Alec Baldwin: Impersonator-in-Chief

Actor Alec Baldwin has delighted millions of viewers playing Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, but it wasn't so long ago that he tried to say goodbye to public life entirely. He joins Katie and Brian for a frank discussion about the arc of his career, his personal challenges with tabloid journalism, and the political tensions within his own family. Plus, he dishes on his favorite Jack Donaghy lines from 30 Rock and why no one is more thrilling to work with than Tom Cruise.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. You know, I'm a big admirer
of Alec Baldwin. He has had some tremendous highs in
his life and some pretty devastating low points as well.
He is fascinating because he combines interests in the arts, politics.

(00:23):
He's got a really interesting backstory, and he's had this
incredible life that's been full of highs and lows, and
he understands the media culture probably better than anyone through
the mistakes he's made in dealing with the media. We
kind of watched Alec, I think, learn on the job
and in real time as a public figure and someone

(00:47):
you know, he's not just an actor, but just someone
who's the quintessential New Yorker. Yeah. Probably no one except
Donald Trump has had as many run ins with the
tabloid media pack in New York besides Alec Baldwin. And
the interview didn't disappoint at all. I mean, as any
fan of thirty Rock knows, he's a really funny guy,
but he's also very smart and articulate. And we had

(01:11):
a conversation that ranged from Donald Trump, of course, to
hosting a game show. You asked him some insightful questions
about his personal life, the best directors he's ever worked with,
his experiences with Tony Hopkins and made us laugh probably
more than any guest has. You know, just I just

(01:31):
realized by the way that you and I we could
have a show together. We could we could be on
in the morning, like at seven in the morning, like
two hours from seven to nine, and I would be
the stars. We'd like talk to people and you could
do some news and I could do like some interviews
and stuff. We could we could be on the internet. Yeah,

(01:52):
g kitty, what is it like to do a two
hour morning show from seven to nine every and it's hard?
All right? Thank you for being here, and are very psyched, cab.
We had so much to talk about. Where do we begin?
I guess we have to begin with Donald Trump. I'm
in the car coming here and he's doing this press conference,
his first press conference, and I'm thinking, this guy hasn't
had a press conference and so long. You would have

(02:12):
thought he would have rehearsed, you know, we would have
thought he would have had one of the greatest press
conferences and just efficient and tight and presenting himself the
right way. And instead he's on TV right now it's
going very strangely. In fact, you were impersonating some of
the things he was saying. NBC great organization, yet sure

(02:33):
great and don't want to talk to you, and uh
it's just uh feed fake news, fake like the Nazis
would do that, say that. I, oh, you know, the
Nazis said that that Hitler, but he liked to be
on Hooker's in the Baktist gotten it's a fact, it's
no in fact, everybody knows that. So we're just getting

(02:54):
right into it here. I like, I don't know. I
wish that people could see Alec because as he's impersonating
Donald Trump, he's got that uh sort of perpetual the
mask of anxiety. Oh with his lips, he's got the
O phase going on. But I think the big question

(03:14):
is why should Trump change? Now? You said that, you know,
you're surprised that he's not rehearsing, that he's lashing out,
that he's saying offensive stuff. I mean, what lesson would
he have learned from the campaign that would motivate him
to change. That's a very good point, and I don't
expect I have no expectation of him changing, but I
do believe I truly just you know, being and this

(03:38):
is the I can't think of any other way to
phrase it. Being a student of human nature as the
direct result of what I do for a living and
watching people and observing people and thinking what's really the
real thing that's going on with them behind the mask
they're trying to manage all the time, you know, what
are they really thinking and feeling? And they present themselves
in public a different way. I fully expected Trump to
relax once he won. I fully expected him to say

(04:01):
that there were insecurities he had, and there was a
defensiveness and there was a pettiness that would have not
completely abayed. It would subside to some degree, and he
would go on to become more presidential, if you will.
I think a lot of people alec are still having
a hard time wrapping their heads around these words, President Trump.
So how are you kind of processing it? And what's

(04:25):
your attitude with the inauguration just around the corner? I
think that, you know, I mean, there's nothing I can
say that you know you haven't read or seen before
in terms of other people expressing their opinions about this,
because it's all people talk about all day long. It's
it's pretty much. It's phenomenal. It's pretty much a phenomenon
I haven't seen. But I will say briefly that, um uh,

(04:47):
you know when other men one in my lifetime that
I was not fond of, when Reagan won and even
the more kind of uh difficult one in two thousand
and the Florida thing and Gore and everything, and he won.
But in each of those cases, a few weeks go by,
a few months go by, and everybody settles in and
they realized that that men, because they were both men, obviously,

(05:08):
is not malicious in any way. Now we have a
guy who's the president the United States who's a malicious person.
He's a malicious person, and I don't think people are
going to settle in. I think that the way he
behaves and the way people reacting this is going to
be this way for the next four years. It's not
going to subside at all. What advice would you give
members of the media, because I think there is a

(05:31):
lot of you know, I think ratings, I mean, alec
you know, all about all this stuff. As much as anyone,
they can't alienate a huge segment of their audience who
want to give Donald Trump a chance who believe in
his sort of his approach to governing, and yet they
also don't want to normalize what is too many people

(05:54):
really repugnant reprehensible behavior. So I think they're kind of
caught between a rock and hard place in a way.
What what would you say is important in terms of
media coverage in the next four years. Well, I mean
that's a that's a big question, but I think that, Um.
I think that there are two things that are the

(06:17):
thing I see most vividly around Trump. One is that
all of these men who and some women who diminished
him and reduced him during the campaign, and some of
them ran against him, have all signed on in in
the way that partisan politics in this country demands right now,
and because they all know that the only thing worse

(06:38):
is that he doesn't win the election, they want the ryan.
Everybody is signed on saying O, Trump's okay, Trump's okay,
It's all going to be fine. Um. And that worries
me because of these appointments. His appointments to me are
very very, very frightening. I mean, I'm on the board
of directors of People for the American Way, so I'm
very concerned about the Court and a couple of vacancies
that may come up, certainly a couple or three that

(07:00):
will come up over the course of the next eight
years if he is re elected. But when I think
about Trump, now, what I think about is the word intervention.
Is there anyone, I mean, his daughter, even who is
close enough to him that a group of people can
sit her down and coach her through something. And is
she the one that can reach him and say to him,
here's a list, very basically, here's three things you need

(07:22):
to stop doing, and here's three things you need to
start doing. Let's just begin there. I think she tried,
didn't she like I mean, she was the one that
brought our more in to talk to him at Trump Tower. Uh,
there been Robert F. Kennedy, which is interesting. That's a
whole another area. Now he's going to lead up the vaccine.
I didn't realize Robert F. Kennedy was so anti vaccine.

