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With a new talk show on ABC and its return to "Saturday Night Live", the unfiltered star is mobilizing against the GOP ("all you equate with leadership, they do not have it"). "), Courting controversy (" since I played Trump, Blacks love me ") and revealing mixed emotions on the # MeToo movement:" People are writing: "You are not not the next? "
"I do not want to be wrong …"
Alec Baldwin begins many sentences this way, indicating that he is about to plunge into trouble.
The first time it comes, it's tapping a hand in Famous Original Ray's – a hole in the wall of Ninth Avenue that's neither famous nor original ", but at this point, "he says," grandfather is hungry ". At Baldwin's request, the conversation turned to the # MeToo movement and the growing list of men whose career imploded in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct.
"I want to start by saying that all these guys who have done terrible things, who do not want them to be punished? All this idea that I'm defending for [accused director] Jimmy Toback or something else? The minute people are convicted of a crime or there is a brilliant reservoir of information or evidence … "
He pauses, takes a sip of cream soda and dives.
"This is not a witch hunt because a witch hunt indicates that there is very little, if any, truth, and there are many here, but what worries me is it's that it's a fire that needs to be lit steadily. " At the end of last fall, everything became personal. As a result of the collapse of Harvey Weinstein, a publication contacted one of Baldwin's former co-stars and began to question him about his behavior in a 1980s movie set. The actress, who was a minor at the time, contacted Baldwin to let him know. (By sharing the story for the first time, he asked me to omit the names.)
"She's going," said Alec, "they called me and they said that a wardrobe person said you've sexually assaulted me and that you've got me." constantly sitting on your lap and they asked me for a comment. "I'm going," My God, what did you say? "And she said," I told them that it was ridiculous, that you have never groped me. "I can feel Baldwin's blood pressure rising from the other side of the table." just remember having thought right now, "Wow, they're watching for the people. It's a fire that needs fresh wood, and they come looking for me. "
No story has ever materialized, and although Baldwin has been the victim of supporters such as Toback and Woody Allen, his career has not been tainted. In fact, at age 60, he does not remember being so busy. Over the past two years, he has appeared in at least a dozen movies and TV shows, including the latest installment of Impossible missionFrom Hulu The tower that is looming and competitor's reward A star is born; host an acclaimed podcast (WNYC & # 39; s Here is the thing) and a popular TV game show (ABC & # 39; s Match match) won an Emmy for his impression of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live; author of two books (his own memoir and a presidential simulacrum); lent his voice to the New York Philharmonic; and raised a few million dollars for a collection of artistic causes that are close to his heart. And now, he's about to take what might be his biggest bet so far: The show of Alec Baldwinair at 10 pm Sundays on ABC from 14 October.
For those who know, this will be Baldwin's second hit for his own talk show. In 2013, MSNBC had created for him a night vehicle whose memory had been canceled after five episodes, after being found guilty of homophobicly insulting a photographer during a confrontation with the photographer. Outside his apartment. (He has long denied the language, but still apologized.) ABC bets that, for five years, the oldest and most successful of the four Baldwin brothers has been awake. "There is a fairly low risk," says Rob Mills, ABC's director of alternative programming, though it's hard to imagine a less forgiving media environment for an older white man who has a penchant for the race to the lips. His wife, Hilaria, asked Baldwin not to use Google himself, but admits he can not always follow his advice.
"So, you read these things where people find you at Ryan O'Neal's school, like:" I'm going to install some photographers "and" Do not touch my wife "- and if you're those two – Fist, Irish guy, pugilist person, they indexed you that way, "he says. "I get a lot online and people will write," You seem to be the kind of guy who would do that. "Or, you're next, is not it? And it's painful. I mean, what's worse in this life than being misunderstood?"
***
Outside, in the streets of Manhattan, it does not seem like everyone is trying to get Alec Baldwin.
As we leave Ray with a cloudy sky in mid-September, a young man shouts, "Duuuude, you do what Donald Trump does really well. Really good"The man calls himself Tyrone, and although he shakes his hand and does the scene, Baldwin, who is often irritable, does not bother him at all – in fact, he calls Tyrone and the two begin to It's hard to say who benefits more from the other.
Since he's unveiled his views on Trump before the 2016 election, Baldwin gets that kind of response "endlessly," he says. It's more than the excitement of people to meet a celebrity – like Tyrone, they want to express genuine gratitude. "And it's crazy because it's just that thing I did that took off," he says, as he morphed into a character: the eye left up, right eye down, lips erect as far as his neck allows.
Then, just as quickly, he returned to himself.
"I mean, it's caricatural." All I wanted was that my Trump be mean and miserable, like Mr. Potter of It's a beautiful life. But then, I'll say, "Oh, I do not want to do it anymore," and people will say, "Do not dare to give up that, we need you & # 39. As if I had helped people to cross something in the history of our country. "
When he told me earlier this year that the gag had become an "agony" – less the exercise itself than his weekly commitment to this one – Trump fought back. "Alec," tweeted the president, "it was an agony for those who were forced to watch." Nevertheless, Baldwin plans to return "for some", he says, "not much" of season 44. His engagements outside the city have prevented him from appearing on the first two episodes, but he should be back by October 13th. show. "I will go there and hope we will have a new round of indictments to tear," he says with a smile, adding, "From my mouth to Robert Mueller's ears."
For a while, Baldwin had also tried to take his Trump on Broadway – turning You can not spell America without me, the successful parody that he co-wrote with Kurt Andersen, in a one-man show, like Will Ferrell with his imitation of George W. Bush. But the news cycle of Trump is moving too fast. "I'm kidding with Kurt: the problem is finding a house on Broadway," he says. "By the time Kinky boots Trump will disappear. "Instead, Baldwin is flirting with other one-man show ideas, one of which focuses on Richard Helms, the CIA's chief during the Vietnam War, for which he believes he is financially enthusiastic.
As we load into the back seat of his sport utility vehicle, Baldwin continues to talk about his exchange with Tyrone. "I do not know how to say that and I do not want to be wrong either, because everything is a minefield of bombs, but" and there he is – "since I play Trump, Blacks love me, they love me. Wherever I go, black people go crazy. I think it's because they're most afraid of Trump. I will not paint all African Americans with the same brush, but a significant number of them are sitting: "It's going to be bad for blacks." "
Baldwin, as his 1.1 million followers on Twitter know, believes that Trump was bad for everyone. And rather than just kicking a wig and sending it every Saturday night, he felt compelled to do more. Thus, in the lead-up to the congressional sessions of Congress, he will support a number of Democratic candidates, including Perry Gershon, who runs in the Long Island District in the east of the country, covering the Hamptons, where the Baldwins have taken up secondary residence. and Liuba Grechen Shirley, who is seeking the GOP group's heavyweight seat, Peter King, in the part of Long Island where Baldwin grew up. "Peter King is someone I dream of overthrowing because he illustrates everything I hate from Congress," he says. "These people are completely devoid of imagination – everything you equate with leadership, they do not have it." He would also like to campaign for Antonio Delgado, a Rhodes scholar and formerly a rap artist who shows up at a more distant post in the north of the state.
"Have we heard from Delgado people?" he asks his wide-eyed assistant, Matt.
"We are waiting to receive our response."
"Well, we have to call them," says Baldwin, still at very low temperatures. "Today & # 39; hui. "
***
If there is one thing that business people will tell you about Alec Baldwin – aside from the mandatory respect that they have for his acting roles and the intensity it brings to everything it does – it's that it can be almost impossible to pin down.
Just two days after the announcement, late August, that he would join Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie while Bruce Wayne's father, Baldwin pulled out abruptly, citing conflicts in his schedule. Not long ago, he had also starred in a highly publicized comedy of Kenya Barris, a comedy written specifically for him and commissioned directly by the ABC series. Baldwin says that he had notes on the script that no one seemed interested in addressing. Barris is just relieved that he's gone. "Alec is tough," he says. "He is one of the biggest living actors working today, but he is a project manager and I do not think I could have done this series without it being completely on board and that he's not blowing my head. " Even Lorne Michaels did not know that Baldwin would come back to Saturday Night Live until a few weeks before the start of the current season.
And yet, he continues to get projects started. In January, Baldwin tells me that he would like to try another television comedy. He knows that he will never have it as well as on 30 rockswhich gave him a second career – not to mention the two Emmys and the seemingly bottomless goodwill of some Hollywood neighborhoods. "After seven years, I found myself behaving like this guy," he says about his character, the prominent director of the selfish network, Jack Donaghy. "I would be in a restaurant and I would say," Excuse me, in your opinion, is this glass really clean? "Baldwin is full of details, but he's waiting for three scenarios – two multi-camera comedies and a third one that would bring him together with Tina Fey – and then he'll decide what he'll do. S & # 39; s makes it one at all.
What is clear is that Baldwin likes to change a lot of opinions or just can not help but do it. More than once, he has published his "last interview", the best known of which is 2014. New York magazine cover that declared his "goodbye to public life." In the accompanying article, bearing Baldwin's signature, he announced that he was to leave Manhattan, his home of several decades. Four years later, himself, Hilaria and their four young children live in a penthouse in Greenwich Village and are hardly part of his life, at the time or today, is private. Of course, after the sad demise of her first marriage with actress Kim Basinger, who included an even darker battle for the care of their daughter, Ireland, he swore to his friends that he had ended up look for love. He then met Hilaria, a yoga teacher almost under half his age, and, "here," he says. He is married a year and a half later.
"Alec is a dreamer," says his wife, who panicked every time Baldwin announced a new plan. "He always said to me," I found this house really beautiful in any random place, "and then he said," We should go. "And I imagined that we were going to move there and I was thinking," No, no, no, I can not live there! I do not want to move! "Then I realized it was just Alec, dreaming."
Her memoir, which Hilaria has not read yet ("I am living it," she jokes), opens with Baldwin daydreaming about the other lives that he wants to lead. He would like to own a stationery store, he writes, because he is "obsessed with quality paper". Or to teach, like his late father, or own a gallery or perhaps an antique store. In magazines, he had the habit of thinking of running for public office – mayor, governor, it was hard to keep track. In June, he told Howard Stern that he was running against Trump in 2020, he would surely win it. In July, he had awarded $ 16,000 to support another candidate, Cynthia Nixon, who lost the Democratic New York governorate to outgoing President Andrew Cuomo. "I did it for his name to be published in order," he tells me. "I want her to show up at the town hall after [Bill] "But since all this time, Baldwin has never organized an official campaign for himself, and when I press him, he recognizes that his political ambitions are probably – Probably – behind him. Why? "Because" my wife would divorce me, "he says.
Baldwin takes every opportunity to declare Hilaria "the most incredible woman I've ever known"; likewise for the four children they have fathered for almost as many years. "I know," he jokes, "why not [we] to use a birth control? "Still, he is desperate to be the father of the practice at this convent that he could not have been for Ireland, who is now 22 years old and working as a model His relationship with his own brothers and sisters – three brothers, two sisters – he has the wind in his sails.At the moment he has welcomed his brother Daniel, who is no longer a "drug addict who rages, "he says in his life, but he hardly speaks with Stephen, who supports Trump.", he's like Rolfe in The sound of music, "says Baldwin. He hangs out with the bad crowd. I do not know if we want to invite her to the Christmas party. "
As we make our way to the city center, I ask if he wants something different in his career – if he looks at those of his heroes, serious and dramatic actors like Al Pacino or Robert De Niro, and wonders how his and impressive as he is, took a different turn.
He tells a story that he wrote in his memoirs, as well as stories of drug use (he's been sober since 1985) and marital strife (yes, including the very misplaced message from his voicemail he has already left Ireland, with whom he is close now). It was in the late 80s, and a young Baldwin, still a few shy years of his role of escape in Glengarry Glen Rosswas sitting in front of two Paramount executives in the studio's police station. They were trying to convince him to do it Theft of the intruder; but he had been busy doing The red October hunt, which for him was the most convincing war film. So he asked instead of the third Godfather film, which still had to cast its star. "I will never forget it.One of these guys turns to each other and says:" I know what he wants. "He wants the good things," said Baldwin. "I did not know what to say, I remember sitting there, going," Yeah, that's exactly what I want. & # 39; And by that time, I realized that these people had an agenda and if you're lucky enough to have Leo [DiCaprio] or you are Jack Nicholson, and your agenda is very good; other …"
He leaves the sentence incomplete.
"But most people do not go to the moon," he continued, looking nostalgically out the window as the city swept past. "Most people fly by plane and in space, but not all astronauts have gone to the moon, and the same goes for movie stars. Everyone does not have to go as far as possible. And I accept it. make."
***
When I meet him a few weeks later at the downtown studio where he records The show of Alec Baldwinhe looks different. Softer, perhaps; definitely happier. It's not hard to see that he's in his element, crossing the corridors with a team of turners.
"We make a good show here, "he tells me, although Baldwin is pretty savvy about the company to admit that it might not last, so he hides," I mean, who knows if we survive ? ABC is not doing very well. We could go out, show four or five episodes and be dead. "
Baldwin does not have a lot of time to watch TV these days – except Don Lemon, whose wife is "crazily in love" on CNN – which means he's not not watched the competition. Instead, he says his promotional tour for his memoirs in the spring of 2017 gave him the best sense of the moment for what he wanted his show to be – and, what's just as important, what it's all about. 39 and he do not have want it to be.
Although he is a loyal friend of Jimmy Fallon, he is allowed to book for Stephen Colbert Last show. At first, the conversation seemed to be going well. Baldwin, a famous guest, shares some stories about his children and his impression of Trump. A few minutes later, Colbert asks him for permission to become a little more personal. Baldwin smiles, although during a second viewing (at his request), I note his concern. "You shouted to a paparazzo more than once," Colbert said. "Sometimes you look like an angry man, but you're handsome, you're extremely talented, you're rich … What's got you mad?"
Baldwin amuses and fills his host with a few dozen of his adventures as a photographer over the years. Inside, it was bubbling. "I said to myself" Oh no, oh no, do not put us in psychoanalysis, because I do not think you're qualified, "he says now. "And you just remind me, very briefly, why I have not done this show all these years."
A few months later, he would address Twitter to blame Colbert, as well as John Oliver, for being publicly scolded by the #MeToo era, for turning television late-night in "promotional stops" and "blithe gossip" in "grand jury." The position has earned him a lot of grief, but he sticks to that. "If I want to talk about that," he explains, "I do not necessarily want to talk to them.
And yet, when Colbert asked, I answered, he replied.
"If I do not do it, I a m the angry guy. Anyway, you can not win because people have already made their decision. It's either "Alec Baldwin, I think you're a philanthropic citizen and wonderful community, whatever your talent" or "Alec Baldwin, you're just a jerk." And that will never change. "
The show of Alec Baldwin was designed more in the Tomorrow's show vein – intimate and harmless conversations, or what ABC's Mills describes as "the style of maintenance in a hot bath". To Jason Schrift, who has been leading the show after years Jimmy Kimmel Live!Baldwin is perfectly suited for the job. "He's the kind of guy you want to have at your dinner," says Schrift. "He will continue the conversation and will be able to talk to anyone, and that's exactly what you want."
The guest list, which runs from Kim Kardashian to the Norwegian Prime Minister, is still being sorted. Mills still hopes the series will land Trump and Justin Bieber, Baldwin's nephew after apparently marrying his niece, Stephen Hailey's daughter. (When I mention Bieber's idea to Baldwin, he looks surprised, then shakes his head.) But that's his interview with De Niro, a very disappointing guest in a talk show , where I could see Baldwin on the test. After a few friendly discussions on their respective tennis matches, he spends the hour stubborn telling stories to this iconic actor, managing to spark some special, if not really worthwhile, exchanges, one of which leaves the two men in tears. The interview proves that Baldwin – who gets his terribly good impression of De Niro and tells a fabulous and profane story about the crowd that ABC will surely cut – can spend an hour of television if he needs it.
When the series was first announced in March, Baldwin told me that he would be interested in the invitation of Rose McGowan, despite "the long and constant piss" that she had inflicted it in the past. But when I mention his name now, he has clearly changed his mind. "She is a tragic person before [the #MeToo] cause, "he tells me", and I say that because you have no chance of arriving where you want to be if you are going to arbitrarily alienate and excoriate innocent men. … it's as if suddenly she was part of the Crips – the head of her own gang. "He pauses, smiles and adds," You can print it, by the way. "
Baldwin, however, has no intention of shying away from the subject. In fact, he says that he begged Mira Sorvino to participate in the series. When his story with Weinstein was revealed last fall, he said, "You know, I always wondered what had happened to Mira Sorvino, she was so talented and beautiful, then my God, he torpedoed his career. " Now, he says, "I'd love to ask him questions about it: how was it? It's like The sixth sensewhen they say, "I see dead people" When did you realize that you were dead? That you were poisoned and killed? "
He approaches the subject a little more delicately with another guest, Kerry Washington, who comes to record his time at the end of September. They talk about reviving a production of Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway, when Baldwin will be there. He does not want to be wrong, he said, sounding a familiar alarm. They both laugh nervously and then Baldwin dives.
This story was first published in the Oct. 10 issue of Hollywood Reporter. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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