Alec Baldwin in the Hot Seat

memoir called Nevertheless. And because you're here's the thing, listener, I know you like revealing interviews, so we thought you'd like to hear one where instead of asking the questions, Alec Baldwin is the one answering them. Okay. What I wanted to do was run out me first and introduce you. I am in control here, okay, and then I would run out and you'd introduce me. So I want to

start with how you start your memoir money. You say early on that the reason you wrote this book was because you got paid for it, and you say the mercenary force is strong in this one. So I want to ask you about money. Uh. Is the making of money for you? Is the thrill in getting the big paycheck and spending it at this point? Or is it watching it accumulate to feel safe. You know, I completely forgot that this is an episode of death, sex, and money.

We're taping this for your show. Um, well, it's interesting you say that I never really thought about that, because I don't. I literally have. Ah, this is gonna sound silly and maybe maybe some people are too young here to get this analogy. But um, like in Bugs Bunny cartoons, Bugs Bunny, sometimes we'll be sleep walking on a construction site and he'd be walking along like these girders and he's about to walk off the edge, and another girder would come into place, and he'd walk on that and

always be rescued at the last moment. And that's kind of my financial planning strategy. Things get really bad and then a big girder of money comes in and I walk on that for a while. There's these planks of money keep coming in to float me to where I'm go before I die. But I never really think about that. I have as really, I really believe a lot in

providence financially. Yeah, I don't know. I think moments of a financial planner, I think I actually appreciate how honest you are about money being part of what motivates you because you grew up not with a lot of it, So it makes sense that creating a sense of security not only for yourself but your for your family is something that you've thought about as you've made career choices. I think the people who go into business and uh succeeding uh being measured at least in one part on

money and income. Um, people in investment banking obviously, things that are all very near and dear to us New Yorkers. Um. Uh. The you know, the business simon you you tend not to think about that, and then all of a sudden one day you are thinking about that. Because there's tremendous opportunities there for people who succeed in film and television. But I think that when I got out of my house when I was a kid and I went to school, I thought, I just want to succeed at whatever I do.

Like if I went into acting for like a year or two and I was still waiting tables, I probably wouldn't have done it. I wasn't going to walk around for like a decade, you know, with a copy of Allman Gilead wedged in my pocket and like, you know, hanging out dressed in all black clothes at Nick sorely

Is all night long. You know I wasn't doing that. Yeah, well you actually you you recall a conversation that you had with the professor at George Washington when you're at that stage of life, You've gone one year to college at George Washington, thinking that law and policy is part of your future. You transfer, you're thinking about transferring to n y U. And he says to you, you're right, it's interesting that you're not talking about any dreams you have.

You're just talking about how you're going to make it. That that was what was driving in He was. He was a very intense guy, very clever guy, and you know, smart guy, I think, very caring of his students. You older. You know, I was in my early twenties. He was probably close to sixty, but like around my age now and um he um. From my own benefit to kind of throw a cold glass of water on me, you know, to to think about how I was going into this.

I was giving up going to law school and this kind of traditional track I was on to go into this more non traditional track and rather late in the game. And he was like, well, where's the artistic spirit, you know, where's the passion for it from an artistic standpoint? And I don't think I had that, really, you don't, No, No, I think I think I went to I went to

n y U for people. Again, these are references. People here might be too to get, but I never forget the guy that was auditioning me then was a guy, uh named Fred Gorelick. And I came in, and of course I've later find out I've done unfortunately for poor Fred, I probably done the nine hundredth rendition of Long Day's Journey, and tonight I've done Edmund from Long Day's Journey. I get in and I'll never forget Fred. It was this very colorful guy. He looks at me, he goes, you

remind me of a young aljo Ray? Is that? Because my voice is going to rasp me? Did you remind me of the very young Aljoe Ray? He said? And I thought, my god, is that a compliment? I thought? Is that supposed to close the deal? Here? Yeah? So I go to the school and uh, I had tremendous doubts about that. I really I didn't really think it was what I wanted to do. I was gonna try. I would never be young enough again to try that.

So I did it. And then as soon as I got out of that first year, I had to go another year or one semester was all my credit student transfer. But I got work right away, and then I just kept working, and the more I would work in the business, the more I would um. For simplicity's sake, I'll say, get into that, Udhahagan, think about respect for acting, because in the beginning, it wasn't that I had a cynicism about it or a lack of respect for it. I

just didn't take it seriously enough. And then after I did this soap opera for like two years and absorbed all the things from those people about their experiences outside of the television show, because all of them were like running off to go to the macarter to do King John and everything. And I'm doing a soap opera where you know, every day we go to work the script unavoidably, so it was just treacle every day, you know what I mean, every day You're like, Greta, I love you, Greta.

I love you so much, Greta. I wish there was enough time and the day to tell you Greta, how much I love you, and like the next day, the same thing once, one more time to find a point on this how much I love you? And it was like you just want to go blow your brains out, And and all the casts of many of them veteran theater actors, they take their break and I see, what

are you gonna do? And they go, I'm going to go to King John the Macarter, I'm gonna go to uh light up the Sky at the paper Mill Playhouse, And they're all the Westport Playhouse, and they were all really intense theater actors. And by the time I came out of that process with them, I had completely changed.

I think. Really. You write with a lot of fondness about David O'Brien, who was your co star on The Doctors, and I love these scenes you you recall of running around the mid fifties of Manhattan as a young man, having from Long Island to then Washington, and then you're running around town with this band of gay men, a very handsome young man yourself, and then yeah, back then, but it made me, it made me kind of wonder like you had a lot of different role models for

masculinity looked like on Long Island in Washington. Then David O'Brien becomes this very important role model for you as what what a man who's a performer is like? What did you learn about masculinity from those guys when you're drinking in bars in Manhattan at that stage of your career. That's so great. David played my father on the show, and I knew he what his nature was the first day because the first day I come on, they were

very merciless there. They want you to know your lines, and they wanted to They wanted to do what they call live tape, which is don't stop because we don't want to do the editing because the editing costs money. We want you to play the scene straight through. Don't don't cut, try to get through it, try to remember your lines, don't know exactly like we're doing it live. Even though we weren't live that we could cut. They

tried to avoid that for cost. And I come in my very first day and I don't remember my lines. I can't remember any of my lines. I'm terrified. I'm mortified.

And there was a guy named Don Stewart, and I believe I've been told that if you listen to the broadcast of the first time I was on the show, because we have cute cards back then, actual cute cards next to the camera with the sky Don Stewart, you can hear in the background Don Stewart tapping my cute card where the line is I'm supposed to say, so, David O'Brien plays my phone, is like, so, Bill, we haven't seen you such a long time. Where have you been? And I go, oh, you know, uh, And I go,

We'll go to the card. And David would save me, he'd save my line. I bet you was spending a lot of time. But your grandmother's house in Newport, what's your new part is? You've been a new part for a while. And I see I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, I was in Newport. I was. I was working at the bank for grand my Grandma's bank. I was Grandma's back, you know. And then I realized how caring and how kind he was, and I became really good friends with him. And he was from an old you know, David was

in the original company of Boys in the band. He was from a pre aids, pre eight s gay culture in New York. His his his friends were all, as I say in the book, they were executive gay. Uh, they were ceo gay. And we go to these restaurants. Uh, I go, as I was David's date, and um, he taught me many things, but he taught me that I think what I don't think he meant to teach me. But what I say in the book is that under

any given circumstances, I could have been gay. I say that in the book I was in love with him as anybody ever met my life. I never slept with him. I never slept with a guy in my life. But I look a him and I go, was it? My hang up? Like, did I what's the what's the membrane you passed through by which one minute you have a certain set of values in terms of sexuality, and you meet somebody that you care about as much as any woman I've ever been with. To my A, well what

do I do now? You know? I say in the book, I took a woman I was dating to his house on fire. So she was just velcro to the corner and didn't say a word, and he and I were like you you you, And she said, they're like eating you know, macadamia nuts and doing her nails, and I'm like, okay over there, okay, and uh, I mean I loved him.

I loved him. He was a great guy. And uh but he taught me to he taught he was the beginning of me learning the one for them, one for you school of acting, which has embraced the commercial and great embrace those opportunities. But then when you can, you run off and do these other things for your soul, you know. So you began acting one year at n y U one and a half years, as you say, you you joined the doctors. You go to Hollywood, quickly find success. And during this time of becoming an actor

with a job, I'm not slanding. You also have a cocaine haby it you write with some detail, yes, slip my mind. When did you first do cocaine? M h is your show Cold Drug stands, Sex and Money. The I guess here in New York with the people from the soap there was people who were you know, one day you're down to the bathroom in a bar in New York it's the eighties and you're doing cocaine and

you're and you're like, oh, that's cool. And then and then of course the money thing, you know, like, yeah, I look at it everything in terms of a value of you know, what I could afford, and I didn't want to um waste money. I thought, God, I money is so elusive in my family and my bloodline. Uh that I Uh, I would sit there and somebody would I'd say, we know. I mean literally, you know, I'm like a Woody Allen character in my own life. You know, I'm like in the bathroom, I'm like, I used to

how much does this stuff? Course, you know you're doing the cocaine. How much you look the portions you by, which size like a little baggy, and how much is that? And the woman's like saying to me, you know, they tell you how much it costs, and you're like, oh god, no, I'm not doing that. You know that's something it was cost prohibitive, And then when you make more money, it's not cost prohibits. Thank you. You write about an overdose, the cocaine overdose while you were working, you're alone in

a hotel room, you think you're gonna die. Did you stop using cocaine because you were ashamed or because you thought you might die? Well? I didn't. I didn't, Uh. I stopped. Then in the fall of two nineteen, Uh oops typo um the nine four I stopped and then uh and then I go and uh do it again. And people had said, you know that in these different twelve programs, that if you give up one thing, then

you'll pick up other things. And sure enough of my drinking increased, and uh, but not that it was that

that was too crazy. But I never foreget one time I was at my friend's house with my dear friends and they're all snorting cocaine and they knew what happened to me, how sick I was, and they were all talking and it was like one of those E. F. Hutton commercials, But like all of a sudden, everybody stops talking when the cocaine mirror is in front of me because they want to see if this person that's overdosed is you're actually gonna So there was going blah blah blah,

blah blah blah. So I didn't go back and do that until one more time in the February of five, and it just made me sick. It maybe I was very sick because I uh, I think, as as often the case for many people, success was far more scary for me than failure. Failure was what I was accustomed to. We're not succeeding was what I mean, growing up under very very uh ordinary means and stuff for than going to l A and UH and trying to figure that out. My dad had died. There was no old Brian there

for me. I write in the book that one of the strongest themes of the book is my need to find someone to replace my dad and to mentor me. And I did this thing. I mean as loquacious as I can be at times. I played this game once with two famous men that were two huge executives at a studio. And I'm not that smart, but on one occasion, I thought, I'm gonna sit and have lunch with him, and I'm not going to say a word. I'm gonna read all about them. Was before the internet. I'm gonna

find out about their careers. And I sat and at lunch with one particular guy, and we talked for an hour and a half at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. And he's spoken an unbroken monologue for an hour and a half. We just couldn't believe how much I was really acted. It's the best acting I've ever done in my life. And then what and then you do what after that? Oh? Really? Oh my god? Then you did that? Oh my god. And I kind of meant because he was a very fascinating guy. And the lunch is over

and he calls up my agent. He goes, I love him. He's fantastic, you know. And I realized getting out there, like it's it's like this much about how talented you are, and this much about how much they like you. They want to like you, and they want to work with people they like. So I started to kind of get into that idea and then eventually I just checked that as I don't care if they like me. Coming up, Alec tells me about choosing to be a very public

celebrity while also being addicted to solitude. You know, Ray Charles is blind, but he learned how to play the piano. Sometimes people are the Ray Charles of uh, you know, agoraphobia. You know, we're being in public. They find a way to handle it and deal with it, but doesn't take away the fact that they aren't necessarily that comfortable in front of people and talking about themselves. So but they

find a way to get around him. More of my conversation with Alec Baldwin about his new memoir Nevertheless coming up after the break. I'm in a sale from the Death, Sex and Money podcast talking today with Here's the Thing host Alec Baldwin. As a college student, Alec transferred from George Washington University to go to n y us Tish School of the Arts. After a year there, Alec got work as an actor and dropped out. But more than a decade later, when he was in his late thirties,

he finished his degree. I read all of the books just done Oslavski and Strasburg, and I watched all of the films of al Paccino, and I interviewed al for nine hours off and on. I mean, I would be like literally out, We'll be doing be talking, and we'd beginning into this great thing, and he was doing me, this big favorite body, letting me interview him. And uh like about an hour and a half ago by going I'm gonna go to the grocery store, Aleck, I'm gonna

I'm down to the grocery store right now. You wait here, I'll be right back an hour and I'm sitting there writing and I had two questions and I interviewed Al about the applicability of method acting to someone with a career in theater and film, and Pacina was the only one that really mattered because he kept going back to the theater throughout his career and still does. He just finished doing a show in l a And I interviewed Al and it was just one of the most amazing

experiences of my life. Do you remember one thing you learned from those interviews that sticks with you. Al does not like to talk about acting, which was very frustrating. We were writing a paper Bad Acting, and uh, we're in his house once. I mean, there's so many anecdotes about that. But one time I say to him, I said to him, I look at the line of people's work, like,

what's the kind of uh course they're on? And I said, now, in this period, right this year, you did the movie Author Author with Tuesday Weld, this romantic comedy and in the title song of the movie, the lyrics they sing are and in the end it's just it's just all cookies and milk and a smile. I said. And then after that, you do Cruise in the homosexual crime movie a detective movie with Billy Fakin, which was this big disaster for everybody involved. And I said, you know your

have your you know your this really violent movie. I said, what's that like for you as an actor when you pivot between these different things? And he literally sits here and goes, that does sound good, though, doesn't it? Alec, it's just cookies and milk and a smile. That doesn't sound too bad, doesn't And I'm like, yeah, it sounds great. But then you go from that you see two people like murdering each other in these gay clubs in Manhattan.

I said, you do a scene with Richard Cox and he is going down on you in in uh A Riverside Park and I said, you're a method actors, said, what's that life? You shooting that scene? He goes, all I remember was was cold. It was so cold there. We're there in the park and it was so damn cold out there. And he would never answer my question acting look to reveal to me. I wouldn't answer one question. And but then you talked about the theater, and he

talked about the theater. He would articulate about that quite a bit. Oh that's interesting, So I want to ask you about acting. It was so damn cold out there. I saw all I remember. I am curious because you have been both a professional actor and a professional celebrity for most of your adult life, and so you have been acting in roles and being the persona of Alec Baldwin when you are preparing, like I was thinking this weekend.

So last night you're preparing to go on Saturday Night Live as Bill O'Reilly and as President Donald Trump, and then tonight you're preparing to open up your personal life to all of these people who are here tonight. Don't you like, is there a similar way that you prepare

or they totally different? I think it's a um that don't be good to answer the questions without the bike, but the the I think, uh uh, well, I mean, you know, you go along and you and you have a career, and of course you want a career like many people I admire where the only way you could access them is to buy a ticket, and they have certain things in the business they don't want to do. You know, Daniel day Lewis is very elusive and he's

not doing Jimmy that one, you know. I mean, I mean you can almost wonder what that conversation is like where people are like, you know, so we've got this idea with Daniel is going to come on the show, right and he and Jim you gonna have like a piety contest, okay, and like spending the pie I don't is pie everywhere and it's like pie and Snott and pie. And you can see Daniel did it was on the other end of his public going I don't think so.

And there's like thing that those people won't do. And then that becomes the difference, which is you become someone who will do those things where the promotional aspect of the film, but the promotional aspect of the film becomes you performing in that capacity rather than you know, there's a lot of Nicholson won't do press Pcina when DeNiro avoided that a lot uh brand Do you look at old shows from him on uh Cavot and he wasn't

gonna work very hard at all. You know, you can see Cavot like writhing in his seat trying to understand if if he's making any progress with opening up Brando. And then in the modern world, you have this requirement to promote the project and they'll come to you with a very long list of things for you to do. They'll say, we would like you to pick some quotient of this list of like and then it's like a

joke like a Cone Brothers movie. The piece of paper like rolls all the way down the hallway and uh, it's crazy and uh the and so you do some because you want to be viewed as the good partner in the business. You are working with them on a venture where it's in all of our interests for the thing to do well. And we're in a very crowded marketplace. So you agree to spit the pie out with Jimmy on the show. And I love Jimmy and I love

doing those things. But that's what happened to me, was I kind of with that way where you're doing Letterman and you're doing this and and to some degree it's possible that from time to time that stuff can eclipse the actual work you're doing. It's it's it's it's more. Uh, they get more hits and clicks on the internet. I mean more people will watch Saturday Night Live that pretty much any movie I've ever made in my life, you

know what I mean. So it's weird. Does it take a similar amount of energy to perform Alec Baldwin as it does to perform a role for you. I guess I don't know the answer to that question. Like I mean, when you say perform me, I uh, it's it's strange because, like you know, you people always have an expectation that you're going to contribute something in some way, you know. I mean, I love going to the movies. I love

going to the theater. It's about somebody else and I don't have to do any of the talking, you know. But the other thing that changes is that your passion for some of the work you do begins to change. And you still love it, but you love it a little less or you love it less often like movie making,

you know, moviemaking is this incredibly time consuming. Uh you know paint when we did thirty rock for six and a half years, and there's a velocity to television a way of a Tina and I would say, you develop a muscle which you begin to kind of appreciate how we have to make choices quickly and efficiently. And I always tell the same crazy story about like in the movies. You'll do a movie sometimes and you can't believe the level of indulgence. You know, I always say I did

this movie one time. And and there's a shot is of a is of a a door knob and the and the director says, all right now, like in this scene, your hand comes into the shots and you reach the door knob and you open the door, and inside the bathroom, Nicole is Nicole kidman like Nicole is in the shower, out of focus in the distance, and action hand comes in.

Open the door, open and cut all right now this time open the door a little less maybe three inches spent that it there's three inches four inches maybe somewhere in there some range. And then show it to us please, and you're run about there. Open the run about there. That's great. Take four, Take five, Take six. Finally, okay, have your hand come in, have your hand come out. You're rethinking the whole thing. Then have your hand coming hard to see that ten shoot in your hand. Your

hands trembling just a bit. There's attention, open little no, you change your mind and we're doing this like this is like the half a day before lunch, and in the movies can be like this. This is very rare now because movies are independent. Film have very strictive budgets.

But I remember I did movies where you know, we didn't get a lot done every day, and we shot the movie for like four months, five months, and uh, that's not all that exciting because most of the day is spent like just in an idle gear in your trailer, waiting for them to come and go, we're ready for you, you know, and it's just uh, I didn't. I After a while, I thought, what the funk am I doing

this year? So you have come back to New York, you're working on thirty Rock, you have gone through a very public divorce and custody battle, and Vanity Fair describes you as the bruised mascot of the male midlife crisis, which was well put. I thought, they're very good at that, very good at that point in your life. Is that how it felt? I think I felt like I was just not um uh, I was not finding things I

wanted to do. Work wise. That was two thousand. I got separated and divorced in the early two thousand's and when you know, and I go along, and uh, you make independent films, and uh um. In the book, I take some of those independent films and I write a little uh section about when you go into these films, why do you do them? There's a reason you do them.

They might not have the the the the markings to be some great film, but you want to go to work and this is what you do when you and I did have some options that many then, so I picked a movie and I say, this is a real opportunity. Here. You meet with a director, a writer, director in the modern world, and you think that he's a smart guy, and you go do I list like twelve films that I did that. You know, when you saw the film, you wondered what was I thinking when I did that film?

But you kept working about how when we go into nobody sets out to make a mediocre film. You I don't really mean that in a heartfelt way. You start you you go when you say, let's give this everything we have and uh and and and sometimes you're into it, like the second week of shooting and you're like, oh god, what have I got myself into? You know, and it's not going You know, they're not you don't feel that creative. When I did the movie The Cooler with Wayne Kramer.

Wayne was this just really really intoxicating guy. He was just so smart and so passionate and so clear, and uh he was the captain of the ship, which you want with every director, and uh not all movies were like that, you know. And uh, um the I come to where I'm gonna do TV because I thought to myself, you know, the opportunities and home are you know, if I do one more movie or I just like, I take that back, if I read one more script in which you know, uh, Laura Durns my sister, and we're

gonna put Dad in a home. You know, it's an independent comedy. And Lauren and I are like, you know, well, first scene is gonna be pulled up at the She picks me up at the airport in Buffalo, and we haven't seen each other in like nine years, and I'm like, you look good. How you been? Next thing, you know, we're putting you know, Dad is like Philip Bosco. We're putting him in a home somewhere. You know, Lennon carry you his dad, We're putting him in a home somewhere.

And I just kept reading the scripts, going what the funk am I gonna do? And um, so I started to develop TV and then Lauren flew in the superhero he is and UH asked me to do thirty Rock. I did the TV show with you, which you started in two thousand six, and I You've written a whole book about fatherhood and divorce and that time in your

life and the custody battle. But I want to just ask you, at this point in your life, if a buddy comes to you and says, I love my kids, I think my marriage is breaking up, what's the advice that you give him. Well, I try to tell people that if they can, I say, find a way that you can get into therapy and get into the collaborative divorce, you know, the dignified divorce, because you're going to so regret if you don't. And the I mean, I'm with friends of mine who I'll say to them, you know,

are you out of this? I mean, this is if they're good friends of mine. I don't say that to strangers. I'm out in the airport bar going are you ready for this to be over now? While Gwen's in the ladies room. Her name is Gwen. Am I run? I don't know that you're good. I overheard you yelled Gwen and uh and no, but I think you know like I tell trying to tell my close friends or people who want to have that conversation, I'm married again. My wife is here, she's somewhere out there in this Uh,

she's somewhere out there in Brooklyn. And uh. Um And everybody uh has their difference of opinion, and everybody has their arguments and everybody has this. But to me, marriage when you're with the right person, uh, and even that's so guarantee. It's a decision. You decide to stay, and you decide to try to make it work, and you want to kind of feel out of the other person.

This is the can of worms, by the way, but you want to find that if the other person has the same kind of attitude of disposability that you have. Like I have a friend of mine who was married to is where they were together nine years. They were married like five years, and she literally woke up one day and said, I've made a mistake and I'm leaving, like boom Is shot him like in one day. And

he's overwhelmed with a confusion. And obviously, um, they didn't have the same attitude about marriage that he thought they did. Has your attitude? How did you say it? The the the attitude about disposability. Has that changed for you over your adult life and your romantic life when you look back, Well, um, I got married. I met my wife five six years ago. We got married and very quickly we had three children in three years. Did you all hear that? Uh? You know,

thirty rock was over. I had a lot of time in my hands and tell him a lot and uh the uh And you know, my wife, I'm very it's a lot of luck. And I try to remember in our in our lives, like what's my role? Which I don't always fulfill my end of the bargain as well as I might, But my role is to support her. And I kind of accept that I me into in order to make things ease. I mean, I love my children.

I worshiped my children. But as my dad taught me parents, who does a contest between two people where the dad always wins the bronze medal? And my wife is you know the moment my wife walks in the door and my kids are like, yeah, that's great, to see you later. But but my job is to be there to try to help reparent our children together. But she is the mom and I'm lucky. That was my point, I'm I got. I got very lucky, and luck plays a big partner. Well,

it's to read back interviews. Before you met your wife. You were very open that a dream that you had was to to just try to have a family again, that you prayed boy did that dream country? How did your I mean you are living a full, unmarried life in New York City. Star was unhappy. I was unhappy that I know you were waiting for the moment I was gonna I take Anna sale. My guess is Anna say, the host of Death, Sex and Money. How long have you been married. I've been married a year and a half.

And you met your husband and you knew each other. How long we got together? In so, we were together four years before we got married. You've met him in recent years? Oh yeah, yeah, I was. It was my second marriage. Wow. Yeah, huh. I learned some things in the ensuing years. So that's why I wanted to know from you about about Like so you think back on

that time when you were having success on television. You've turned around your career after feeling like things hadn't quite worked out with with movies, and then you're a star on thirty Rock. This critically acclaimed show. You're winning Emmy's, you're winning Golden Globes, and you felt lonely. That's how you remember. I went home and had a pint of ice cream every night and watched Turner classic movies. It's all by myself. I was didn't meet me. I mean,

I've met people, ID aided and I met people. I did it. I had a run of time with this one or that one, and none of it. I was willing to commit, by the way, because I didn't want to my older daughter to think I was abandoning her. Many people said to me, but they said, you be careful that your daughter will view you moving on as an abandonment of your daughter. So I kept pushing away any formalized commitment with people. And then finally when my

daughter turned and all kind of came together. My daughter was eighteen, actually she was fifteen, uh sixteen, she was sixteen when I met my my wife, Hilaria, and all of it just developed at the same time, where like I met somebody who I thought, oh my god, I think it would be a horrible act of self robbery if I didn't try to pursue this on some level. So you know, we got married. But but before I met my wife, and I was I was cutting every ribbon.

I was going to, like, you want to do the auction for the Sheep's Head Babe book of the Month club they needed here. I was like, we have five dollars. We have five dollars for this frame picture of Jerry Lewis five dollars. And I'm like going to every auction. I'm going to every event and hosting, and I'm out every night because I don't have anybody at home waiting for me. And I just kept um keeping busy and working and uh. And then I met my wife. And

now you have the opposite. You're doing a lot of auctioning. Before you met your husband, I was out more. Yeah. And now I have a small child and I'm home a lot. I'm home a lot now. So I'm how now you come home you have three little kids? What's that like? What was that transition like? Uh, well, it's it's it's wild. You know. We had the first kid, We had a daughter, Carmen, that was great. We had

our son that was great. Uh, and and then we have a third kid and it's uh, it's you know, everything becomes cirked to so late and it was your whole house is like, you know, we had a nice apartment. And I had a dear friend of mine come overhead and seen her in years and she was up from Washington and she comes in and said, and you literally can't imagine. You're like, uh, you're you're there turning to someone and you can't believe you have a life where

you say this line. You're like, I'm sorry, I don't have a really really comfortable place for you to sit down, you know, because the kid's toys are everywhere and everything. And my friend looked at me, she was, I get it. It's a preschool. Your apartment as a preschool. But we have three kids, and uh, the great journey is watching them.

Our daughter, Carmen is she's a talk show host. I mean she is really so verbal, and uh, you know, you sit there, you you you're there in that moment where you come around the corner in the kitchen and she's staring up at the refrigerator like it's the Monolith and two thousand one of Space Odyssey, and she sees you look at it, and she looks at me and she goes, she goes I'm not going to eat the chocolate. I'm just protecting the chocolate. She's three and a half.

You just kind of standing there and go, who are you? Where did you come from? That's Alec Baldwin talking with me and a sale. You can find more episodes of my show, Death, Sex and Money wherever you get your podcast iTunes, Spotify, or at Death Sex Money dot Org. One more thing, Alec told me his father and grandfather were also named Alexander, and they both went by Alet. So growing up, the youngest Alexander Baldwin was called Xander.

Alex told me there are still a few people who call him that, especially in his hometown of Massapequa, Long Island. This is one guy I grew up with. His name is Greg Maun and his mother was this character out of a Sidney Kingsley novel. You know. She was just this really New York kind of woman with a cigarette our mouth. They had a clothes line in the backyard. She hanged the laundry of the yard. You know, when this is suburban Long Island. I think I went out

there about six or seven years ago. So we uh were driving by and I pull up to the man's house, and there's Mrs Mom with a cigarette in her mouth, hanging out the laundry to say, nothing's change. Me and her sons were all in our fifties and she has like a basket of laundry. And I pulled up and I go Mrs Moan, and from like sixty yards or where you know, sixty ft away she goes, Zen the Baldwin, what are you doing here?