(07:44):
Very lily, that's a good word for vaccine. That's why
I But you know, I think I think the Al
Gore meeting sort of proved the point for those who
are critical of Trump. That is, Ivanka brought Gore in.
Gore talked to Trump for like over an hour, and
then the next day he announced to A somebody who

(08:07):
denies climate change, so I think people who are holding out.
He wrote everything into focus for me, and I decided
to bring in an assassin to literally take out the
e p A. Mr President Elect. I didn't realize you'd
be joining us today. How did the whole Donald Trump

(08:27):
impersonation gig come your way? Alec? I mean, obviously they
knew they had to have somebody once he became the
nominee as somebody to play that, and they had all
these people in the bullpen that had done it for them,
Carrol Hammond, Carol, Taryn Killing left the show, and Tina,
I guess, was the one I was told that recommended
to Lauren that I do it, And I said this
before and it was just such an amazingly weird thing

(08:51):
for me, which is I had no idea what I
was gonna do. Literally the moment the stage manager had
my arm in his hand and leading me to the
stage to do the dress rehearsal of the first show
eight o'clock that night, I sat in a room and
we watched tapes of him and in anything, I mean,
I'm not a comedian, because comedians, to me are people
who write their material to be a real comedian to write,

(09:11):
and Tracy Morgan and Tina and so what. These are
people who have that gift of right. I'm just an
actor who says words of other people create. And we'd
sit there and whether it was Tony Bennet or Broccino
or de Niro or the little things I've done in
an ancillary way in my work. That way, there's an
element of appreciation for them, which is always important. And
with Trump, I don't have that element of appreciation, which

(09:33):
makes it difficult. So you wind up saying to yourself
that it's not so much the voice, because I'm not
going to sound like him that much. I'm kind of
you kind of get to a thing that's like a caricature,
everything swollen and bloated and and exaggerated. It's the look
where the hair is what it is. But to me,
the key to doing him was to be a man
who paused regularly, almost metronomically, paused to dig for a

(09:58):
word and never came up with the better word or
a stronger word. So Trump will sit there and go
I was talking to the president of Mexico who is
just a fantastic person, a great, great person, And like
I mean, whenever he pauses, you feel like there's like
in some Cone Brothers movie. It's like a bunch of

(10:18):
men in a filing room, like in his brain was
sweating and breathing heavily trying to find a word. And
then look at look at the look at the main nerve,
the guy in the big chair. Then we got nothing
we got And Trump's like, let me tell you something.
We're gonna build a wall here in Mexico and that
wall is going to be just a fantastic wall. And

(10:43):
you know, it's like he's always pausing to come up
with something with some rhetorical flourish or some muscular word,
and he never gets it. Never. So I always try
to build that into the impersonation where he's like, Melania,
you know that I want just to be with some great,
great people, you know for dinner. You know, you know
what saying we don't want to be to do it

(11:04):
seems so labored, right, and then you hear it and
you're like, seriously, that's all you got. I wonder if
I wonder truly if here is a guy I said
to somebody that here's a guy who this is This
is just my opinion, and I don't say this to
pile up on him or be mean or what have you.
This is just the reality which I find fascinating. Here's
a guy who, through I guess the kind of odd

(11:26):
uh nature of television, convinced a critical massive people, certainly
not the majority of voters, as we've learned, but a
critical massive people that he was this kind of whip
cracking can do executive on this TV show, this reality show.
Whereas in New York, where he lives and his home
base of his company, Trump is not admired at all.
When you see Trump in social circles in New York,

(11:47):
he was endured, you know, he was always somebody people
would nod to him and say, hey, how are you.
Because of New York people at the very least respect
other people who make a lot of money, and Trump
has purportedly met a lot of money, so they've tipped
their hat to him in that guard. But he's not
an honored guest anywhere. He's not an invited speaker anywhere
he's had a featured guest at some social event or
a dinner. He's kind of an outcast in the world

(12:09):
he lives in. When you when you got this gig
doing Donald Trump for SNL Alec, did you think it
was kind of a short term thing. Did you think, well,
this will be fun during the campaign and now whole
mother of god, I'm stuck doing this. Well, I didn't
view it as being stuck in the in the sense
that you know, when it came on, and I certainly
thought he was gonna lose, And I definitely thought he

(12:30):
was gonna lose, but uh, maybe not by much. But
I just never never dreamed we would be where we
are now. So when he won, there really was a
part of me that sat there and thought, you know,
I I emailed Steve Higgins, the exact producer who runs
a show with Laurence, and I said, what's the schedule
for the rest of the season again, I literally have
it on my phone. I can show it to you.
I'm like, how many more shows are you doing this year?

(12:51):
I'm like, Wow, I just to go to Paris to
do Mission Impossible and may I'm just to go to
this place in this place in March. Are you making
plans so you can be part of the show from here?
I'm do it again. I don't think I'm gonna do
it this week. I'm what I'm doing it definitely next week,
and we're going to do the one for the inauguration.
I mean, I have to say, you're so funny and
it's so great watching you. And let's listen. We have

(13:13):
a montage of some of your greatest hits as Donald
Trump on SNL. Let's take a listen. What gives you
the energy for all that? My deep love for America
and a really really big handful of uppers that are
meant for racehorces. I use a very private, very secure
site what one can write whatever they want to. I

(13:34):
know one will read it. It's called Twitter. You know,
I can't quite say it on live television. Um, but basically, uh,
you said you wanted to to grab them by the pussy.
I deeply apologize. Are you trying to say apologize? No,

(13:56):
I would never do that. What I am doing is
Jina huge v China face is completely orange except around
the eyes. Words wide sirie. How about kill lisis theory?
What's your relationship with Donald Trump personally? Do you have one? No? No,

(14:18):
I mean I would meet him in town. And and again,
I mean you never want to be uh mean or
impolite people like that. I mean, if you don't if
you're not a fan of theirs or you're not some
supporter of theirs. I never watched The Apprentice. I watched
it like once when my brother Stephen was on. But
I would never, you know, want to be rude to
somebody like that to their face, even if they weren't,
you know, somebody wanted to hang out with. So I

(14:39):
would bump into him at events from here and there.
And but also he also provided the location manager of
a movie. I did uh an apartment in his building,
the top floor of the International on the old Gulf
and Western Building, and he allowed us to shoot a
film there, and he stopped by more for shooting. And
he's very gregarious and very fun. But I think what

(14:59):
he's somebody is who he's uh uh. He wants to
be appreciated. Yeah, when we're shooting the movie, he would
welcome to go. Isn't this apartment great? Isn't this the
most fantastic condominium you leather shot in in your entire
Life's go ahead say it. And what I'm gonna say
to you is before you speak of me, to say
You're welcome. You're welcome. He wants gratitude and he wants

(15:23):
recognition for what he does. So you haven't heard from him.
He hasn't reached out. I know he's tweeted that SNL
you know, has jumped the shark, etcetera appreciated Meryl Streep
is overrated, and I thought that was great. Meryl Streep
is overrated. I thought you really want to sit down
with some advisors, like some acting coaches or something, or
some PR people and the goat. Now, Donald, that would

(15:44):
be a vivid example of what you shouldn't do. I
have to ask you, since you brought it up, what
did you think of Meryl streep speech at the Golden Globes. Well,
I think that, um, you know, we were at a
point now where that kind of thing where somebody in
the arts, performers, you know, whether they're actors or musicians
or what have you, that piggyback that kind of statement

(16:05):
onto an event. We've seen a lot of that, and
I think maybe people are kind of bored with that,
and they don't they it's kind of predictable to them. However,
I do give her my understanding of her. I mean,
I'm a huge I'm completely in love with her, and
I worked with her and at a great time and
with her. I kind of give her a pass because
she I think she was speaking as a woman. I

(16:26):
think women are deeply hurt by what's happened and what
he said and how he uh sounds like he treats
women and views women or the less powerful. I think
because she gave the example of the reporter right who
had the disability. No, no, no, I I agree that
that in her content, she's covering a broader spectrum. But
I think what what what drives her as her being

(16:47):
a woman where you know, I mean, Trump is someone
who has abused power everywhere he's been in his life.
I mean everywhere he's gone, he's abused power and people
who were less powerful than him. But I do think
that what she said was very smart, was very active.
But I can see now where you know, there's people
in this country they just want to they want to
take a deep breath, and they want to right after

(17:08):
the inauguration, we have to accept where we are and
the task at hand. For people who are political opponents
of Trump's, you know, whining about Trump and lampooning Trump
and our mouth, our hand over our mouth, aghast, Oh
my god, Trump's the president. We've got to get over
that now. But you were just to get earlier in

(17:28):
the conversation, though, Alec, you were saying, you know, you
you went through sort of the stages of grief with
other presidential candidates who you didn't agree with, but it
was hard to get to that level of acceptance, if
you will, the final stage and the Elizabeth Coogler Ross,
you know, stages, agree with somebody like Donald Trump because
he is a malicious person. So I hear you saying

(17:50):
both things exactly. I think it is both things at
the same time. I think, well, I think it's people will.
The task is to move on and to use this
to energize the the the entification, and if you will,
the selection of someone to run against him. We need
to find that person who's gonna win, and that needs
to be job one. Number two. I think while he's

(18:10):
in office, he's just not going to enjoy what other
people have enjoyed. I mean, I think I think people
are going to be the press, and he's invited this
quite frankly, the press and the public that are not
supportive of him. They're going to keep giving it to
him right to the end. Speaking of the end, we
gotta take a quick break, um to hear some messages
from our sponsor, and we'll be right back. God, you're good.

(18:36):
Everybody has been talking about Russia. It's in so many
headlines these days, Briant and so. On our next episode,
we're going to be speaking with a man named Bill
crowd Or. He was once Russia's large as foreign investor.
He is now a very strong and vocal anti Putin voice,
and we really want to talk to him about the

(18:57):
pros and cons of a closer relationship with Russia and
get some better understanding about the risk reward ratio of
a reset. Very illiterative, aren't I? So what questions do
you have about Russia for Mr Browder? Leave us a
message by calling nine to nine to four, six three seven. Oh, brother,

(19:27):
Bryan is really really smart. No, don't set expectations too
high now, he's gonna be crying. Worked with me at
CBS UM and he went to Harvard and then Stanford
Law School, and for some reason I was interested in media.
But he's also like a political chunkie here. Always tell
me he was sort of a producer helped me with

(19:47):
the Sarah Palin interview. We spent like four days together
in my den together coming up with all the questions
for Sarah Palin has a photographic memory about all things political.
I always tell the story that he got kicked at,
that he got grounded in high school for sneaking out
of his room to watch c SPAN. That's how big
a nerd this guy is. Sad. What I love is

(20:08):
the image of you um getting this job where you're
on on the mic so to speak with her, where
she says to me, where she says to you, I'm
gonna go and do this podcast, would you like to
come with me? And there's this Eve Harrington moment for
you where you're like, yeah, I'll come with you. But
I don't want to be on the air with you. Yeah,
I don't want to be a producer. See, I want

(20:28):
to be on the air. Well, that's why I want
Brian to to be on the air. I want him
to have that voice. Me to a plastic surgeon and
in a few months I'll be Yeah, I'm gonna have
a face cliff. I said to my wife, said I'm
gonna have a face stiff when I'm sixty, which is
almost Hey, I just turned sixty. They're timeless. Very well,

(20:50):
you're a time but you're a timeless beauty. You're the
prompt queen of all of media, and we know that.
But my point is, I'm going to be sixty. I'm
gonna be fifty nine in April. So a year after that,
I'm sixty and I said to my I want to
have a facelift. She said, no, Alec, don't have a facelift,
because men, it looks so funny. I said, that's the point.
I want people to gasp when they say, what a thing?

(21:12):
What has he done? Because that's my favorite do anything
for attention? What's my favorite New Yorker cartoon with a
guy looks at the woman and the doctors in the
office with the woman and he says, he says, I
can't make you look younger, but I can make you
look like you've had a lot of expensive plastic serion,
just like Yes, okay, let's talk a little bit about well,

(21:32):
there is one thing you and Donald Trump have in common,
which is your proximity or you're the way that you've interacted,
if you will, with the New York media, tabloid culture. Um,
he to me seems to have utilized it with the
notion that all press is good press, and you, to me,

(21:54):
has what what expression did you use for Alex relationship
with the New York tabloid media? Kind of careful now?
Whipsawed by Yeah, a little bit whipsawd by it. Well,
I think the only thing I can say to that
is when you're provoked by certain people in the media, Um,
I definitely did the wrong thing a handful of times,

(22:15):
and it seemed like it happened. Uh, you know, Um,
a lot of it has been very close succession. When
you become that person that is a click bait or
cover bait subject for like the New York Post and
so forth, that's uh, that's a tough current to paddle
your way out of, and there are ways to do that.
But I think that I mean, you know, I write

(22:36):
this in my book, My Memoirs, coming out in in April,
And in my book I talked about how I walked
down the streets of New York and there was a
guy coming toward me, an elderly couple, and the guy
was this very distinguished looking guy in a suit and
a tie and a camel hair coat, this African American guy,
and he took one look at me, saw that it
was me, and it's like there's that unmistakable glint of recognition,

(22:56):
and he kind of like shook his head and looked
down to the ground. Because it wasn't like a week prior,
the New York posted that I called this guy this
racial epithet. It was a photographer from the post. Now,
as I said repeatedly, if I was going to use
a word that was a racial epithet, it wouldn't be
something from a Rod Steiger movie from nineteen sixty nine
and we're down and like so that you make them

(23:18):
Georgia or something, but from the in the heat of
the night or something. And I and I said, you know,
there are other words. And when I grew up in
my neighborhood, people might have used. But I went to
have an interview with the d a's office. They called
me in to have a hate crimes investigation, a preliminary investigation,
and they were contemplating charging me with a hate crime
for saying this to this guy. When we were done,

(23:41):
I said, well, would be very beginning. I said, well,
the guy's a photographer. Of paparazzi and a videographer. Is
there a video tape? And there was this odd moment.
It was this pause that the d A had this
woman because what she was hoping that I would implicate
myself in spite of the presence of the tape, that
I'd say that I did something, because they're obviously they're
wawyers who know that that's a possibility. As a pause,

(24:03):
and she said, yes, there's a tape. I said, well,
let's play the tape. And we play the tape and no,
at no point in the day do you hear me
say any of what he accused me of saying. But
you do hear him say he walks back to the
to the journalist that he's working with in Tandeman says,
she was what happened? What happened? He goes, I think
he called me, and there's a pause, he goes a

(24:23):
coon or something. And you never hear them on the
tape at all, and you hear everything recorded on the tape.
So I said to the woman from the d a's office,
I said, are you going to hold a press conference
and announced that you did not discover And of course
the answer was no. So the tabloids spatter you with
all this mud, and you get covered with all of
this mud, and in my profession, it damages your reputation,

(24:45):
which is really all you have. Significantly. It takes you
a lot of time to wipe all that off of you.
And I turned to the woman, thinking, you know, one
statement from you to the press would say, we conducted
this investigation, and so what's the point of this investigation.
Is it just to we view of a burden or
are you willing to exonerate me in the process. And
they did nothing. The d a's office didn't They would

(25:06):
not make a statement. They did nothing. So you are left,
for the most part, to perform this function for yourself,
which is very time consuming and very very painful. Now
I learned some profound lessons from getting fired from MSNBC
above the flurry of things right around two thousand thirteen
and two thousand fourteen, which is that the less you

(25:28):
have the press in your life, the better you want
to cherry picket and just do every now and then
you in my business, which is one thing, and I'll
finish with this. One thing people don't understand is the
fulcrum for the the reison debt for my relationship with
the press is nearly always contractually obligated the people I
work for him me a contract and say you must

(25:49):
talk to some percentage of these people to promote this project,
and if you don't, you're in breach of your contract. Otherwise,
I sincerely doubt I would do you know any percent
of what they asked me to do? Why do you
think it was so relentless over that period of time, Alec?
And because I feel like, you know, it became a
weird kind of sport and that do you think they

(26:12):
somehow smelled weakness or vulnerability or your reaction to it
made it more enticing to cover you. I think it
was one of bury people who they have some who
they think has some other potential. Meaning that was a
time when people were coming to me. I mean I
had some pretty prominent people come to me. And aspect

(26:33):
a run from mayor in two thousand, UH went to
Blasio one. I mean I had people. I mean I
was on the cover of New York magazine. They said
I was going to run for the Senate twenty years
ago in advance of the campaign. Um, the do you
think it was to cut you off at the knees. Politically,
I think it was I think that they want to
damage people who all hope they have a dream, a

(26:57):
desire to reduce and to null of by all people
that are their political opposites, whether they're there in the arts,
whether actually bona fide political figures. I don't think that
they look at me as somebody who's some virile political candidate,
But I'm somebody who is a loud and persistent, opinionated,

(27:17):
opinionated yet rock in their shoe in terms of their
I mean, I'm constantly pissing on the Post, and I mean,
let's let's put it this way. The Post is nothing
but a mouthpiece for Murdoch. It hemorrhages money. It loses tens,
if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year the Post,
and Murdoch and his family maintained that as a as
a as a a forum for them to launch their

(27:40):
political pi they've kind of backed off. I'm wondering why
you're kind of poking them in the with a sharp
stick right now, because I feel like, you know, I
I read the stuff when you went through this sort
of phase where you were in there in their target
or and and I was always thinking, it's nice that

(28:01):
Alec has made his peace with them, or they've made
his their piece with him, and they're not kind of
I don't think make peace with them. Yeah, I don't
think you ever do, know, just a question of it.
They move on to somebody else, and they move on,
and I'm not as as interesting for that those purposes anymore.
You know, they'll give it to they'll give it to
Merrill for the next couple of months over what she said,

(28:22):
and they'll they'll identify somebody else who their staff. It's
like that bullpen you see on TMZ, and they all
sit around shooting the breeze about what stories that they
think are the most tabloid worthy, and and that energy
moves on and meanders to other other people. So I mean,
right now, you know, for me, um, if you could

(28:45):
write a check to some organization and pay them to
never see your name in the paper again, I would
be the first in line to write that check. And
that includes The New York Times. By the way, Well,
it's interesting a couple of years ago media, really, you've
got a lot of attention for writing a piece about
how you were retiring from public life. What did you
mean by that? And have you have you done that
since then? I think that that that number one again,

(29:06):
that that idea was to ever think that I could
have a successful relationship with the media, to talk about
my work and with any joy or any um uh
kind of collegiality, deal with the media as a necess
as a necessary element of my work, like I go

(29:26):
into rooms periodically. I just came from the press conference
in Los Angeles at the t c A. And to
always be going into these rooms with these people and
dealing with them and hoping that they would have some
desire to and s and and and subsequently ability to
interpret even remotely who you really are. I'm that way. No, No,

(29:48):
you're to get people. You're not malicious. And but my
point just to finished that The point is that so
the answer is that was a bit premature for me
to put it in. I probably should to put it differently,
which is that is I've tried to minimize that as
much as possible. I mean, I have been through this
Trump thing, for example, offered the cover of every magazine
you could possibly imagine. I've been offered untold hundreds of

(30:12):
thousands of dollars to put the wig on and walk
in and do you know what speaking fees are in
this business. I've been offered a ton of money, and
I agreed with Lauren when we started that I wouldn't
do that. I wouldn't monetize this gig at all. Really,
I just says, that's why we announced on the show,
on the on the on the in the media that
they pay me the S and L guest fee of
fourteen dollars a show to do the show. This isn't
about money but a proposed what you're saying, and I

(30:33):
don't want to dwell on this, which is that, uh
that the idea that I could make it fun and
I could make it relaxed, to make it easy, and
I'd have my relationship with reporters and things like that
and try to handle it a certain way. That's over.
That's what died, and that is that I can never
trust because the media is so desperate for funds. Now,
all media sources are so desperate for clickbait and ratings

(30:56):
that they will go to any lengths. I mean, I
say this to you of old people, and I remember,
I don't I really don't enjoy saying this. It kind
of makes me sad. But like when I had this
thing where I left this message from my daughter on
this tape, NBC and their producers in the Today Show
producers went and got Harvey Levin and put him on
the air before me, and I was doing thirty Rock,

(31:18):
and everyone in my life was saying to me that
I would get a gift basket that said from your
NBC family. I thought, oh, my god, I think I
might be in the wrong family if h Mattlauer is
going to interview Harvey Levin before me, and nobody even
contacted me. They put Levin on, and I mean, everybody
knew how to reach me, and I was working for them.

(31:39):
And when they did that, I never did the Today
Show ever since then ever, And that was in two
thousand seven, And I said to my that's ten years ago.
And I said to myself, not with any anger or
any hatred. I just said to myself, I need to
have less of this in my life. Did you ever
talk to him out about it? Not? Really. There was
a quick mention of it because he guessed it on

(32:00):
thirty Rock, but there really wasn't anything to say because
certainly Matt didn't make that decision as producers did. It
wasn't really up to Matt So. But but when you
make that thing, I mean out of anger and frustration.
I hoped that I would never have to speak to
the media again. But believe it or not, I certainly
have reduced it a great deal. And I made exceptions
for people who have law degrees from Stanford University. But

(32:22):
we appreciate it. But I called the Stanford rule. So
can we talk about your upbringing and kind of how
you got into all of this, because I think a
lot of people don't know. You grew up on Long
Island in the nineteen sixties. Your dad was a school teacher,
your mom was a housewife, you were one of six kids,
money was tight. How did that upbringing affect your choice

(32:48):
of career and kind of how you've pursued your life.
So that's really a very important theme in the book
I wrote, which is that that there were other things
I dreamed of doing. There were other things I wanted
to do, and people kind of enticed me into trying this.
In every month or whatever period you want to use
to calibrate it, that I remained in this business, things
got better. I got a job right out of school,
out of acting school, I went to Los Angeles, I

(33:12):
got work. I just kept working. I just kept lightening
one off the other. I was changed shooting, and I
was like just working, working, working. Then I got into
you know, primetime TV. Then I got into supporting roles
of movies and bigger roles in movies, and they all
just had this momentum but the entire time, and I
will say this pertains to inside the body of the

(33:33):
work I've done. And this is a big part of
what the book is about, is I never really often
got to do what I wanted to do because my
background left me obsessed with I had to make money
and not be like my dad. So when I worked,
it was always like I gotta I gotta work, I
gotta keep working. I gotta make as much money as
I can. I don't want to, you know. My dad
didn't uh you know. He was a school teacher, and

(33:54):
there were things in his colleagues and other school teachers
did that they didn't want to do to supplement their income.
I mean the father My father had friends of his
that were younger men who painted houses in the summer. Well,
they had floor polishing companies where they sent out men
to banks and clean the floors of hospitals and banks.
My father had friends talking about teachers, teachers who when

(34:15):
the summer would come, they ran travel agencies and they
went and did they went on cruise ships. So they
had some crazy supplemental work that they did, and my
dad didn't do that. He Everything my dad did was
a paycheck from the school. He coached football, he coached
rifle ry, he did a lot of different things. Wasn't
the money or was it the gravy train that was
so enticing? Or was it the work? Wasn't that enticing?

(34:37):
It was necessary? Well? That was that was the problem.
Was What was enticing was the work. And what got
in the way was my need to make a living.
So there were many many opportunities to work and do
things I wanted to do, and you know, different than acting.
No no jobs within the business. Some some you know,

(34:58):
monster directors saying come with me to Australia for six
months and we're gonna make a movie and the sequel
while we're down there, and you're gonna play the lead
role in this gigantic blockbuster movie and me turning and going, oh,
I can't do that. I'm married I just had a baby,
my wife I was married to Kim. My wife's not
coming to Australia for six months with my daughter. So
my life getting in the way of that, or or

(35:21):
somebody saying, here's a movie you're gonna do, that's the
movie you need to be doing it. We don't have
any money. We don't have any money to bring your
family come to the Caribbean and we're gonna be shooting
it on a boat. And it's an extraordinarily interesting project,
but we can't bring your family down. We're gonna pay
you fifty cents to do the movie. And I go, oh,
I can't do that. I can't leave my wife. And
I'm remarried and have have three kids. So everything has been

(35:44):
family and I'm not complaining. I'm not asking for like
a medal here. I'm no different than anybody else in
that way. And then I would turn around and I
have to do a job to make money, and and
I would I'd have to supplement that. And so without
beating at the death in a patchwork of decisions, I
had to make countless scores of decisions over the years.
There's things I might have done that would have made

(36:06):
me um more uh what's the word, you know, kind
of cemented in my career and everything would be a
lot more of Tom Hanks whatever. Yeah. I don't like
to compare to other people because they are who they are,
but I would have had a much more easy time
of things. Now. Having said that, I mean, I think
your career choices have been so that's interesting and smart

(36:28):
and had you've done such a variety of things ale
that I have done everything, you know, and I think,
I mean, I think your life and career have been
far more interesting because of that. But let me ask
you this, and I don't want to just turn it
on you, but you know, you're probably you know, you're
one of the four or five most famous women in

(36:48):
the history of the news business. And you did a
show which was the number one show in the morning,
and you were like, like people wake up and brush
their teeth. You know, they might as well just had
a tooth rush with you on it, you know, because
you were so a part of their lives on the
morning show. And when the time came for that to end,

(37:08):
that was your decision for it to end. Im, assuming
you couldn't kept doing it forever, I could have, right,
and when when you didn't want to do it anymore.
If you don't mind my asking why, I think for me,
I the show itself had become a little repetitive. Um,
I wanted a new challenge. Uh. I wanted to leave

(37:29):
before people wanted me to leave in a way, I mean,
I think, and I had an opportunity to do something.
I had an opportunity to try something new and be challenged.
And you know, I think, you know, sometimes I wonder
about that. I could have stayed. I could have been

(37:49):
celebrating twenty five years while Matt was celebrating twenty and UM,
I think for me, it's just I didn't want my
life to be that one thing and that one thing alone.
And I think probably motivated by some of the things
that you've been motivated by. I think that people don't
realize it no matter how lucrative the job is, no
matter how famous you are, and there are a few

(38:12):
people who were as famous as successful as you've been. Uh,
you do you know, twenty years goes by and go
wait a second, you know, I would like to just
do something different. And for me, I mean, the biggest
thing in my life now that dictates what I do
is that I met someone and I fell in love
and I got married, and I'm fifty nine years old.

(38:34):
Pretty soon I have three children three and under. We
have three children in three years. And so when someone
says to me, come to a movie. There were two
examples that I don't want to mention the details and
offend anybody, but there are two examples of movies like
La La Land. They were like, we we don't really
want this Ryan Gosling guy. They're gonna have to go

(38:54):
to him. They said, is there anybody you recommend me
hired now that you're not going to do it? As
I really like Ryan Goslin. He reminds me he's a younger.
I said, you really what you really want to be
younger me? And that's what whether be Ryan Goslin. Um.
But um, well, these two films. Somebody came to me
and said do you want to do this film? And

(39:15):
there were both people who I had on a list
of people who if they called me, I wouldn't even
think about it. I would just do it. Two directors,
both men who I really admired so deeply, and in
both cases I said I can't do it because of
my wife and my kids. One was like, let's go
to the city for five weeks and we can't bring
your family have no money, And I thought, I don't
want to. I don't want my son to wake up

(39:36):
and go because my wife will do that with on FaceTime.
If I do go away for a day or so,
my wife will we will FaceTime. And my son's looking
at me like, you know, you're not around the corner
in the bedroom or you know, in the bathroom brushing
your teeth, and I just don't want to miss that.
So I've so I say no to a variety of things,

(39:58):
whether it's a money gig or creative gig, and then
I go do match game. What was that match game was?
They came to me and said, would you do ten episodes?
Because I love you, but I saw you on television
doing that and I was like, why on earth is
Alec doing. I'm gonna tell you real quickly, which is
that they said, let's do a ten We're gonna do

(40:19):
ten episodes in the summer block and I can put
the money on my charity because I'm always looking for
these cookie ways to fund my charity. Capital one commercials
Amazon Echo commercial for the Super Bowl all the funds
go to my charity. Then we did match game and
it was very successful and they said would you do more?
And my wife said to me, go ahead and do
more and and don't give the money to charity. This

(40:41):
is the charity. Uh. And it's something that is it
something that was in my bucket list of things I
wanted to do as an actor. No, but at the
same time it meets full on the criteria of what
I need. Is that it's in New York. I don't
have to travel. I can stay home with my family.
And that's a tough, tough part in this career. Is

(41:02):
because I have young kids. Is that I just I
don't want to travel anymore. I just don't. And what
is your charity? Focus on the arts? Mostly? I mean
when we we did Capital One and we've made big gifts,
you a million dollar gifts to n y U, my
Ama Monitor round About Theater too. I think you're a
big guil and you very graciously came into the show

(41:23):
with us Guild Hall in East Hampton, Hampton Film Festival,
a lot of smaller people for the American Way, Peter,
some political things, but mostly the arts. Mostly the arts.
But I bet people were equally skeptical about Alec Baldwin
playing this character on thirty Rock. I mean when I
first saw that show, I didn't know that you could

(41:46):
be funny like that. So amazed you say that, No, No,
I mean truly, it was like a revelation, and you
were for that whole period. I mean, in my mind,
at least, by far, the funniest person on television. And
I still clothes well, no, because most people couldn't execute
it the way you did. I mean I think I
think that role was really all about how you played

(42:07):
the part and how dead pan you were. And I
mean I still think about every time I put on
a tuxedo, which is not very often. It's after six?
What am I a farmer? Damn? I wish this event
were tonight. It's not tonight. When is it February? Why
are you wearing a tux It's after six? What am

(42:28):
I a farmer? You know that's turned into a very
popular Jeff? Is that how the kids say a Jeff
or Giff? I think it's either way right now, I
don't know. In fact, we have a question for you,
Alec from one of our listeners in Phoenix, Arizona, Jack
these are prerecorded questions. Hi. My question for Alec Baldwin

(42:52):
is his character that he played on thirty Rock Jack Donneghie.
Does he have a favorite memorable line that sticks out
to him? Thank you? Right? Um, well you mentioned that
after six and one of my Farmer. That was one
of them. When the when Carrie Fisher was on the
Late Carrie Fisher, who we loved, came on and I
was thanking her. She was a veteran writer there in

(43:15):
the comedy constellation. And when she left my office, I
turned to Tina. I said, don't ever introduced me to
a woman that age again. I don't ever ask me
to talk to a woman that age again. That was
a good one, Um, but you're laughing. Uh right, I
was Tina's Uh. There was this wonderful actor who played

(43:36):
Tina's agent who was like this preternatural man child. He
was like a little boy in a suit. And I said,
did I said that you and I know a few
things about women, don't we. John whatever his name was,
He goes, I've seen a few bras, but I think
my old time. Um, I mean, I guess the two
scenes that stand out for me most when they came
to me, this is emblematic of that show. They came

(43:59):
to me and said, you're going to play. We're gonna
do the Patty Duke thing, and you're gonna act opposite
yourself and you're gonna play a gay Mexican soap opera star.
And I said them, I go, come on, come on,
you guys, come on. And they said no, no, no,
You're gonna play they hand a relishimo and be the
gay Mexican soap opera star. And we did it. I
shot against myself and at the end, I look at
the guy. I go, I look at the general, the general,

(44:20):
and I go, you really are super gay. And the
General goes, okay so, and I just love that he
goes he's like this mustache. She goes okay so. And
I love when we did hand to release him and
that was like just so absurd. And I guess the
end when we had to finish the show and I

(44:41):
had this long, weird monologue to tell Tina that I
loved her, and uh the speech that I say, lemon,
there is a word which comes from the old German,
and I go into this long which comes from the
German luba, which means to be pleased, which is from
the lube, was from the verb blue bell, which means

(45:02):
to be pleasing. And I go into this rambling nonsense thing.
Before I even finished tea, he goes, I love you too, Jack.
And when we shot that scene at the end, it
just was like a knife in me. I couldn't believe
because it was like the best. And even though I
whined and complained, but I was there about certain things.
It was the best job I'll ever had. It was

(45:22):
the best. Were you sorry? I mean, why did it
have to end? Well? I think Tina very Tina smart,
and she's smart and always and not just in writing jokes.
Tina was the you know, the principal producer of the show,
and she knew that she wanted to go out before
we had gotten down. There was no juice on the
rind anymore. She didn't want to jump the show. And

(45:43):
she had two kids, said two kids, and she wanted to.
I think I think that to to write and produce
and star in that show. I mean I always say
the same thing, which is not at all, uh a
critique at all, But I knew we were going to
go off the air when Tina came into rehearsal one
morning and laid down on the couch, which he had
never done in the six years prior. And the second

(46:05):
season was a short order, was thirteen episodes, and we
came into the seventh season, the final thirteen episodes, and
Tina came in one day and she just lay on
the couch and kind of like moaned softly. She was
so tired. And I looked at some people, I was like,
this is over, We're done. So what's on your what
is a part of your current poo poo platter of
professional responsibilities right now? Well, I'd like to use the

(46:29):
phrase topas myself more Kati, if you don't mind. Seems
upper East side thing, you'd say, very kind of dated
side of Kawa. Yeah, the side of what's your Manila?
The Well, I'm gonna go to Emilio esteve as his
new movie called The Public and uh, that's a name

(46:50):
I haven't heard for a long time. I love Amelio.
He's a great, you, very serious filmmaker. He did this
wonderful film with his father called The Way which Martin
Sheen crosses the the Great Hike in Spain, and Amelia
did a movie about the staff of the CINCIDENTI Public
Library takes over the library, and I play the hostage negotiator,

(47:11):
which tries to talk about of it because they're threatening
all these budget cuts and they want to broom out
all the homeless people and they want to kind of
fluff up the library all the rich trustees. And I
love Amelia. He's just such a sweet guy and so
into it, because when you make a movie, you want
to be with somebody who's clear. He's very clear. So
I have that my book is coming out. I'm gonna

(47:31):
do a lot of press for that. Was writing a
book fun for you? Was it? Well? I mean I
don't need to tell you. I mean you've done a
lot of writing. It's like what you put in and
what you don't put in and what you leave out
and should people would go crazy. I don't know, you know,
just because of all these life experiences I have had,
whether it's you know, my husband dying of cancer or

(47:55):
these really interesting experiences I've had working at different network.
Um you you, I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound funny,
but and some of it they might be funny, But
it's like there's people who just owe the public a memoir.
I'm not one of those people. I don't think I
owe the public and memoir, but you are certainly one
of the people who owe the public and memoir because
people love you so much. I kind of get that.

(48:16):
I mean, I kind of get how much people love you.
I'm kidding, but people love you like boundlessly and you
should come. I can't believe you haven't written a book
to invite Alec tell me about Mission Impossible. Well, we're
gonna go off and do the movie. And uh, it's
always the way it is with those guys were with

(48:36):
some slight exceptions. It's like Tom flies around the world
and saves the world and jumps out of this and
jumps off of this and then I'm in an office.
I go to a set in London. They shoot in London,
the sets, the stages, and I'm honest set with Tom,
and I'm like, I thought, I told you to stop
doing that thing. I don't want you doing that jumping
off that thing again. Tom goes and jumps off another
thing and blows up another thing that I'm saying, what's

(48:59):
wrong with you that you remember our last conversation where
I told you don't do that again? You know, look,
whatever the thing is, I'm the head of the CIA
and I work with him now. And what was appealing
about doing this movie for you? You know, I've made
so many movies and I haven't made a lot of
movies like that in a while. I spent a lot
of time doing Dirty Rock. I would be in Indie

(49:19):
Land doing movies where budgets are tight and tough compromises,
I mean really painful compromises are made in order to
try to make the film. And uh, you know, I
went and did It's Complicated with Merrill, which was you know,
they spent a lot of money on that movie. Was
Nancy Meyers who gets a lot of dough to make
her films, and it's very comfortable. But I haven't made

(49:42):
I hadn't made a lot of those. And when you're
on the set, it's just remarkable, like what money and
they wanted on screen. They're all very responsible people, and
there's no one who was more of a thrill to
work with than Tom Oh. He's just unbelievable. He's unbelive.
He is unbelievable. He just is like, let's the days
he wasn't shoting he was on the set because he's
a producer. He'd come up to me and say us yeah,

(50:04):
and he'd even to give me an idea. He'd say
to me, what do you think about this? He's like
a machine, you know. I said to Michael, what do
you do to unwind when this is over? I said,
what do you go? Like? What's your guilty pleasure? What's
the thing you do in between? He said, what's my
guilty pleasure? Because when we're done, he said, I find
another script? And I started all over again. He's I

(50:27):
just love to shoot. I love to shoot. And I thought,
if I was you, i'd love to shoot too, because
it's pretty good life he has, you know, and he's
just he's I'm dying to go over there and do
that with him again. I just don't know what I'm
doing yet. Did you like working with Scorsese and The Departed?
Because I thought that was one of your best roles,

(50:47):
those kinds of films. I mean, you were a guest. Really,
you're not playing a big part, so it's what you
get to watch. I mean, you do your scenes. When
I did The Aviator, it was really a thrill to
watch Leo. I have this bottomless admiration or and then
to do The Departed with that crowd, and you know,
Marty is obviously one of the top examples of people

(51:07):
who they see the movie, they know what they want,
what they don't want. You know. One of the first
films I ever made was Working Girl with Mike Nichols,
and he was just a dream in that sense, which
was you know, he'd say, what do you think of this?
And you'd have an idea in the rehearsal and he'd say, no,
I don't think it's that, and he like right away
it was it was like he knew rather than us
kind of masturbating for a day after day of like

(51:28):
trying to figure out what the movie is, he knew
what the movie was and he knew what he wanted
you to do, which is a great uh pleasure. You
You've worked with so many extraordinary people. Is there someone
you admire the most? I wouldn't say the most, but
the person that comes to mind about is Tony Hopkins.
When I want to go to the Edge with Tony
and he had just come from doing Nixon before that,

(51:49):
and I wrote this in the book, I tell this
story like when we were in the Canadian Rockies, which
was the most beautiful place I've ever been. My sister
Beth came to see me, and she comes into the
woods uh to see me and greet me. At the
end of the day, and Tony was lying on the
ground on an air mattress. They made like a little
bed for him because he'd hurt his back. And he's
reading the newspaper. And I said, Tony, I'm sorry to

(52:12):
interrupted you. Would like to introduce you to my sister,
my sister Beth, And Tony puts down the newspaper and
he gathers himself up and he stands up very slowly,
and he raises himself up and he takes my sister's hand.
He says, Elizabeth, with a great pleasure to meet you,
and kisses her hand. And my sister, who was married
had six children. I literally saw her like kind of

(52:34):
like swoon. She developed it all behind my great pleasure
to meet you. You are such a good mimic. He
was killing me. And my sister was like, oh my god.
She was like completely gonna wet her pants because Tony
Hopkins kissed her hand. And you admire him so much
because he's so elegant, talented, gracious, so varied. Can you

(52:56):
do a kat impression? Much more important? Why can you
do a Katie impression? No? No, but but he doesn't mean,
he doesn't mean Tony Bennett. Do me a good quick
Tony Bennett thing. Come on. When we did the show,
we had begged Danny Bennett to have Tony come on,
and he finally did come on and uh, and he
played I played Tony and so funny to say this
to me. I played Tony Bennett and he played Uh

(53:19):
Anthony di Benedetto, who was a Tony Bennett impersonator who
I sued, I read, I sued the big Jesus out
of it, and I said, tell him the name you're
using your act now. He says, I go by the
name Phony Bennett. So we said to Danny would he
come on with us? And Danny said, yeah, but my
dad really doesn't quite get it, like what are you

(53:39):
guys up to? Like he just wants you to say
to me, what is it you guys are doing? And
I said, well, we obviously make it silly and stupid.
And there's a lot of stupid thing about him, you know,
have having having had his life as a womanizer. You know,
I met a gal once it had toenails that were
like a stack of bob a cute Frido's. He said,
Lamas silk and tough phone cream for nails was the commercial.

(54:02):
And uh and and Danny said, what is the thing?
And I go, well, underneath it all, there has to
be something joyful. Im positive, I said, in the positive
is that Tony reminds us that the business is supposed
to be fun. We're supposed to be having fun and
not complaining and and and stressing out all the time
we do the show. The show's over, it's one o'clock.

(54:23):
He packs up his bags. He's ketting to the elevator.
Now it's probably closer to one thirty in the morning.
Back then he was like eighty years old. And uh.
He and the cast came out, some of them to
have their picture taken with him on their phones. And
Tony turns to them and says, your kids are terrific.
This has been a million dollar night. And he said

(54:46):
the phrase, this has been a million dollar night. And
we always are like, oh my god, he's such I
love him and I love Danny. I mean, the two
of them together. Did you see zenn of Bennett? Oh,
my people who are listening to this, get that documentaries
Zen of Bennett. It's such a great one. And you
had a big role in his recent n idea of
Birthday at Radio City. Right out, I played Tony Bennett

(55:09):
and we brought on Phony Bennett again, so so funny.
Before we leave this podcast, we just got to ask
about your podcast, which is a huge hit. So we're
trying to learn from you. How long have you been
doing it, how long do you want to keep doing it,
and what do you think makes it so special. Well,
in the way that we talked about work that I
did that was dictated by my life and my kids

(55:31):
and so forth. That I came up with the idea
of doing a radio show. Lisa Burnbach was going to
be my co host. Is very witty and funny, great
writer Lisa Brenbach and preppy handbook, and we were gonna
have a news person and a culture person. That idea,
which is a lot of work and a lot of
writing and a lot of producing and staffing. These people
came to from w n y C and said, don't

(55:52):
do that. Do this you and Mike and you interview
people into a podcast and you try to access people
you know in the business who you might have some
context with it, are famous or successful, I would have
you or admired. And the only thing that I do
in my show that is the is it? You know?
It is a decision I don't want to say technique,
but is to have a longer format like this where

(56:14):
people can relax. Rob Mills, who's the head of ABC,
who was the guy that's my executive at ABC for
the match game work that we do. I love him
and he's one of the biggest reasons that I do
match game because I love Rob so much. I'm when
I go do match game. We do have fun. It's
it's silly and dope, I know, And I'm sorry I've
disappointed you in doing that. I understand. I'm gonna go

(56:36):
home right away. I'm gonna start looking up the things
you've done that you've disappointed me, and I'm gonna email you.
See by the way I came across this, what was
that about Katie? Hello? You know we've all disappointed her
at various moments in our lives. It's okay, it's a
sort of growing up. I feel like I feel like
I'm her brother, and she's like you that's what you're
wearing for Halloween. And that's the lamest constume I've ever
seen in my life. What do you zoro? What is that?

(57:00):
Like a little weird mask on? But um, the uh,
the podcast. The thing is that Rob said, he said,
what I love about your techniquecause he says, I call
it the warm bath interview technique. He said, you just
get your your subjects to come into that warm bath
with you and they relax. Actually twenty minutes go by
and they start telling you who they really are. It's true.

