The many lives of Alec Baldwin: How the ‘king of jerks’ made a comedy comeback

For any film, a festival premiere is a significant ambition, but it is especially so for modest productions. In the case of the western Rust, its recently announced premiere at the Camerimage International Film Festival of Cinematography Art in Poland is both bittersweet and controversial. The film, starring Alec Baldwin, 66, is overshadowed by a notorious incident: a shot fired by Baldwin from a gun loaded with live ammunition, which should not have been on set, resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. This tragic event echoes similar incidents, such as the death of Brandon Lee during the filming of The Crow and Jon-Erik Hexum, star of the television series Cover Up.

Last July, three years after the tragedy, the actor’s manslaughter case was dismissed after it was revealed that the prosecution had withheld evidence from the defense. Additionally, it came to light that the prosecutor had referred to Baldwin as a “cocksucker” and an “arrogant prick,” preventing further charges from being filed against him.

While the Hutchins family may economically benefit from the theatrical release of Rust (her husband Michael Hutchins was named an executive producer as part of a court settlement), the movie’s premiere has not been met with enthusiasm worldwide. “I’m all for memorializing Halyna and her beautiful work but not by screening and thereby promoting the film that killed her,” wrote Rachel Morrison, the director of photography for Black Panther, in a comment on the festival’s Instagram post announcing the premiere.

Anyone reading this story who has been disconnected from Alec Baldwin’s career over the past 30 years might be surprised — almost as much as by the tragedy surrounding the filming — by the actor’s presence in a low-budget western. Baldwin, known for his piercing blue eyes, hairy torso, and hyper-masculine demeanor, was often described as “an Irish Catholic Belmondo.” In the early 1990s, he seemed poised to become a major Hollywood star. However, a combination of poor decisions, unpredictable failures, and Baldwin’s volatile character — a magnet for controversy — proved serious stumbling blocks.

Always on the verge of ...

His early ambitions reveal his character: he aspired to be either a Hollywood star or the president of the United States. However, in the early 1980s, the allure of the stage ultimately won out over the White House, prompting Baldwin to abandon law school and devote himself entirely to acting. When he broke the news to his parents, “they screamed and cried and freaked out.” He moved to New York and accepted every opportunity that came his way. “I had 60 jobs,” he told Interview. He worked as a limousine driver, a lifeguard, a clothing store salesman, and a waiter at Studio 54, where he served as a “cigarrette snatcher.” He quipped: “I was the Rick Blaine of well-heeled homosexual balcony dwellers at Studio 54.”

Baldwin was preparing to pack up and return to college. “I was broke then — I was the kind of guy who would steal bowling shoes from a bowling alley just to have a pair of shoes. I was so desperate,” he said. But someone noticed his striking physique and provided him with the contact information of an agent. His first on-camera role, playing a young doctor on the soap opera The Doctors, matched his good looks and lack of experience. His luck had changed. After the medical drama, he landed a role on the Dallas spin-off Knots Landing, which quickly established him as a well-known and sought-after face in the industry.

Fame came with its own challenges. While filming the soap in Oregon, Baldwin overdosed in a hotel room after using cocaine “around four in the previous afternoon” to eight in the morning. This incident motivated him to remain clean to this day. “I had a white-hot problem every day for two years. I think I snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn,” he confessed last May on the podcast Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson. “Cocaine was like coffee back then. Everybody was doing it all day long.”

Baldwin sought to distance himself from television and soon began making brief appearances in major films. He played Melanie Griffith’s goofy boyfriend in Working Girl, starred alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in Married to the Mob, and formed the ghostly couple with Geena Davis that required the services of Beetlejuice. His first significant leading role came in The Hunt for Red October, the adaptation of Tom Clancy’s best-selling novel. Baldwin was cast as Jack Ryan after Kevin Costner turned down the role to film Dances with Wolves and Harrison Ford declined because he preferred a character that ultimately went to Sean Connery.

The movie won over audiences, and the Academy Awards nominated the film in three categories. The continuation of the saga seemed as assured as Baldwin’s presence, but when it came time to prepare the sequel, that certainty began to fade. Instead of following the chronological order, Paramount chose to adapt an earlier novel, Patriot Games, in which the enemy was the IRA. Both the director of the first film, John McTiernan, and Baldwin, who share Irish roots, preferred to avoid that storyline. While negotiations continued, Baldwin immersed himself in the stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, only to be blindsided by the news that he would be replaced. Harrison Ford, who had previously rejected the role, expressed interest in it again, and as solid as Baldwin’s performance had been, if Indiana Jones wanted a part, that part was his.

Baldwin still harbors a grudge. In his 2017 memoir, Nevertheless, he recounted that when Ford learned Baldwin was still in negotiations for the role, the Blade Runner star’s response was, “Fuck him.” Baldwin wrote: “Movies really do enhance certain actors, making them seem like something they really aren’t at all,” referring to Ford, whom he went on to describe as “a short, scrawny, wiry man whose soft voice sounds like it’s coming from behind a door.”

At that time, Baldwin was on the verge of breaking into the Hollywood A-list, but the shift destabilized his career — much like a tennis player who, despite a winning game, is thrown out of the match by an unforced error. “I had a hit movie and I had eight bombs in a row,” he summed up in an interview with The Guardian. Neither Malice (1993), co-starring Nicole Kidman, nor the remake of the classic The Getaway (1994), featuring his then-wife Kim Basinger, revived his fortunes. His attempts at romantic comedy with Meg Ryan in Prelude to a Kiss (1992) and the legal thriller The Juror (1996) with Demi Moore also fell flat.

