Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Alex Gibney is one of the most respected and prolific documentary filmmakers in history. His stories feature strong characters and a propulsive narrative that often exposes malfeasance or incompetency, and the victim is often the little guy or our highest ideals, like democracy. Gibney has made over 30 has made in the last two decades, including Taxi to the Dark Side , his 2008 film about the CIA’...

As part of our every-other-week summer archives series, we revisit two interviews from 2015 with masters of misdirection, Penn Jillette and David Blaine. Penn Jillette is half of the world-famous act Penn & Teller, and they star in one of the longest-running shows in Las Vegas history. In addition to juggling and card tricks, Penn Jillette plays upright bass and is the author of eight books, i...

When he was just out of high school, Jackson Browne moved to NYC and wrote songs for some of the biggest names of the 1960’s folk scene. Then, when he returned home to Los Angeles two years later, he began singing his own material and set his course to become one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation. Today, Jackson Browne’s voice is still strong and political. He talks with Alec ab...

It’s summer, and every other week, members of the Here’s The Thing staff are selecting favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec’s interviews with two award-winning, dynamic actresses who happen to have a lot in common, Julianne Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Alec and Julianne Moore worked together on Still Alice (Julianne won an Academy Award for Best Actress) and 30 Rock. S...

Musical theater legends Ken Page and Betty Buckley have a lot in common. Both grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway: Ken in St. Louis; Betty in Fort Worth. Both were in the original Broadway production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty as Grizabella, for which she won a Tony. And both were pioneers in transforming musical theater over the past several decades. One of Ken Page’s most r...

When Kurt Andersen started working on his new podcast, Nixon at War, he thought he knew a lot about Richard Nixon’s presidency, especially the bookend events of his 1968 campaign and his 1973 resignation. Devastating events with far-reaching consequences but unrelated - or so he thought. The surprising connections between the two are at the heart of Nixon at War. Kurt Andersen is a prize-winning n...

Alec talks with two very different actors. Eddie Marsan grew up in working-class London and left school at 15 to become a printer. He was discovered on a dance floor, and a patron helped him afford drama school. Marsan’s worked with the likes of Martin Scorcese, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Mike Leigh, and he often gets cast as the tough guy. It’s an image he’s ready to shed. One of his most r...

Alec’s guest Mark Harris has written a compelling new biography about one of the most celebrated directors of all time, Mike Nichols. Drawn from more than 250 interviews, Mike Nichols: A Life tracks Nichol’s difficult childhood as a German Jewish immigrant growing up in New York City to his college years at the University of Chicago where Nichols found a community of performers, including his life...

Andra Day tells Alec that she almost turned down the opportunity to play Billie Holiday in Lee Daniel’s The United States Vs. Billie Holiday . Day considered herself a singer, not an actress. She went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Actress for the part and brought her incredible voice to all the Billie Holiday’s songs in the movie. The iconic song Strange Fruit is at the heart of the film’s con...

On Friday, April 30, 2021, the Indian Point nuclear power plant permanently closed. Located less than 40 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River, Alec and others worked for decades to shut Indian Point down. In this episode, Alec reminisces with key leaders in the fight: Paul Gallay, Richard Webster, and Joseph Mangano. Paul Gallay is the president of Riverkeeper, an organization dedicate...

Ali Wentworth is a fearlessly funny actor and comedian as well as a New York Times best-selling author of three books, Ali in Wonderland, Happily Ali After, and Go Ask Ali . She played Jerry’s girlfriend Schmoopie in Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” episode, and she’s had roles in a wide range of TV and film projects including Jerry Maguire, Office Space, and It's Complicated. She’s married to George Stepha...

As the United States begins to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, Alec looks back with three guests on the ways their work lives changed. As the Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. Odette Hall’s work is always about the logistics of death. In the early days of the pandemic, that meant figuring out makeshift morgues and processes to deal with an unknown threat. Additionally, as the first Black...

Screenwriter David Koepp and film editor Walter Murch have both carved out legendary careers in film. David Koepp has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including many Hollywood blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, Panic Room, Carlito’s Way, and Mission Impossible. He’s directed six films and released one novel. Walter Murch was part of America...

Alec talks with Michael Sisitzky from the New York Civil Liberties Union’s police transparency and accountability campaign as many cities around the country are considering police reform. The NYCLU is requesting police discipline records from around the state after the repeal of New York Civil Rights Law Section 50-a. The law previously shielded police personnel records. Then, Alec checks in with...

Hans Zimmer is one of the most celebrated and successful film composers of all time. He has scored more than 150 movies including Gladiator, Hannibal, Sherlock Holmes, The Last Samurai, the Thin Red Line, and many more. He won an Academy Award for Lion King and has earned 10 other nominations. His long-time collaboration with director Christopher Nolan on The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar, Dun...

Marlo Thomas has been breaking barriers for women for more than five decades as an actress and activist. As an award-winning actress, Marlo became a household name as Ann-Marie, the lead in the television show That Girl , a woman who, in the late 60s, wanted a career more than a family. An outspoken feminist, Marlo then launched Free to Be...You and Me , which was first an album, then a book, and...

Broadway and movies have both been deeply impacted during the pandemic. To get a sense of what lies ahead, Alec checks in with Robert Wankel, chairman and CEO of the Schubert Organization, and Pamela McClintock, senior film writer for the Hollywood Reporter. Broadway shuttered completely on March 12, 2020, and reopening remains a challenge due to safety issues for performers and audiences as well...

Felix Cavaliere started The Rascals in 1965. Felix began playing piano at age six and listened exclusively to classical music until junior high when he first heard Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. Rock and roll changed his life. In The Rascals, Felix sang and played organ on some of the group’s biggest hits, including It’s a Beautiful Morning , Groovin’ , Good Lovin’, and P eople Got...

Anthony Pellicano has dirt on some of Hollywood’s biggest names, and even after spending 17 years in prison, he’s still not talking. For decades, he was one of Tinseltown's most sought-after private investigators. His clients ranged from Tom Cruise to Michael Jackson, from Elizabeth Taylor to Courtney Love. But a raid of his Sunset Boulevard office in 2002 turned up explosives and eventually more...

William Kristol is one of the nation’s leading conservative voices. And, since 2016, he’s been at war with conservative elites and Trump loyalists. Kristol tells Alec he didn’t just vote for Joe Biden, he is actively rooting for his success. There is just too much at stake otherwise, particularly when so many members of the GOP keep parroting Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Kristol was the f...

British Actor Malcolm McDowell trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While he’s had many notable stage roles, audiences likely know him best for a single, iconic character, Alex DeLarge, the anti-heroic criminal turned victim in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971, A Clockwork Orange . McDowell tells Alec how he developed Alex DeLarge’s signature look with the cricket codpiece, bowler hat, a...

Amanda knows about living inside other people’s preconceptions. When she was 22 years old, she was sentenced to 26 years in prison for a murder she didn’t commit. In 2007, on a study-abroad program in Perugia, Italy, Amanda’s roommate Meredith Kurcher was raped and murdered. The police and the tabloids pinned it on “Foxy Knoxy,” calling Amanda a sex-crazed murderer. A...

From Blake Edwards and Paul Mazursky, to Audrey Hepburn and the history of Improv, Sam Wasson tackles distinctive creators and seminal moments in Hollywood history. Alec loved Sam Wasson’s latest, T he Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood . In this fascinating conversation, Wasson tells the story of the four men behind the 1974 film, producer Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Tow...

The Bee Gees were Barry Gibb and his younger twin brothers, Robin and Maurice. From the time they started playing together as children, they dreamed of stardom, and they certainly succeeded. The Bee Gees became among the top-selling music groups of all time. The distinctive “blood harmony” of the brothers' voices set the dance floor on fire and their prodigious talent as songwriters extended their...

In this episode, recorded several months into the pandemic, NYC-based psychiatrist Julie Holland assures Alec it’s not just him, we’re all having a hard-time. Dr. Holland says our brains are wired for connection and isolation is causing many of us to go into “fight or flight” mode where it’s harder to feel safe and loved. But there’s hope. Put down the phone, go outside, call a friend. Connect. An...