Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with two men who have spent much of their lives living and working in Africa. Photographer Peter Beard first set foot on the continent in 1955. Richard Ruggiero, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, began his Peace Corps stint in 1981 in the northern Central African Republic. “We are enemies of nature,” says Beard, whose photographs have documented the des...

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with David Brooks on stage at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in Manhattan as part of the Public Forum series. David Brooks has been a New York Times op-ed columnist since 2003. He is known as a Conservative voice -- he was a senior editor at The Weekly Standard -- but former Obama advisor David Axelrod described him as a “true public thinker.” Join Baldwi...

This week, Alec talks with Pulitzer-prize winner George Will, whose passion for politics began early: he remembers Truman’s election when he was seven years old. George Will is a political conservative, but he’s not afraid to direct criticism to the right. Will analyzes the current election for Alec – this isn’t a “slam-dunk for either side,” he says, and offers some historical perspective on the...

This week, Alec talks with Fred Armisen. Armisen has been a punk rock drummer, currently he’s a cast member on Saturday Night Live and is also the co-creator and co-star of IFC’s Portlandia. Armisen has always been ambitious; when he was a drummer, he recalls, he always "wanted much more." Long ago, Armisen played drums with the Blue Man Group in Chicago and he tells Alec he learned a lot: about "...

This week, Alec talks with Zarin Mehta who retired as president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic at the end of this past season. Mehta, an accountant by trade, grew up in 1940’s Bombay before it became the booming city of Mumbai. In Mehta’s memory, Bombay was more like a colonial fishing village. Mehta talks with Alec about his father, who founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra,...

This week, Alec talks with documentary filmmakers Anthony Baxter and Dylan Avery – each of whom has made a controversial political films, one about a golf course in Scotland; the other about whether 9/11 was a government cover-up. Both films were made on meager budgets and both have attracted significant attention. Dylan Avery’s film, Loose Change, became an internet sensation and spawned a “Truth...

This week on Here’s the Thing – Alec sits down with fellow Long Islander Billy Joel – at the piano – for a conversation about life and the musical choices he’s made. Joel joined his first band at age 14 and became the third best selling solo artist of all time in the United States. He’s sold more records than The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, but at this point, he says, the “rock star thi...

This week on Here’s the Thing, Alec talks with Grammy-winning guitarist Peter Frampton. “Sound is very inspirational to me,” explains Frampton – and it always has been: he started playing guitar before he was 8 years old. Frampton talks about his musical roots in England, playing in bands like The Preachers and The Herd. At age 14 he was playing at a recording session produced by Bill Wyman, who h...

This week, Alec talks with Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco, about our country’s addiction to sugar. Children today are the first American generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, in large part due to obesity. According to Lustig, this obesity often comes from eating too much sugar. Sugar is hard to avoid. A recent study reveals that 80 per...

This week on Here's The Thing, Alec talks with late-night legend David Letterman. Letterman describes his early years on TV in Indiana; his decision to try radio despite a boss who said “You will never be heard of again”; and his eventual journey to LA where after 3 years at comedy clubs he found himself on The Tonight Show. As Letterman says, "that's not supposed to happen." Letterman’s been doin...

This week Alec talks with playwright Jon Robin Baitz, whose Broadway play, Other Desert Cities, is up for a Tony later this month. Baitz grew up in Brazil and South Africa -- transferring to Beverly Hills High School for his final year of school where he says he “became friends ... with fellow freaks.” He’s been writing ever since -- even though “writing plays has always been very tricky.” Baitz t...

This week Alec talks with opera singer Renée Fleming, whose singing voice has been described as "double cream." Fleming remembers her professional debut -- “I was just jelly at the end of the first rehearsal” -- and celebrates her long association with The Metropolitan Opera. Fleming talks about performing and the challenges of being heard, without amplification, over an orchestra, but also about...

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks about the financial crisis with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Stiglitz shows no restraint when unleashing criticism of presidential policies -- on both sides. Of President Barack Obama’s financial-industry rescue plan, Stiglitz said that whomever designed it was "either in the pocket of the banks or … incompetent." Stiglitz talks to Ale...