Particularly painful was his role in The Shadow (1994), Universal’s response to the success of Batman. It seemed like a sure-fire hit, with a character that appealed to nostalgia and a script written by David Koepp, who had just penned Jurassic Park. The film was destined to be a summer blockbuster and the start of a franchise that already had its merchandising planned, but it failed to find its audience, getting trounced at the box office by The Lion King and The Mask. Baldwin became known as the actor who was always on the verge of something great. The industry’s giants called on him: Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, and David Mamet. Martin Scorsese considered him for The Aviator and The Departed, but he was cast only in supporting roles, which he handled with ease. It was in this category that he received his only Oscar nomination for The Cooler.

He wasn’t exactly a star, though he often behaved like one, which made him and Basinger favorite targets for the less scrupulous press. They met in 1990 while filming The Marrying Man, and their relationship quickly turned the set into chaos. “Honest to God, if I were destitute and living on the street with no food and somebody offered me a million dollars to work with Alec and Kim, I’d pass,” said one crew member who endured their excessively boisterous sex life, constant fights, and the delays they imposed on everyone.

Baldwin described the film as the biggest mistake of his career, lashing out at the production company in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I’m not some psycho — which the press and Disney would have you believe,” he said, calling Disney “totally evil, greedy pigs,” and describing the Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Neil Simon as “as deep as a bottle cap.”

His relationship with Basinger received the most media attention, but prior to the actress, Baldwin had also been involved with Northern Exposure star Janine Turner, whom he met during an audition. According to singer Carly Simon’s memoirs, Baldwin reportedly shared at least one night with Jackie Kennedy.

His marriage to Basinger was characterized by both professional highs and lows. Ironically, it was in 1998 — the year she won an Oscar for LA Confidential — that their marriage began to deteriorate. The legal battle resulting from their divorce exposed what had long been an open secret: Baldwin struggled with anger management issues, often placing their daughter at the center of his turmoil. This was evident in a message he left on his daughter’s answering machine, where he called her a “rude, thoughtless little pig.” Although he and his daughter now maintain a cordial relationship, Baldwin has admitted that this incident represents one of the lowest points in his life.

Baldwin’s resurgence came through the very medium he once despised: television. With 17 appearances, he holds the record for hosting Saturday Night Live the most times. During one of these stints, he met Tina Fey, who helped him land what is arguably his most iconic role, Jack Donaghy, in 30 Rock, widely regarded as one of the best sitcoms in television history. His dynamic comedic chemistry with Fey earned him two Emmys, three Golden Globes, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In addition to these accolades, his success on 30 Rock rekindled his love for romantic comedy, leading to his role in It’s Complicated (2009), alongside Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. The chemistry between the three actors was so palpable that they were later chosen to co-host the Oscars, a challenging endeavor from which they emerged victorious. Baldwin also ventured into two franchises that were both successful and diverse: Mission: Impossible and the Spanish movie Torrente 5: Operation Eurovegas (2014), where he seamlessly integrated into director Santiago Segura’s unique cinematic universe. “In the United States, political correctness reigns supreme. There are few loopholes to escape it. It’s a country of shame, where we point out others’ mistakes and failures, demanding public condemnation. Here, you sigh heavily and move on. Torrente is the perfect example,” he remarked in an interview with EL PAÍS.

But Baldwin has often got in trouble for his brashness: his outbursts and fiery temper have landed him in the tabloids more often than any other Hollywood star. Screen Rant called him the “king of jerks.” In New York, he caused a particular stir thanks to a series of incidents, including his arrest for riding a bike in the wrong direction and resisting arrest. His show, Up Late with Alec Baldwin, was canceled after he said homophobic slurs to a paparazzi trying to photograph his family. Rather than defusing the situation with an apology and a substantial donation to charity, Baldwin opted to spend an inordinate amount of time insisting he hadn’t said “fag,” until a video released by TMZ exposed the truth and left him looking like a liar. He was also booted off a flight for refusing to turn off his cell phone during takeoff.

If the world had not experienced Trump’s presidency, we might argue that the actor — who masterfully parodied him on Saturday Night Live — effectively ended his once-coveted political career with these various incidents. However, being a bully does not seem to be a barrier to pursuing the presidency of the United States in 2024. Baldwin shares his political passion with his brothers, although not all of them align on the same side. William Baldwin, who once appeared poised to dethrone Alec as the sexiest Baldwin thanks to Sliver (1993), is a fervent Democrat. In contrast, the youngest brother, Stephen Baldwin, is a confessed Trump supporter and a fading star who transitioned from the disturbing Last Exit to Brooklyn to Christian cinema, becoming more famous today as the father of Hailey Baldwin and father-in-law of Justin Bieber. Aside from Alec, Daniel Baldwin, the least known of the clan, has generated more unwanted headlines, notably ending up in the hospital in 1998 after running around naked in the Plaza Hotel in New York.

Even Baldwin’s current wife, yoga instructor Hilaria Baldwin, who is the mother of seven of his children, has not escaped controversy — this time for exaggerating her Latino origins and her faux Spanish accent. Hollywood is no longer the realm where Margarita Cansino became Rita Hayworth; it has transformed into a space where a girl from Boston named Hilary rebrands herself as Hilaria and pretends to be from Mallorca.

Baldwin’s most recently announced project, which is one of the few family-generated news stories unrelated to controversy, is a reality show featuring his wife and children: “We’re inviting you into our home to experience the ups and downs; the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy” With nine Baldwins in the spotlight, the result promises to be anything but boring.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition