Alec Baldwin Calls NYC ‘An Island Of Rich People’

Actor Alec Baldwin is currently starring in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, and the plain-spoken Long Island boy has been doing press for the film in his characteristic straight-shooter type way.

It’s been a big year for Alec Baldwin, who recently wrapped up a highly-acclaimed run as the out-of-touch entertainment industry baron Jack Donaghy on the comedy hit 30 Rock.

Baldwin also welcomed a new baby with wife Hilaria Thomas, and is enduring the rigors of new fatherhood all over again. (The actor has a daughter, Ireland, with former wife Kim Basinger.)

But sharp-tongued as he may be, Baldwin is ever humble — and still seems to be in awe of “the business.” In a recent interview, he said that decades in, it still feels daunting to navigate Hollywood.

Of his experiences, Alec explains:

“You wind up not having any faith in it, in terms of having a career at it. Everyone wants you to turn to a speech that Lucas and Spielberg gave — two very, very seasoned people in the business who talk about the business model of studio movies collapsing. What I want to say is: The business model in terms of actors making a living at it is collapsing because you can’t get paid to make a movie.”

On TV versus film, Baldwin continues:

“Everybody does TV because you’re not out there having to kill yourself to get an audience the way you do in the movie business. People I work with, they want you to become their partner in raising money. They want you to become their partner in collapsing their fees. They want you to become their partner, now, in selling the movie.”

Which, he says, is a job unto itself — he concludes:

“They want you on a plane going to festivals and you’re on the phone with reporters all the time. The amount of work outside the shooting of the film has become absolutely unconscionable…. All the fun of it is gone. You talk it to death.”

If Baldwin sounds a bit Hollywood though, he still feels like the ever expanding scope of the elite is a problem — one that threatens his hometown. He said in a separate chat:

“New York has their own politics, their own campaign finance laws. I’m worried that because of Bloomberg we’ve gotten closer to being Singapore than we’ve ever been—just an island of rich people. All rich people. Bloomberg has a constituency, and that constituency is high-end jobs. Have you ever seen more cranes going up in this city? New York is always tearing itself down and rebuilding itself, and I think the problem is how much affordable housing we have.”

You can read Baldwin’s full remarks over at The Daily Beast.