Alec Baldwin to quit acting?

[Kirby]

I don't buy it but if this is true it's too bad, he's hilarious on 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live. I guess the mantle will be handed down to the 'lesser Baldwins.'

Alec Baldwin has set a deadline of 2012 to quit acting -- So he's vowed to bow out of showbusiness when his contract on hit sitcom "30 Rock" expires in three years.

Bullshit. You also said that you were moving to France when Bush was re-elected.

I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. I'll tell you why. The goal of moviemaking is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that."

Well there is The Hunt for Red October, which was both a critical and commercial success. Too bad he opted to do The Marrying Man instead of the sequel.
His turn in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross was critical success, and one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.
I honestly can't remember many of his other movie roles though.

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

He was all set to quit acting a couple of years ago after that phone call to his daughter too. Just go already.

 

[QuasarVM]

I'm still waiting for him to move out of the country like he promised to do when Bush was re-elected for a second term.

Since he didn't fulfill that promise, how could I possibly believe anything else he ever says...?

 

[nx1701g]

I don't buy it but if this is true it's too bad, he's hilarious on 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live. I guess the mantle will be handed down to the 'lesser Baldwins.'

Alec Baldwin has set a deadline of 2012 to quit acting -- So he's vowed to bow out of showbusiness when his contract on hit sitcom "30 Rock" expires in three years.

Bullshit. You also said that you were moving to France when Bush was re-elected.

For some reason - and I don't know why - I think that he's telling the truth this time. I think he may actually quit acting (not that it matters to me).

I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. I'll tell you why. The goal of moviemaking is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that."

Well there is The Hunt for Red October, which was both a critical and commercial success. Too bad he opted to do The Marrying Man instead of the sequel.
His turn in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross was critical success, and one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.
I honestly can't remember many of his other movie roles though.

He comments on that later in the article again. He explains he felt that it was only a success because of the name Tom Clancy in the title.

 

[Mr Light]

I love Alec Baldwin and I love him on 30 Rock even more. He better stay with that show to the bitter end dammit! I never understood why he didn't become a big action star. He was wonderful in Red October and The Shadow.

 

[The Fatman]

Shame, I do think he's tremendously talented. This little bit here is in fact my favorite movie quote/monologue of all time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqeC3BPYTmE
"Malice" - the I AM God speech.

I hope his "retirement" still allows him to occasionally host SNL. Definitely their best guest host ever (although Justin Timberlake and Tom Hanks do come close - that is a different topic altogether tho ).

 

[Agent Richard07]

He's a big name and he's had a successful career. Sounds like he's just feeling sorry for himself.

His turn in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross was critical success, and one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.
I honestly can't remember many of his other movie roles though.

He was in The Shadow, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

[nevermore]

Beetle Juice! Beetle Juice! Beetle Juice!

 

[Greylock Crescent]

*shrug*

Okay ...

 

[Australis]

He was in The Shadow, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Same here, and he was probably the best thing in it.

 

[FreezeC77]

I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. I'll tell you why. The goal of moviemaking is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that."

Well there is The Hunt for Red October, which was both a critical and commercial success. Too bad he opted to do The Marrying Man instead of the sequel.
His turn in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross was critical success, and one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.
I honestly can't remember many of his other movie roles though.

You know he may be right by that statement. Hunt for Red October was a big success, but he wasn't the driving force behind it. People remember Connery from that more then him.

Infact look at http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Actor&id=alecbaldwin.htm

none of the movies he was in that made a lot of money were really ones where he drove the movie himself. Red October might be the only movie he ever made that was a huge success financially and he was one of the main stars.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

So, he thinks his movie career is a failure because he never had a smash as a leading man? Boo hoo! He was in quite a few movies, many of which were good, and enhanced considerably by his presence. If that's not good enough, well, sucks to be him, I guess.

Of course, Gary Oldman has announced his retirement from acting more than once, too. And he still pops up from time to time.

 

[JustKate]

I honestly never have seen anything the least bit special about him. Maybe I'm missing something - a possibility, I admit - but as far as I am concerned, he's only so-so as an actor, and he's not even particularly good looking, for goodness' sake. Hunt for Red October is one of my favorites, and he was OK in it - he did well enough that I can still thoroughly enjoy the movie - but as FreezeC77 notes, Baldwin wasn't the reason for its success, either commercially or critically. His performance was actually one of the weaker elements of that movie, IMO.

I just think there are far more talented actors out there, and if some of them would have been given some of the chances that Baldwin was given, they would have capitalized on them much better.

And he does sound pretty darn whiny, too, if you ask me.

 

[TheBrew]

Check out his monologue from Glengary, Glenn Ross if you want to see a great performance by him.

 

[Bad Bishop]

He was in The Shadow, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Same here, and he was probably the best thing in it.

I still hope for a widescreen DVD edition of The Shadow (for Region 1).

If Alec Baldwin thinks his movie career has been a failure, maybe his definition of success is too limited.

 

[JustKate]

Check out his monologue from Glengary, Glenn Ross if you want to see a great performance by him.

I never have seen that movie, although I've always meant to. But still...if he was really talented, shouldn't he be consistently good instead of merely consistently OK and really good only now and then?

Of course there's a possibility that whatever he's got, I just don't see it. But there's also a possibility that he doesn't have that much to begin with, but that now and then a particular director or a particular script succeeds in coaxing something special out of him.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Baldwin should not be disappointed in a movie career during which he got an Oscar nomination. I know a lot of people think that show is way too biased/unfair/political when it comes to nominations much of the time (especially with best picture) and I agree about that, but I think in general it's a huge honour to be nominated as an actor.

 

[Dar70]

Hes been doing this season of the essentials with Robert Osbourne on TurnerClassicMovies. I have to admit I never liked him much before but since he has been doing the Essentials he comes off as a little more tolerable and he really gets classic films. He seems to really like his stint on that show. Perhaps he wants to do someting more in the lines of hosting a show now.

 

[Checkmate]

He's done some of the best acting I've ever seen. No one can doubt it after seeing this clip in particular.

 

[tomalak301]

I probably shouldn't, but there was a scene in 30 Rock last year in the finale spoken by Jack saying that the show was going on for 5 years. With that being said, if there was more to it than that, next year would be the final season, which is before 2012. I hope he doesn't quit acting because we're just now starting to see how well he does Comedy (Which is so much better than Drama now) but if he does, than it was a good run.