.

1:06:15and I'm going oh he does a lot of this weird gestures and his face is always in a scowl and I'm watching it's like when we did Tony Bennett we watched Tony Bennett and then Tony Bennett came on the show on the Tony Bennett show tell him what your name is and Tony Bennett goes phony Bennett you know so we had so much fun with that with him but 30 Rock I will say just in summation here the 30 Rock was them coming to me and I didn't really want to do a tv show but they made the schedule convenient for me so I can go to LA all the time and see my daughter, my older daughter. But it was because of Tina and because of Robert Carlock and the other writers who are too many to name, but just they're the greatest writers in television.

1:06:55And they were the funniest people. And they come to me with a script on the day of the read-through and I'd read it in makeup and I'd go, you want me to play a gay Mexican soap opera star? I said, why? Why do you want me to do that? Why? and they'd say, we believe in you. It's a big swing, but we believe in you. They always were full of shit, these people. And we'd go do that, and it was like the same thing. I would never be able to do those things again anywhere else. Nobody's smart enough to write that stuff. So 30 Rock was really the best time of my life in terms of on camera. Classic. And I'm going to just mention here for people keeping track at home, three movies in a very short amount of time, you and Tom Cruise, Rock of Ages, and then the two Mission Impossibles.

1:07:37You had in back-to-back years, you were the husband of Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine and then the husband of Julianne Moore in Still Alice. Both of them won the Best Actress Oscar. They haven't sent me anything as a gift. I was hoping they would. These cameos in the same year for Spike Lee, Black Landsman, and Bradley Cooper, Stars Born. A couple of quirky movies that are interesting for various reasons. Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply. And then Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn. And so, I don't know. You just, you never stop working or surprising us. Well, it's an interesting thing. I'll finish with your question.

1:08:15No, no, no. Go ahead. I was just going to say that for me now, because of the situation in New Mexico, which was very painful, I wound up staying home a lot. I was home with my kids for three and a half years. I hardly worked at all. And that's just changing now. I'm going to go off and do a bunch of things. But I was home, and I got used to it. And I don't want to leave my house anymore. I don't. I don't want to work anymore. I don't. Really? I really don't. I want to retire and stay home with my kids. What did my son say the other day? My kids are all born in Manhattan. Same hospital, same doctor.

1:08:48And my son Romeo was there. And we're picking clothes. We're like at a ski place. And they're picking out ski jackets back in November. And I go, get that one. Get that color. I like that one. Don't just get the black. Get that one. And he looks at me and goes, what do you know? You're from Long Island.

1:09:08And that's my life now, day after day after day. Very briefly, the last two things I'd love to pose to you, just because it connects to something you've mentioned. There's a documentary playing here at this festival called The Trial of Alec Baldwin, directed by Rory Kennedy. Can you share just how it came about and what you hope people take away from it? Rory approached me, and of course, I've been friends with her on the Hamptons Film Festival. I'm co-chairman of the board of the festival again. I stepped down for a while, but we've shown a bunch of Rory's films, and we love Rory. She's so talented.

1:09:44That Last Days of Vietnam was one of my favorite docs ever that she did. It was a great movie. Her movie about her mother that she did about Ethel. I've been friends with that family for a long time, and I was dear friends with Bobby before he metamorphosed into... I don't know what he is. I don't want to answer that question, but he was a dear pal of mine. I wish him well, but he was a dear pal of mine. And so Rory said, you want to do this movie? I want to do this movie about you. And I thought, ah, you know. And we shot it. And they were around during the trial in New Mexico. And they were like around interviewing me.

1:10:15And she was always asking for more time. Can I grab you for 20 minutes here, 30 minutes, duck into this room. We got the lights and the camera. And there was a lot of that during the trial before and during the indictments before. And the movie, I think, exemplifies how it's beyond prosecutorial overreach. it's people who committed a crime. You know, they committed a crime in hiding evidence during my trial and so forth. And it impacted me in every way, financially, career-wise, my wife, my kids, my health, I was so sick. I mean, we had to go back and finish the movie Rust in Montana as a component of the settlement with her husband.

1:10:56We had to finish. We're gonna give him, we gave him the movie. I said, you sell it and do whatever you want with it. So I had to go and I was really sick. I had a nerve condition that you get when you take blood pressure medication. Something hypotension. Orthoscopic or ortho something. Orthostatic hypotension. So I have this where you black out. I blacked out three times during the St. Patrick's Day weekend of that year and fell on top of my wife once. It was crazy. It was horrible. So I get into bed. I'm in bed for eight days. I can't get out of bed. I can't walk. I had to go to physical therapy for two weeks.

1:11:33and I had to get up on a horse and go back there to Montana and finish the film, or they were going to sue the shit out of me. So I make it, I get there, and I don't give the performance I want to give because I'm sick, but I did the best I could. And Rory's making this movie. Now, the movie came out, you know, when everybody makes a movie about you, you're never going to be happy. You're going to have a lot of notes, which I didn't, because it's not a commission. I don't tell her what to do. It's her thing. And I think there's a lot of good things in the movie. I think she's a great filmmaker, and I think that that idea of a very famous lawyer in New York.

1:12:04There's many things I could say, but I'll summarize one thing. A very famous lawyer in New York said to me, did you ever believe anybody did this to you deliberately? It was a conspiracy of some kind or anything like that. Someone was behind it. And I go, if I have to give an answer to that question, the answer was no, because it's very far-fetched. It's very difficult to do. However, there were three or four things that I found very odd that happened in and around the day that she died. And this lawyer turned to me and goes, you know what makes me wonder what's going on here with your case? I go, what?

1:12:33And she goes, because after they couldn't get you, it was over. They never tried to find the other people who were responsible for what happened, who brought the bullets onto the set. There's nothing. You never hear about that. They don't pursue the case. They don't do anything. They tried to get me, and they didn't get me, and they cheated and broke the law to get me. And it's just been tough. But hold on one second I'm going to do something here let me see if I can work this out hold on we'll do this really quickly it's always fun I do this all the time I do this all the time hold on one second

1:13:15I did this at Trebekah with what's his name do you want me to hold the mic who did Frankenstein I want you to say hi to all of my friends here in Boulder. This is my wife, Ilaria.

1:13:38Wait, it's my daughter. It's my daughter. We call her baby. Say hi, baby.

1:13:49What are you doing, chicken? I told them if it weren't for you I wouldn't have survived all of the rust situation so thank you I told them that yeah they asked me about that so I told them without you I wouldn't have made it and can we just say to her before you hang up thank you for loaning him to us for this afternoon it's been really really special and we thank him and you and everybody that came out today so on behalf of Biff thank you Alec Baldwin really appreciate it thank you all very much Thank you.

1:14:50and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. And to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.