(57:22):
But don't you think it's true that there's something more
intimate about this. There's something more relaxed and revealing as
a result. But I think, listen, you've interviewed, infinitely, I
mean to the innth degree, more people than I have
as a result of all of these different things you've done,
whether it was with NBC and beyond, and you've interviewed

(57:43):
countless more people than I have, mostly in those tighter
TV segments of six or seven minutes or so. And
what I find is that when you interview people, is
that the length of the podcast and the length of
time we have, which of course we cut down, provides
us with a chance to let them give it to us.
We don't have to try to take it. If they
feel you're not predatory, If they feel you're not trying

(58:05):
to facilitate something with them, and you let them make
let it be their decision, they will very often tell
you the things that they might not have otherwise. Before
we go, I have to ask you two quick family questions.
One from your early childhood. You know you're one of six.
It's you obviously have a close relationship with Beth, who
came to visit you on that set. But your brothers,

(58:28):
you know, particularly Stephen, your politics could not be more
different than his. It must be a strange dynamic and
a family with more than one person in show biz.
As they say, how has that affected your relationship with
your siblings? Alec, I always wondered that about you. Well,
I think that that by and large, over time, these

(58:49):
spasms that happen where people act out a certain way
that one side is an approving of they have like
any family, were no different than anybody else. There's some ramification,
there's some period we were seeking some detant there. You know,
with my brother Stephen, he is uh and we've had
this conversation. And I'm not saying this to be you know,

(59:09):
mean spirited or whatever. He falls right into that Trump
dynamic of a percentage of Trump's support, it's not all
of them certainly, which is uneducated. My brother didn't go
to college. He went right into the business. Uh, he's
got a lot of anti government sentiments. You know, he
doesn't like paying his taxes. I mean it was in
the paper that he almost got arrested for not paying

(59:30):
his state income taxes and so forth. And uh, there's uh,
you know, there's a Fox News component to this, a
DNA to this about people who need their politics predigested
for them, you know, like most people. I know, I
don't need people to give me. I want to read
things and get information from the New York Review of
Books in the New Yorker and the New York Times,

(59:52):
but other sources as well. Um, and I don't need
that stuff pre chew for me. And the other side
seemed to need a lot of that. These people need
people to articulate their opinions and tell them and kind
of shape what they're thinking. Hannity's telling you what you
really mean is this, and what you really need is this,

(01:00:13):
and my brother was kind of fallen victim to that.
I think has that created some tension between you or yeah? Yeah, yeah,
oh yeah, oh sure. I mean I decided he would
email me and say, you're gonna do that Trump thing?
He said, I said, yeah, he goes. He said, you're
just playing right into Donald's hands. He said. Now, when
Trump won, there was a kind of a stinging effect
that had to me, which was, I mean, you know,

(01:00:34):
I don't believe that Trump won as a result of
you know, five or six critical things, and some of
it was, you know, we didn't get the best Hillery
on the campaign trail either, by the way, but the
and I'm a great admirer. First I just thought that
could have gone better. But yeah, there's been some tensions
about it because I I don't think he understands what
he's doing. You know, when I listened to Trump today

(01:00:57):
in the car on the way here, and again I
don't say this with any malice. I don't enjoy saying this.
I think that he has some kind of neurological disorder.
I think he has something wrong with him physically, because
he just is stuck in this kind of flailing rhetorically
flailing He's like a guy who's drowning. In lifeguards school,

(01:01:17):
they tell you you've got to slap the guy across
the face was drowning. I'll still drown you too. Trump
is borderline hysterical sometimes, and that's not going to work
for us, for someone to be in that in that job.
I love that Alec uses words like paripatetic and metronomically.
He's an amazing vocabulary. You do. It's awesome and it's
such a it's such a pleasure to listen to someone

(01:01:40):
who is so fascile with the English language. I just
wanted to say that as it very hard to craft
the words I say in such a way that they
sound just so fantastic to the American people. I try
so hard, I really do. Cut that schmaltz with a
big orange knife right there. Yeah, all right, we've got
to go, but before we you I just have to

(01:02:00):
ask you one final question. Not to sound like cheesy,
but I'm so happy that you're in such a great place.
I feel like professionally things are going so well for you,
with the exception of the match game, that you're doing
so many greats highly you know, I don't know, you
just I feel like you're just in a in a
great place, but also in terms of your personal life,

(01:02:23):
and you know, it's so nice to see you have
this really second chapter with Hilaria, and I'm curious, what
is it about your relationship with Hilaria, about your children,
about where you are in life personally that that's working
so well for you. Well, before I answer that, let
me say that I have uncovered the match game analogy

(01:02:43):
for your career, and then, as as a devoted Today's
Show watcher and a worshiper of you personally, when you
came down a staircase, I think it was a Halloween
show when you were dressed as Marilyn Monroe, when you
did Diamonds or a Girl's best Friends at a low
point and you were busting out of some like lamb
a cost to with some chiffon costume, I said, my god,
where has my Katie gone? What happened to her? She's gone?

(01:03:08):
Than thank you for reminding that diamonds are girls, but
you can google that, by the way, trying to Oh,
it's it's, it's it's It was amazing. And so having
said that, um, the answer to your question is, you know,
my wife is a very self actualized person. She knows
who she is and where she is and what she wants.
And there's not a lot of self sabotage there. That's

(01:03:31):
not a lot of unnecessary, uh you know, psychological. The
treat is surround with her. She's a very very very
smart and wise young woman. So I'm lucky, and my
kids are very lucky. She's a great mom. You know,
we're on this journey together and I'm just really lucky.
I'm so lucky to have met her. She's such a

(01:03:53):
she's such a decent and she does not complicate things unnecessarily.
No drama, she's not yeah, she's like yeah, you just
without even commenting on it. She just her nature is
to sidestep the drama very effectively, you know. And she's changed.
Her life can be quite cant and mental. But diamonds

(01:04:17):
a girl's best friend. On that, on those notes, on
those many notes, Ale, it's so fun having you. Thank
you really so much for coming by. Um really happy,
really happy for everything, Catherine Anne. And let the record

(01:04:37):
reflect he was kissing her hand as Tony Hopkins. Yes, yes,
close friends call him Tony, Tony, I call him Tone.
You know, if you're close to him, you call him tone. Yeah,
you hurt me, you cut me into the that's only
a Stanford wallgrad could. It's nice to meet you. It's
very nice to meet you too. Pleasuring this of pleasure.

(01:05:00):
Thank you, Alec. As always, we want to thank Gianna
Palmer for producing the show and Jared O'Connell for engineering
and mixing it. Thanks as well to Mark Phillips for
our theme music, which I've been listening to in the
shower not really. Also, remember you can email us at
comments at correct podcast dot com. You can find me

(01:05:21):
on social media. I'm Katie Couric on Twitter and Instagram
and Katie dot correct on Snapchat. I religiously follow Brian Goldsmith,
so Brian tell us your handles so everyone else can
to add Goldsmith be on Twitter. Best of all, you
can rate and review us on iTunes. Don't forget to
subscribe as well. Thanks so much for listening. We've had

(01:05:42):
fun talking. We hope you've had fun listening to us
and asking great questions, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye,