Alright, whatever little “credibility” I have is about to go right out the window. I AM A HUGE ALEC BALDWIN FAN. There, I said it. I always liked the guy until I saw him appear on Saturday Night Live a couple of times… he is easily the best guest they’ve ever had on that show (Schwety Balls anyone?), and ever since then I’ve been a big fan.
Over the last couple of year, Baldwin has started becoming the Don Cherry (all you Canadians know who I’m talking about) of the movie industry. Never hesitating to speak his mind and to hell with whoever doesn’t like it. Well, it looks like Alec is at it again:
[Alec] stunned journalists by launching a scathing attack on the Screen Actor’s Guild and the studio publicity departments for giving him too many movies to promote. He also accused film chiefs of blaming him if their film flops. He complained, “The problem is that most of the marketing that’s done now means ‘let’s get the actor out there to charge up the hill and if you get shot to pieces you get shot to pieces’. Get out there and do Letterman, Good Morning America, these tiresome tedious rounds of promotional things to raise the awareness again in a very crowded marketplace to call attention to your film. It’s a bad, bad situation when there are just so many movies out there right now, which is ridiculous. Actors are treated like suppositories that are inserted into cavities of the movie- going public.”
Now, you’ll have to forgive me if I have a hard time feeling sorry for the poor little overworked famous multi-millionaire. Actors do get asked to do a lot… but at the same time they get compensated quite well for it. But you still gotta respect the man for at least speaking him mind…. even if he is out of it. Go here to read the whole article.
Alec Baldwinn is refreshingly honest. I had the honor of working with him in The Last Shot and he is the real thing. He’s a true talent and really really funny. You can see us acting and singing in The Last Shot. We are Bright Blue Gorilla (Robyn Rosenkrantz and Michael Glover). Enjoy it!
“Actors are suppositories” is an great & hilarious phrase to add to the “actors are” collection. I’ve heard “actors are cattle,” (Hitch, mis-quoted) “actors are space-holders” (Antonioni, Stroheim), etc. This quote from Baldwin must be saved like a precious heirloom, but passed around like a photocopy.
I don’t think any amount of compensation makes up for the endless mind-numbing exercise in futility that is a press junket. You get $2 mil to do a movie and that covers the press junket too. SOund nice right? But after 15-days of hitting podunk hotels and getting the same goddam questions over and over from insignificant local TV reporters who could burst into flames and no one would care. (And Baldwin’s politics get him the most bone-crunchingly stupid questions I’ll betcha.)
Baldwin’s millions come from wise investment, by the way, fueled by a few big movie paychecks of course. During the divorce he was said to be worth $20 million or so, with around $14 mil in real estate. Hell, at least he’s got a nice crib to return to after all those harrowing publicity tours!
.
I’m a really big Alec fan myself, so don’t feel bad. I agree with Erin, I don’t think he’s complaining about the work involved. He seems like he’s saying, “How the hell do you expect this to work?” And he’s right. The market is oversaturated most of the time, and sending an actor to 10 different shows and appearances in a week won’t do much to help out a film.
Well, I think what he’s saying is not that he feels overworked by it but that it’s a marketing strategy that is no longer effective. Yanno, in a 3 minutes iview there’s only so many hilarious anecdotes one can impart about 2 or 3 different films. And so films that he feels could do better are barely given a chance to be appreciated.
The Shadow knows!!!
I like Alec Baldwin too. In fact, most of the Baldwins aren’t really that bad. Even Billy (excuse me, William) was in Curdled, which was pretty damn cool.