This week on Here’s The Thing, Alec talks with Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies. Today Osborne plays the role of ambassador to a bygone era. We hear the journey he took to get there -- which could have been a classic movie itself. Osborne tells Alec about meeting Lucille Ball: “If it had been Lana Turner I met or somebody I wouldn't have been able to talk, but it was Lucille Ball.” No...

Alec talks with Kristen Wiig -- who catered, did floral design, answered phones at a law firm and handed out peach samples at a farmer’s market -- all before landing her current gig, as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Kristen says she loves performing, but admits there’s also a “big part of me that’s just like: don’t look at me.” Kristen talks about auditioning for SNL, and the prospect of l...

Alec talks with Herb Alpert, legendary trumpeter and co-founder of A&M Records, the independent record label Alpert eventually sold to Polygram. In 1966, Alpert’s band, The Tijuana Brass sold over 13 million records, outselling The Beatles. Alpert talks about the thrill of signing musicians like The Carpenters, Cat Stevens, and The Police but also reveals what it was like to lose -- and slowly...

Kathleen Turner made her film debut 30 years ago in the blockbuster thriller, Body Heat. Since then, she’s been leading lady in numerous films and on stage and she’s earned Tony nominations for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Turner sits down with Alec to talk directors – from stage and screen; raising a daughter in New York; dealing with rheumatoid arthritis; and her pas...

Alec visits with Dick Cavett at his house on Long Island – a place called Tick Hall. They survey the view: stunning. Meet Riley the dog: cute, if "neurotic," says Cavett. Then go inside to drink iced tea and hear about Cavett's career in television. Cavett shares some of his memories with Alec: meeting Orson Welles in the lobby of the Plaza; talking with Marlon Brando by phone -- “I was told he wo...

Alec talks with Rob Morris, president and co-founder of Love 146, an organization that fights to prevent child sex slavery and provide aftercare for its victims. The numbers around the child sex trafficking industry are staggering. Over a million children are sold into this multi-billion dollar industry each year. As Rob explains to Alec, he sees behind the numbers: “This is not about an issue, th...

Lorne Michaels is one of the most influential figures in American entertainment. Alec goes to Rockefeller Center to visit Michaels in his office – the same office he’s had since 1975, when he created Saturday Night Live. Michaels went on to launch the careers of some of the biggest names in comedy: Belushi, Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey … the...

Alec talks with director Joe Berlinger about his latest film for HBO Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory -- the third film in a series of documentaries about a crime that took place 18 years ago in rural Arkansas. Berlinger says, “We made these three movies as acts of advocacy” – which is not his usual style as a long-time documentary filmmaker. “I believe the audience should be treated like a jury. You gi...

Alec talks with writer Erica Jong and her daughter Molly Jong-Fast about sex, divorce, and the impact of sexuality on young women today. Erica has been through 3 divorces – she’s on her fourth marriage.  She says “Divorce was the hardest thing [she] ever went through … Divorce is terrible. Divorce is difficult. We have no rules for it. It's so incredibly painful. Molly – still on her first marriag...

Alec sits down with director Stephen Daldry, whose new movie, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," opens on Christmas Day. Stephen offers a window into his past – from training as a clown and driving giraffes through Pompeii to being serenaded with Billy Elliot songs by a persistent Elton John. Alec and Stephen trade notes on acting styles -- and whether being Mayor – of New York or London – wou...

Chris Rock says he "wanted [his] acting to grow." So what did he do? He took a job on Broadway. Alec goes backstage with Rock after a matinee of The Mother F**ker With The Hat to hear about what it was like for Rock to be in his first play. Rock says rehearsal was the hardest thing he's ever gone through in his life. Chris Rock and Alec talk about the play, the movie business, and Rock's career in...

Alec talks with Kris Kardashian Jenner, the self-described “momager” of the Kardashian clan. Kris explains what it’s like to live and work with her family: “you can’t get more controlling than that.” Kris describes her family’s retail roots--her grandmother owned a candle store, her mother opened a store, and Kris herself, along with her daughters, opened two clothing stores. “I sold t-shirts,” sa...