Alec Baldwin: Out There, In Here
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There he is. Oh, no. You. You. Oh, you. I'm like one of those actors that wants to be last to the set. So I needed to make sure, you know, you had arrived. I heard that about you. I heard it like banging on the trailer. God knows what you were doing in the trailer. You know what I was doing. I think the world knows what you were doing. I think that ship has sailed. Yeah, that ship has sailed.

Welcome to Literally with me, Rob Lowe. I'm so excited about this particular podcast. My guest is someone I've known forever and ever and ever. We were competitors. We were peers.

I've learned a ton from him. He's a master of drama and comedy, a great rock on tour, has a wonderful family, cares about the country deeply. One of my people that whenever I see in a room, I just light up and I'm so glad to be around him. We have Alec Baldwin. ♪

My first memory of you and us having a relationship was, and this will be surprising to you, it was the 80s. And I had passed out on the beach. And I woke up and it was you.

sort of nudging me to wake up and we had a nice little talk i don't know why you would it was we were out in broad beach in malibu zuma right were you living there we had a great talk and you were it was like a summer we did you have a house i don't remember the auspices because frankly i don't remember much i was shooting a movie i recall i was shooting a movie for quite a while for you know back in the days when we used to shoot a movie for like three or four months yeah right like 12 or 15 weeks i was shooting the movie hunt for red october and i was staying

in Beachwood Canyon to be near Paramount, because I would just drive down the road, and I was right there on Melrose at Paramount. So I rented a house near the studio, and on the weekends, I wanted to get as far from

Hollywood in that area as I could. So I drove, you know, kind of very dedicatedly. I drove out to Zuma. I used to meet Ali Sheedy. Yes, you were with Ali Sheedy. That's correct. Ali had her condo there up near Zuma. Yeah, I went to Zuma like every weekend. That was such a great time. Ali was there. Emilio was there. Pat Riley. We'd all play beach volleyball and

It was right towards the end of my drinking career. And I was just kind of trying to figure it out. I remember that. And you had great advice to me as always.

Now, where do you live? On the beach? No, I live in Montecito. You're in Montecito. I'm near my brother Billy's up there. Yeah. I used to see Billy. I love him so much. You know, I mean, that I'm a fifth bald. How many bald ones are there officially or even unofficially? Well, there are four. My brothers and I are four in my family. Then all of us, I have three sons. I got remarried and I've had three boys in a row. We had a girl and three boys in a row.

I tell people that during this quarantining, I said, they ask what it's like out here. We're in East Hampton at our house lockdown. And I said, it's like the shining meets the little rascals here every day. You're in the Overlook Hotel and the little rascals go running down the hallway with an ax in their hand. And then that's it. You know what I mean? Cut. I say the same. That's the exact quote I've been using. It's like the shining, but better weather because I'm in Montecito. Right.

How many kids do you have? I just have two and they're grown now. They're my, my oldest is yeah. Two boys. And they're like men. One's, you know, just to pass the bar exam. And no, yes. Where did he go? Where did he go?

He did Duke undergrad and then Loyola Law School here in LA. And he was just on the job hunt when all the coronavirus hit. So he's stressing about not having a job. What kind of law does he want to practice? Entertainment law. But really what he wants to do is use it

the law degree as a tool to do something more entrepreneurial and not do, he doesn't want to be a traditional lawyer. He wants to use it as a springboard into something else, which makes it a little more complicated. So my other son went to Stanford and then in his summers, I know, right? I married a smart woman. So they got all her genetics. Yeah. And then in his summers, he would intern for Ryan Murphy, right?

And Ryan offered him a job when he was done. And as kismet would have it, I started a show with Ryan. And so now he's right. And long story short, he's on the writing staff of 9-1-1 Lone Star and wrote episode six last year that we did.

And, you know, he's a show creator, writer, you know, sometimes actor. He's doing his thing, man. And where did they live or did they come home for the quarantine? Oh, they're back here. For quarantine, they're here. They're here. They came back. They came back to Montecito. It's been so great. It's been...

But like you, I know you love your brood. You're all over them. I'm the same. You know, I'm very involved and always have been and always, you know, I try to strike that balance of, you know, your kids shouldn't be your best friends because they need a father more than they need a best friend. They got plenty of best friends. But that said, they're my best friends. Does that make sense? We really do have a tough task as fathers trying to

walk that line. I know what, um, do you and your beautiful, amazing wife who I have not yet met, but the reviews are in and they're stunning. Um, do you, do you guys agree on parent, like parenting stuff? Cause Cheryl and I, I think the re one of the reasons we've been married so long is that we always agree 100% when it comes to discipline, big decisions, whether it's

You know how structured to be not so always we're just always on the same page. And there was no way of knowing that, by the way, when I married her. But I I see. That's a good point. You can't predict what kind of a mom they'll be. Right. No, you get a woman when you get a woman and you have kids. I mean, we had four kids in four and a half years and my wife is pregnant again.

I just don't. I mean, Alec, you need to put it away. You need to stop it. But in all seriousness, I mean, I hit the jackpot as far as that's concerned because I wound up having a lot of kids with a woman who's a great mom. But we do not always agree. I mean, my wife prevails, if you will, but we don't always agree because, I mean, I'm so much older than my wife. That's also true, right? You have a different worldview. My goal wasn't to marry a much younger woman. I met a woman I fell in love with, and she was a very unique person, and I...

So I got married and we had all these kids. And listen, I come from a time my dad was a very tough guy, you know, and he would just look at you with that look, you know, and you thought you were like, oh, God, please don't hit me. Oh, please, no. You know, we were terrified of my dad, terrified of my dad. He was a really tough guy. And with me, I mean, my wife lectures me more than my children.

My wife was like, don't look at them like that, Alec. Their look is not good. She's always lecturing me. Don't glare at them. That's not helpful. And she wants to talk them through. One kid smashes the other kid in the face with a toy.

And my wife was like, no, what are you feeling that you wanted to hit him? What is, what are you going through? And I'm like, it's a generational gap we have here, Rob Lowe. It's a generational gap. But you're, you're, that sounds amazing though. I could have used more of that too, because my wife and I are the same age and we,

So all of the stuff we're learning now later in life, like those kind of talk about your feelings. We didn't really have so much of that. I mean, we talk about your feelings. My father, you know, was like, could you imagine saying I can think to my father, like, could you imagine saying talk about your feelings to my father? My father would have been like, you know, bang, you know, there's your feelings, right? How's that feel? How are your feelings now? What kind of feelings you have now? Boom.

But now your wife, who I met obviously eons ago, did she go back to work eventually? So this is a good little story. So my wife, Cheryl, was one of the top makeup artists in Hollywood and specialized, I would like to say, in handsome men. And one of her clients was Al Pacino.

And Mr. Alec Baldwin went on on Glenn Gary. She was on that movie and she had other really good actors. Me, Kiefer Sutherland. And I took her off the market.

So then she started a jewelry company, Cheryl Lowe Designs, and she's crushing it. And she's great. I remember vividly the other thing I remember about many of our times together. I came to visit for two days on Glengarry. You guys were shooting in Queens. And it happened to be the two days you worked. And I got to watch you do Always Be Closing. What's funny, my favorite story was your wife was in the room. I don't know if she remembers this. I doubt she does.

But I'm in the room and it's me and Spacey and somebody else and your wife was there. And we're reading an article in the paper about a show, some kind of a play. And Kevin was saying how, oh, yeah, I'd like to go see that show. And that sounds like a really smart or clever show. It was something I don't remember the details. And Arkin walked in and we've been doing the scene. You know, we had rehearsed in the summer that we went to shoot the scene and it was not good.

a lot of fun. It wasn't Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein out there every day. It was really very tense. And Arkin comes walking into the makeup room and I said, you know, this play, I said, this sounds exactly like the kind of piece you would do. I mean, like the kind of play you would do when you were, you know, doing a lot of theater. And he literally snapped and he literally erupted and he literally, and he said this very kind of haiku like phrase. He literally said, he went, my God out there.

"In here!" And then he walked out. He said, "My God, out there, in here." And he stormed out. And we all looked at each other like, "Wow." Like, obviously he was like carrying with him all the malice of doing the scene where I said horrible things to them. And when I did the off camera for them, I said things that were 10 times worse.

And then eventually there's a knock at my door. I guess it was Steiner or one of them where they had real dressing rooms. You know, you weren't in a trailer outside and they knocked on the door and I opened the door and it's him. And he said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He said, you're so awful out there. You're so awful. My God, you're so fucking horrible. It's hard. And I was like, I get it. I'm so sorry, God.

Like he really freaked out. And your wife was like sitting there like, you know, like cleaning some brushes going, Oh, I'm trying to run a business. When I came to visit, you could cut the tension with a knife. I mean, I remember, I remember all those guys were not happy campers. Yeah. They wanted to punch me. Ed Harris wanted to punch me right in the face. Ed Harris in particular that. Okay. So I'm not crazy. Cause I remember Ed Harris being fucking livid.

Live it. But you know as well as I do that, like, you look at text in a piece that you do. And I remember people would write scripts and they'd send me material. And I turned to the director, or especially we'd take care of it before, and I'd say, well, you know, the problem with the speech is I don't think that that person would talk to me that way.

They're not playing any stakes. You don't walk in and just unzip your fly and piss all everybody's shoes and try to bully people around like that. I said, that's not life. People try to, you know, maybe we'll get there. Right, right, right. The only reason that in Glen Gary it worked was because these guys were all desperate because the, as everybody knows who knows the play, which won the Pulitzer Prize, that role that I played is not in the play. Right. And when I spoke to Mamet on the phone at the,

The beginning of that whole process, I said, you know, I figured you'd won the Pulitzer Prize. I would have figured the play was in pretty good shape. You know, you didn't really have to change anything to shoot the movie. He said, well, no, no. He said there's a gap I felt, which was that these men who were not criminals, they're not criminals. They have no criminal nature. They're just ordinary men.

And they're going to commit a crime, some of them. They're going to commit a crime. And I need something to ratchet up the tension on them to turn them into criminals. And he said, and your character is going to come in and set the stage for that and put this undue pressure on them. And I was like, okay. So we went and did that. And it was three days of me just really, you know, those guys did not want to have coffee with me. I remember sitting on an Apple box.

In the shadows watching it. And you should know my son, Johnny, the writer slash actor, he watches that speech on his iPhone probably once or twice a month. Wrote a thesis on it. Oh, my God. Can quote it. He'll look at me on any given day and hit me with like a deep dive moment from it. Hit me with a similar day. That's like Miller. You know, it's like Miller. You know, the condition of the American...

the breadwinner, you got to go out there, you got to make money and you measure yourself by your paycheck. And, you know, that, that this is the Miller DNA seeping into mammoths, oeuvre, you know, in the mammoths cadences and so forth. But I always tell the same tired story, which is Jamie Foley. I had a tough time being mean to those guys. Here were guys who I loved. Absolutely.

Al wasn't in the scene, obviously he wasn't there, but Lemon, who I worshiped and, and Ed and Spacey and, and Arkin and, and Jamie Foley, the director said, remember that scene in Patton where he slaps the guy across the head in the tent. Sure. And because he thinks the guy's got shell shock and, you know, it's like, you call yourself a soldier. He said, it's the same thing here. He said, it's, you call yourself a salesman. He said, you're going to crack these guys across the face. Not because you're mean it's for their own good. Right.

These guys are shell-shocked. They're complacent. They don't realize how much trouble they're in. You've come in here to just go bang and to give them a nice cold bucket of water in the face for their own good. You're not doing it for any other reason but to help them. And the minute he said that to me, all the blood went like running into my balls. You know, I just got up and I went, I was like...

I was like, let's do it. You know, let's do it. Because prior to that, I was very uptight. Let me ask you something. Among several, and I'm assuming maybe West Wing is one of them, what's been some of the toughest parts you played acting-wise? What were some of the ones that were hard for you? The ones that are hard are also the ones that are so fun. It's kind of like in...

And behind the candelabra, I knew I was coming into a movie where like fucking those guys were teeing the fuck off. Right. Just teeing off. I love that movie. It's such a isn't it fun? It's such a fun movie. And so I was like, OK, I'm competitive. I know you're competitive. Ensembles are the greatest. I love doing ensembles because of the fraternity and the teamwork and the discipline of playing music.

your piece and letting others play their piece and knowing when to go low, where they go high and all of the stuff that we celebrate from doing ensemble work. But on the other side of it is like you don't want to get blown off the fucking screen either. No. It's a tough tightrope to walk. Right? So...

I knew I was coming into – I mean, Jesus Christ, Michael Douglas, one of my favorite movie star actors, and that's what he is. He's a movie star actor. Like his dad. Yeah, like his dad. And Matt, who has every club in the bag.

I mean, just can play anything. Yeah. But that's one where I go, okay, so what can I do? And there was nothing about the character really written in terms of how he looked or whatever. And I just knew that I had to do something to plant my flag. So I called Steven Soderbergh and said, you know, what's the bandwidth here? Like, you know, like how big a swing would you tolerate? Yeah.

And he was like, swing away. I'll never forget. He said, swing away. And I was like, great. So I showed up with that look and they liked it. Scored. He scored. I'm going to go back and watch that movie. Not a lot of movies these days I'll watch again, but I'm going to watch that again. You know, Michael's dad obviously just died. He was my neighbor. I used to see him all the time in Montecito up until the very end. The most elegant, nicest man ever.

You know, like you said, you know, I'm going to write Michael a card. I just got, I knew where he lived, but I didn't want to write him at home. And I called his office to get the best address to write him. Because, you know, I run into them every now and then. And one time was at the U.S. Open. And Michael was funny because Michael knows I love him and I admire him very deeply.

And, uh, um, and he was there with his wife and his father was sitting nearby and Michael kind of like joked, like, like I was being insincere that I was hugging him. He looked at me and he goes, dad's over there. Like I only want to talk to his dad. He went, dad's over there. So I walked over and sat down with his father for just like 10 minutes. And, you know, this is a guy who I don't need to go into the whole list of films, but my God, what a great, I mean, there's movie stars, uh,

And then there's movie stars who are great stars. They're at the top of that world. And they were great actors, just great actors, you know. And he was a great actor. He was a great actor. And Michael's a great actor, too. I think Michael's a great actor.

And I don't always say that because there's like odd little films of, you know what I think he's great in? Is in Fatal Attraction. He's so great in that movie. And he's weak and he's a victim and he's unsympathetic. And yet he still pulls you in, you know, with his acting. That's a great performance. I love that film. I was also on the set of Wall Street.

Um, cause I was shooting, um, a movie called masquerade in the Hamptons. So masquerade was ahead of its time. I really liked the movie came out. It bombed as, as my movies were want to do at a certain point in the eighties. And, um, the writer said, fuck this. I'm not going to write movies anymore. I have an idea for a TV show. I'm going to do in TV. Nobody wanted to do TV. That man's name was Dick Wolf and he wrote his show law and order.

So I figure I'm responsible for Dick Wolf making literally $2 billion. He owes you something. He owes you something. Something. A little piece. I tanked it so he could go do that. But let me ask you this. What's a part that you – what's a script you have –

that you've had in your pocket and maybe you're too old now because because i know this yeah for myself i've got like three or four words i'm too old now but what's one you always wanted to do that you didn't that you couldn't get off the ground name one boy well there's one i actually wrote and um my dear recently passed away beloved buddy bill paxton the actor bill paxton who i love we loved

gave it to James Cameron to read post-Titanic, right as Jim had won Titanic. And he's like, God, buddy, you got to read this. God, Rob Lowe wrote a script, but I think you're going to love it. And James Cameron read it and indeed loved it and wanted to make it. And I was going to direct at that time. And long story short, I got The West Wing a month later.

And I have been on television every season since 1999. Well, how many seasons did you do West Wing? I did four that Aaron Sorkin and I did four seasons together. And then we were gone. And then they did four or five. They did another three, I believe, that you weren't there.

Yeah, but you wanted to be there when Sorkin was there. Who ran the show when Sorkin left? John, I think John Wells did. Wells, right, right, right. Yeah. Now, you did, oh, of course. Okay, so the first time I ever was aware of Sorkin was a part I wanted that you got, you bastard.

In the Nicole Kidman movie. In the movie Malice that Sorkin wrote. Yeah. Yeah, he wrote that, right? The only reason they hired me and not you was they couldn't afford you. That was what Rob Reiner told me. They couldn't, they didn't have enough money for you. They had a number. They had a number. And they said, that's it. We don't have a fucking penny more than that number. Because I saw the list on his desk, you know what I mean? And the little notes next to the names and there was your name toward the top and everything.

You know, they couldn't afford you. I mean. But I would have done that movie. God damn it. I would have done it for nothing. That's how I remember that, you know, that was your other great speech, the Dr. God speech. I am God. My favorite thing in that movie was the production staff would sit in the production office and I came in there to pick up something. I had to sign a piece of paper.

Isn't it funny how we remember all these weird little moments of the movie? Yeah. And I come into the production office. We were at Laird. We were at the old Laird. Laird. Oh, God, nobody calls that. Culver. Yeah, I remember it was called Laird when I shot Beetlejuice there. Then we did Malice there. And we're doing the movie Malice at the old Culver Studios. And I walk into the production office. They said, oh, you've got to come pick up a document or something. And a bunch of these production interns were there gathered around a phone. And I said, oh, you've got to come pick up a document or something.

And they were playing the voicemail of George C. Scott calling to say he wasn't coming in at the call time. And literally, they would look at me, they put their hand over their mouth, they'd go, shh. And they'd press boop on the voicemail, press the number to play. And you could literally hear his voice go, ah, it's George Scott calling. I'm told I've got a pickup time.

Of 6 a.m. And would you please tell Mr. Becker I haven't been in a car at 6 a.m. for 40 years. I don't intend to change that now. George Scott, I'll be in the car at 8. Click, and he hangs up. Oh, dude. I should have saved that. I should have recorded that.

Oh, so you could use it yourself. That would have been my, I would have cut it up into my outgoing message, but I'm sure in that way that you must feel the same way. I mean, the people we got to work with. Oh, I remember. How about this? So I did a movie called Square Dance. It's another one I really am proud of that people don't really know. And it was like a real character part. And it was right after sort of St. Elmo's fire about last night, the sort of when I'm at the male ingenue era. Yeah.

And it was with Jason Robards, who I adored, and Jane Alexander, and our new discovery, Winona Ryder. And who then left. I said, what are you doing after? She said, I'm doing this thing called Beetlejuice. I was like, Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice? What? That sounds awful. And the rest is history. She was great. She was great even then. The movie Beetlejuice was like, I was like, what are we doing here? Well, first of all, what were you wearing?

That outfit is really beyond belief. Had I known I was going to be wearing the same thing. I remember going into Tim Burton's office. I've told this many times. And Tim Burton was an illustrator. He would be drawing sketches on pads. And he'd be drawing like Charboy. He'd be drawing the characters that were in the film. And he'd be sketching on a pad. And he really wouldn't even look at you. And I'd say, you know, Tim...

And everyone's got a thing they're doing, like Glenn Shaddix and Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones, Gina Keaton, obviously, has got all cylinders clicking here. I said, I feel like I don't really have much to play. I said, I want to become I want to do like a Bob Cummings impersonation.

I want you to swear that I'm a gay man who's married to a woman like we're antique collectors. I want to say all my lines like this and be very kind of like plummy and very Connecticut and very like an antique collector. And I want to do something to play. And he's like looking, looking down and he's like sketching and he just, his eyes come up for a moment and he goes, no, don't do that.

And then he went back to drawing this. It's the only direction he gave me the whole fucking movie. He said, no, don't do that. And it killed my idea of my Robert Cummings impersonation. And I remember walking through that movie going, what am I? I got nothing. I got nothing. Because you talked about that line about giving and taking. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, that is...

And you know, I love you. I'm your biggest fan fucking ever. That's a tough one because those people were teeing. Like I said, they were teeing off and you had the bad flannel fucking shirt. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a sentence. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? A prison sentence. Hold that thought. We'll be right back.

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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Now, let's talk about politics. I have a very unique perspective about you, and I mean this. I hope you know that I'm being sincere when I say this. And you're one of the few people I know who, not that I had an expectation that you would do this, but there's a certain kind of amalgam that people have to have in order, in my mind, to succeed at that.

Not only just a charm and a kind of a, you know, kind of a winning, you know, forget about looks. You don't have to be a matinee idol to do this, but there has to be kind of something engaging and something magnetic about them, which you obviously have that in spades. And there also has to be, as you said, the give and take.

There's a kind of a, you know, Strasberg, Stanislavski, they always said we're never 100 percent the character. We're always at a set of knobs and dials and switches adjusting what we're doing and watching what we're doing to make sure it's going off the way that we conceived it should be. And I think that there's nothing more so like that than politics for you to measure your performance. You're playing a role and you're trying to seduce people within a certain kind of a prism.

And I've always felt that was something that was yours for the taking. Did you ever, ever contemplate running or no? Seriously. And vice versa with you. But I'm asking you to say. Yeah, I know. Okay. So here's the thing. The answer is yes, very much so. And one of the few, and although we started the interview saying my wife and I agree on everything. Yeah.

She always just pissed all over that idea. She hated the idea more than life itself, which made me rethink it. And then politics changed. And that's really what

What did it is politics change in so many ways and very few of it good, you know, and the people that I was always drawn to the consensus builders and the people who could reach across the aisle and the stories of like Tip O'Neill and Reagan battling and cursing each other and then going having a whiskey and cutting a deal in the cloak rooms like that just doesn't exist anymore.

And and then the notion because I watched Arnold Schwarzenegger go through it with with when he was governor. I've been friendly with him for a long time. And I mean, he's not I mean, he's a Republican in name only. Really? I mean, he's you know, he has some in watching that process. It really bummed me out. It really, really did. And I feel bad about it because I go, that's what you don't want. You don't want people who have an affinity to politics.

to go into that arena no longer wanting to go into that arena but that's sort of weird i mean what about you you were i mean i know i thought you were right there well i think it's always interesting what you just alluded to is it's always interesting when you have people who there's some sacrifice involved in them doing this in terms of public service like the man and woman

I always say the same thing, which is the man or woman who seeks public office as a means of completing themselves. There's something missing in them. There's some aspiration they have. Politics is another link in a chain of these kind of meritorious climbs they have. You get good grades in school and you do the SAT and you get into Harvard and you get into Harvard Law and you make the law review and you get into the top firm. And they're used to climbing things.

this merit based thing they're doing. And this is the next brass ring for them. For sure. And they, and under no circumstances do they lay there. I always have the same kind of corny image under no circumstances. Do they lay in bed at night and their wife, they're tossing and turning and their wife says, honey, what's the matter, Bob? And he's like, well, I can't sleep because I,

I just, God, I just can't stand the fact that we don't have enough money for the National Endowment for the Arts. It doesn't seem right. It just doesn't. And you realize that for none of them today that applies. None. None of them are losing sleep over anything other than their political power and their fundraising. And for you and I, we grew up when there were men and some women. There were less women, you know, 20 years ago.

25 years ago, where there's a real sacrifice. These are people who could be captains of industry and lining their pockets. And there's a lot of other more lucrative things they could be running. And instead they stopped and they got off that train to come and help their country in the way they can, you know, and I've always admired that. And I always thought about doing that. And for years, and my wife, you and I have an in common, my wife said she would divorce me if I ran for office. So,

What would you have run for? Probably governor of New York. I would have been so fine. Probably governor of New York. I only say that because to be an executive, to go to Washington and to commute to Washington as a member of Congress, which I would never do that, or as a senator, that's onerous for me now with my kids. I mean, my whole life now is about jobs I take, jobs I don't take. There's things I do to make a living now that I never dreamed of.

You know, the people from ABC came to me to do Match Game, the game show. They said, we're going to pay you X. They paid me an exorbitant amount of money and we put it all in my foundation and gave it to charity because I'm always looking for sources of income that are non-traditional sources of income for me. I do X and I make a living doing X. And then the rest of it is like money that you find in the sofa. You know, I'm going to go give it away. Right.

So I do match game and they come to me after the first year and they said, wow, the numbers weren't bad. They think they were really pretty good. We were surprised. Would you do it again? And my wife was like pregnant with our second or third child. My wife was like, of course he will. And she like shoves. She's like, I'll be there tomorrow. He'll do 80 episodes. Oh, I had the same with, um,

The Comedy Central came and said they wanted to roast. You got roast. That's the other thing we have in common. I think you might have been the roast right after me. And well, first of all, my wife was like, you're not doing it. Yeah. I said, what do you mean I'm not doing it? She says, first of all, I can't have you. You don't want to be the butt of the joke across the country. I said, honey, that ship has sailed. Right. And then she says, well, are they even going to pay you?

And I said, yeah. And I told her how much it was. She's, oh, you have to do it. Right, right, right, right, right. And just like that. So, so I loved it, by the way. I absolutely had the time of my life. I hated it because the only, everybody was given some advice and,

Actually, I did two roasts. Casey Patterson, who's a wonderful producer, asked me to do one for Spike TV. And that was a great honor. And that's a little bit more, this is your life. And De Niro came and Clinton came. And I was like in tears. I was so touched. And of all the people that came out there, all of them had been kind of coached to take the edge off a little bit, you know, not go too far. And the only one who said no,

And some of them, like my wife, would say to the writers, well, I don't want to necessarily say that. They had their own filter to protect me. The only one who said verbatim everything she was asked to say was my daughter, Ireland. You could tell she just loved kicking my teeth out on national television. She loved every moment of it. Then when we come back and do the roast roast, well, that was for Spike. Then Comedy Central I did because we...

They gave me a million bucks for my charity. And I took half of that that they matched. They coughed up a half a million for Tony Bennett's school. We gave money to Exploring the Arts, which is Tony's charity. We gave them a million bucks. And my other half million, I threw in my foundation and gave it away to other people. So in that way that I'm always looking for these silly gigs to do for charity, I

I think the only thing that's left is for me to do the weather on Good Morning America now or some fucking thing. I don't know. You'd be so good. I think that would be great.

I would like to see that. You want to wake up every morning and get me to do the weather, don't you? I do. Let me ask you some cheesy questions. Here we go. Some cheesy Rob Lowe questions. You've commandeered. You've commandeered. See, I know what you're doing. You're a filibuster. Who knew this was going to happen? You don't invite me. I have my own podcast. You don't invite me on. You know I'm going to wrestle the microphone for you. Rob, you idiot. You knew this was going to happen. You idiot. In here, out there. Exactly. Exactly. Perfect. In here.

Out there. My God. Now, here we go. I'll pose this to you the way they said to the to the North Vietnamese captives when the soldiers got off the plane in America. The newscaster was very kind. He said, other than your wives and children, he didn't want to embarrass them. He said, other than your wives and children, what's the thing you missed most in captivity? Now I'm going to say the same thing to you. Other than your wife.

Other than your wife. And this has nothing to do with looks or sexuality, just in terms of that magical, that je ne sais quoi that happens. I mean, you're one of the great leading men in modern history. Who's the woman you kissed and you just felt it right down to your toes? Ooh. What actress did you kiss? And when it was over, you were like, wow, I didn't expect that at all. Oh, well, that the added, I didn't expect that at all.

That's interesting because I did this – it would be two people actually probably and not big names particularly, but I did a movie with Curtis Hanson. Did you work with Curtis? My ex-wife did LA Confidential. That's right. I knew there was some connection there. What did you do with Curtis? Bad influence. Right.

It was David Koepp's script, me, James Spader. Right. And Lisa Zane, the actress. That was one. And I remember Curtis saying, why don't you guys kiss now so you can get it over with? Like we're just like at the craft service table. And we had a big kissing scene to do. And he was like holding a Cinnabon, whatever. And was like, you know, I think you should kiss now. By the way, that was also in the era where Curtis Hansen also said,

to these two beautiful background artists who I was supposed to have a scene in bed with later that day naked. This is in the script. This is not something I want to do necessarily. No. But I'm just saying I was just part of the job. You were ordered to do it. I was ordered to do it. I was under strict orders from the studio. Curtis said, why don't you guys take this bottle of champagne and go to your trailer?

And sort of get relaxed. Get acquainted. I had a director say that to me once. I was going to do a movie, which was a complete crazy when I was much younger, a complete crazy. I mean, I can say it because I think he's dead now, Phil Kaufman. Oh, wow. Yeah, sure. I was going to do the movie Henry in June.

And my mother had breast cancer. My mother got very sick in 1991. And he wanted me to go to Paris with Uma. And I forget the actress's name that played Anaïs Nin. And Uma played his wife, June. And I'd gone to the Henry Miller Museum in Carmel or Big Sur to research.

And basically, I said in the in the films I saw of Miller, I said to vocal coach, did he speak that way when he was even younger? Because he had a very raspy voice, very heavy New York accent. Miller, who had a very heavy New York accent and talk like this. He was from Brooklyn. He had a very raspy voice. They want me to do this movie.

And I couldn't go. And they got Fred Ward who did it. Because I think of Fred Ward. When I think of the wonderful young Alec Baldwin, I go right to Fred Ward. Those guys had their relationship from the- Yeah, right stuff.

from the right stuff and so he goes and does that but but he said he wanted me to go over to europe and with uma and this woman i figured her name and he wanted us just to hang out and live the life for like a month of the characters and i was like you know wow you know i really am a good son if i'm giving up on that to go take care of my mother who was very very sick but uh i'll never forget i did a sex scene in the well who was the other woman lisa zane and who's the other one um

Of all things, I did Masquerade with like Kim Cattrall at her height of young gorgeousness. I mean, the height. And she was amazing. And she rang your bell. And this was in the era where like you were, there were no, what do they call them? Modesty, fucking whatever's, cod pieces and stuff. I mean, that in the 80s, nobody did that. Nobody did it. You were just naked. I did a movie once with Deborah Maloney.

who married Jimmy Farentino. She was a beautiful woman on soaps. And then she did movies and she was Jimmy Farentino's wife. Her name is Deborah Farentino, but I knew her when she was. Oh yeah. She's famous. Oh, she's beautiful brunette. And I did this movie, the movie malice. And I have a scene where I'm having sex with the woman in the bedroom and she's in bed, Nicole with Bill Pullman. And she's supposed to hear us having sex. It's supposed to kind of agitate her that I'm having sex with

sex. I'm their boarder. I'm their guest in their house. And I brought in a woman to have sex with me. And we start to do the scene and it's very chaste and I'm a little cautious and we're all naked. And I know Debra a little bit. And, you know, it's like, it's not, you know, we're not, we're not adult film stars here who know how to just get right to it. And Harold Becker, who oddly enough, also had a very raspy voice and a New York accent. He comes in, he says, Alec, Alec, Alec.

She has to hear you in the other room while you're doing this. You've got to be fucking her head through the headboard. He said, you've got to give this everything you've got. And she and I look at each other. We were like, oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. And then we just, you know, we just simulated our way through something. I went into a blackout. I don't remember.

It's isn't it like the stuff that we have and I would say we have to do it. The things we did that you don't do anymore. You don't do it. Well, here's my favorite. Whenever I got a script and I would always I'd read the first two or three pages. But then I would jump to page and always page 73. Do you know why? What was always always on page 73? What is that? That was where inevitably they wanted me nude. Yeah.

I feel so sorry for you, Rob. I feel so sorry for you. It's so sad. You know what I mean? Your life's been so, it's been really stressful, hasn't it? You know, to be you. To go through life and have all those pressures on you and the whole page 73 thing. It's sad. I feel bad. So glad we had this chat because I wanted to remind myself of just how hard you've had it. You know, page 73. Page 73. And we'll be right back after this.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Hit me. Give me a burning question. Jesus, I have so many burning questions. Do you have a Jack Donaghy line that you love? Because I do. I have my favorite line that you've said in that. Do you have one that you loved more than any?

This is a 30 Rock line, obviously. Well, a line is tough. I mean, we had a lot of good lines. I always remember when we would escort Carrie Fisher, played a writer who was an old school writer who was trying to emphasize everything she said was to emphasize the heyday of the auteur writer and when the writers were important.

And I look at her and I say, well, thank you so much for coming to see me. It was such a pleasure to see you. And I really look forward to working with you. And really, let's get together again soon. Thank you so much. And I scored her out the door and I smile and I turned and as we closed the door, I turned to Tina. I go, don't ever make me talk to a woman that age again. Yeah.

My other favorite line was we're standing on the balcony. I have a glass of wine and we're looking out over the city of New York out of my special balcony. And Tina's behind me complaining about how she works too hard. And she says, you know, I'm getting older and all I do is work and I haven't met anybody. And your time is ticking, whatever her dialogue was. And she says, you know, pretty soon no one's going to want to even see me naked. And I said, I kind of like just nodded.

And I said, oh, please. I said, you make enough money, you pay people to look at you naked. That was my other favorite line. You pay people to look at you naked. I like when Tina came into your office really early on and you were in a tuxedo. Yes. And she said, oh, do you have somewhere to go? And you said, no, it's after five o'clock. What am I, a farmer? It's after six. What am I, a farmer? It's after six. What am I, a farmer? Yeah.

How, um, how much of it? Okay. That's, that was the next question. Yeah. That's Lauren. That's for sure. Right. Oh yeah. That's Lauren. Yeah. You know, you know, I, it's funny. I've done a bunch of these podcasts and Lauren comes up in every single podcast. Yeah. Because I think, and it's, and Sorkin is the same way. People who've worked with Aaron Sorkin,

Like he just occupies a space in your brain forever. They have to be these sort of legendary, but also really eccentric and quotable. That's the main thing. The thing about Sorkin was going to do, and NBC was going to do a live version of A Few Good Men.

And they wanted me to play the Nicholson role. And they were going to get two young people to play, you know, two young stars, whether they were in the NBC wheelhouse or not, to play the Cruise role and the Demi role. And Sorkin was going to update. He was going to do some slight updates.

This is what he told me over lunch. We had lunch with Craig Zayden, the late Craig Zayden. Of course. Who I love. Wouldn't give me Footloose. I never forgave him. Blew my knee out on stage 24 at the Footloose audition. Did a knee slide into Herb Ross's lap. They took me out on a stretcher. Well, because you know it was on page 73 of that script, aren't you?

Oh, I do. Anyway, so Craig Zayden, the late Craig Zayden, who I loved, him and Neil Maron, I loved chatting with them. And they... Craig was producing that we're going to do Few Good Men for NBC, and the whole thing fell apart. But I was very excited by the chance of working with Sorkin again. Well, I...

Well, I'll tell you, I, after the West wing, you know, it was not a great ending for any of us, my exit from the show, but I loved Aaron so much. And he, and Aaron's very much like the withholding father. So you want his approval and, and I will, I will suffer any bad behavior from anyone. If they're a genius, unfortunately, like I just like, if, if you're going to write me good shit, I,

I don't I just you're in forever. So we had a rapprochement and we did A Few Good Men in the West End together, Aaron and I. He rewrote it because it was during the Guantanamo Bay incident.

you know, prisoner issue. And as you know, the play takes place in Guantanamo Bay. Yes. So we spent six months, six months in London and I played Caffey. And I have to tell you, it was the highlight of my life. That play. What year was that? I want to say it was 2007. That's the last play you did? Yeah. I mean, we did 260 performances. Wow. You lived in London.

Lived in London. What theater? The Haymarket. Oh my God, how lovely. Who else was in the cast with you? They were all English folk. Good answer, Rob. Good answer. They were all, you know, English folk. You know, they were English people.

They were actors, you know, from England, you know. Well, the person you would probably know was John Barrowman, who was in Mr. Who, Doctor Who. And he played the Kevin Bacon part. Here's what's interesting, because you've done a ton of theater. I remember in rehearsal, and we're just about, well, this is right before opening night. And by the way, there is no opening night there.

Well, there is an opening night there. That, on opening night, every critic comes on opening night. On Broadway, they can come any time through previews. You don't know when they're there. Opening night in England is for real opening night. Yeah, for the press as well. Which it adds a tremendous amount of pressure. And I chose that night to go up.

There was a moment we had never really worked in rehearsal and it worked opening night and it crushed. And I got, took my eye off the ball for a minute. And the next thing I knew I was doing a cross examination and I looked in the other actor's eyes were huge. And I thought, well, that's, that's an interesting choice. I haven't seen that before. And I realized I had jumped two and a half pages. And the, the two and a half pages is all stories, story details. So I,

I realized what I'd done. And this is, you know, years of doing what we do. You finally, this is why we do what we do for so long is you know what to do. And I thought, I got to figure this out. But if I commit to thinking, no one will be the fucking wiser. So I walked away from the witness stand. It took the slowest, longest, most deliberate walk right down center.

and looked out at the audience for as long as I possibly could. So long that it couldn't have been a mistake. Figured it out, went back, and did it. No one said a fucking thing. We got great reviews, and Sorkin didn't even know. Was he drunk? Well, he had gone out to smoke. Yeah, he had gone, you'd gone downstage for like a 10-minute...

take and nobody noticed? He had gone out to have a smoke. But he's... You would crush in that... Oh, so anyway, the...

The English audiences are so much different than American. They listen. You can hear them listening. Yeah. And they don't crinkle their crinkly cracklies or eat or drink. Not once did a phone go off. It's a religion. Yeah, not once did a phone go off. Not once. Not once did anybody sleep or talk. Not once. But on the other side of it, 260 performances, we probably got eight standing ovations.

if we'd have done that show on Broadway, we would have multiple standing ovations multiple times. Every show. I did Lyle Kessler's play Orphans was the last thing I did on Broadway in 2013. And a play I loved. And we had a very disastrous run. Shia LaBeouf came and got fired and all this craziness. And

And it was really debilitating. But I will never forget how, I mean, maybe Broadway is a little flappy that way, but we got a standing ovation every night. Every night. Every night. Oh, no, no. And listen, this is taking nothing away from your acting, which is tremendous. But I have seen Broadway audiences applaud scenery changes. Right, right, right, right, right.

Now here's my last question for you. Cause I got to go take my kids to the horse farm next door. Here we go. Ready? I love it. Not only, not only has he taken over the show, you're now taking it upon yourself to wrap the show. I'm going to wrap. We're going to wrap now, Rob. But Rob, sure. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm more aware. Out there in here. Men are in the, my God, going like this. They're going like, like the old TV studios. I mean, like the old day. Exactly. So your greatest star struck moment, a person you worked with, the person you, you were like, Oh my God. Who? I had,

I got two very quickly. You got a few. Give me a couple. Sheen. Well, no. The Star Trek moment, I think the two. One is going to my seventh grade. Yeah, 10th grade. I'll say 10th grade. Crush's house in Beverly Hills to watch my after school special, which is going to be on the air. She's the most beautiful girl in the school. I use that as an excuse to power me to go and ask her out.

She was, I was punching way above my league. And she said, come to my house, my, my dad's house. I'm going to be there over the weekend and he's an actor and we'll watch it together. And I drove to Beverly Hills. It was the first time I'd ever seen a mansion. And I got out and I knocked on the door and Cary Grant opened the door in a white bathrobe, white terrycloth bathrobe and was like, Jennifer's waiting for you in my bedroom. I thought we were all watched together. Yeah.

Yeah, we watched my after school special school boy father in Cary Grant's bedroom with Cary and his daughter, Jennifer. And when it was over, he said, you remind me of a young Warren Beatty. And I was thrilled that then meeting Warren at three, then meeting Warren, which I

This is for another podcast, but I discovered at the end of it, my girlfriend would go up there. I'm going to tell the story. Fuck it. So my girlfriend would go up there every like now and then to watch movies and lie by the pool. I was young and stupid enough to not care about that. And I would I lived in Malibu. I didn't want to leave the beach. I certainly didn't want to go into the valley even to see Warren Beatty. But my girlfriend would.

So finally, there's a night where we're driving around. She goes, oh, Warren's around and wants us to come up and watch a movie. And I was like, I always loved Warren Beatty. He was my hero. And part of me was a little nervous probably to go up, but I did. And so he answers the door in this amazing Mulholland mansion. There's not a stitch of furniture except the Oscar for Reds, which is on the mantle. And this is, he's just, he said, I'm so sorry. I just, I haven't, there's no furniture. There's no furniture because I...

I was on a project and it just it took years. I'm thinking, oh, you mean the project you just won the Oscar for like two weeks ago? I've heard of it. So we go downstairs and watch a Burt Reynolds double feature. We watched Stick and something else. And I remember Warren wanted me to sit next to him and he he would be watching the he'd be watching going, oh, interesting. Yeah, that's oh, oh, look at that. Yeah.

And, and I said, what is that? He goes, oh, he's, he's using a lot of long lenses. And I remember going, how does he know? How can he tell by looking at the screen? What, what? This man is a genius. And then, and at a certain point he said, I can eat some ice cream. And he left to get ice cream and the girls left. And again, I'm dumb and young and stupid. And I stayed down in the theater.

And I'm waiting and waiting and my girlfriend's not coming back and I'm waiting and waiting. And the ingenue he was with, I believe it was Jan Smithers from WKRP in Cincinnati. And they're not coming back. And finally, I go up to the kitchen and they're all eating ice cream and it gets very quiet. And I know they've been talking about me clearly. And Warren's like, yeah, you know, you remind me so much of of of me.

And your girlfriend, who at the time was Melissa Gilbert, reminds me of Natalie. And I thought, oh, there it is. That's the panty dropper line that he uses on every young actress. You remind me of Natalie. It's fucking over. At that point. You're invisible. Over. It's over. So, and he goes, and you know, it's really, what's really funny is like you, I was a nobody and Natalie was a big star like Melissa.

And years later, of course, I became a big star. And this is even just very shortly after before Natalie's death, I ran into her at an event. I said, I just have to ask you, we're both old and it doesn't matter anymore. But those weekends when you used to go to Frank Sinatra's house and used to lie by the pool, what was really going on? And, you know, Rob, she looked at me and she said, Warren, what do you think was going on? We were fucking. And I instantly did the math.

And I knew exactly what was going on. And that, from that moment on, has been the ultimate meet your idol story. Isn't that unbelievable? In a world when you meet so many people, and the one that stands out was, you know, Norby Walters, you've been playing this card game, Norby Walters card game? Of course I do. Of course. Norby Walters has the card game. And I used to go to the card game many years ago when I was single, after I got divorced from my first wife. I'm out there.

I have nothing but time on my hands. I go to Norby Walters to play cards, and it's always like that group of people. It's Harvey Korman and all these guys. And Burt Reynolds shows up one night. Oh, wow. And all these guys. But my favorite was this guy shows up in a white jumpsuit. He's in a white. He's very trim, very fit.

He's in a white jumpsuit. Apparently he was a degenerate gambler. He loved gambling. And he sits there, doesn't say a word the entire time. It's Don Adams. No! Don Adams is there in a white cream-colored jumpsuit, very trim and manicured and perfect. He doesn't say a word.

And everyone's playing cards and everyone's waiting for that moment to arise. And I decide to seize the moment. And we're all laying there our cards. We're turning over our cards. And I turn over my cards and I go, I have a pair of sevens. And everybody bursts out laughing except him. And then finally he looks at me and goes, very good. Very good. Very good. Like the timing. There's a guy who like, you know, like nobody made him laugh. He never, never laughed.

My other favorite moment was when I did the movie The Cooler. I got a phone call from Jerry Lewis. Oh, no way. Jerry Lewis called me on my phone through my office at the time. He said, let me tell you something. I know these people. I know these people. And you were fucking fantastic. I know these fucking people. I grew up with these fucking people in Vegas. Let me tell you. That's a great movie. And I'll end you with this. There was a moment in time where you and Billy were going to do...

The Fighting Fitzgeralds, what the fuck are those guys? Yeah. The Sullivan Brothers or something? Yeah. The Sullivan Brothers. And I think there was – somehow I got it in my head that I was going to be the fifth – there's one too many Sullivans and not enough bald ones. Right. And that I was in – because I'm an honorary Fonda already.

Peter made me an honorary Fonda because I reminded him of his dad. One of the great compliments. I'm still an honorary Baldwin. Well, you're a half Baldwin. You're the Baldwin who we have the same father, but your mother is Eva Marie Saint. I've decided that. That makes sense. I'll take it. Your mother's Anne Margaret. Okay. Yes. Fucking A that is. I love that. Out there, in here. My God. Oh my God.

Fucking amazing. Love you. Thank you. My love to you. Say hi to your wife. Ciao. I will for sure. I will. Bye-bye. Thanks. Bye. Wow. I had so much fun. I could have talked to Alec for another 10 years. His impersonations, oh my God, they're insane. I mean, listen, what other podcast are you going to get a George Scott impersonation? And by the way, that's my favorite. It's not George C. Scott. George Scott. That's how you know it's all...

On the up and up. Oh, man. I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I am beaming from ear to ear. That was amazing. Well, I will see you all on the next podcast. Thanks for listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. Produced and engineered by me, Devin Tory Bryant.

Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Lowe Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blairt. Talent producer, Jennifer Sampras. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Come on, jump. I don't know if I'll make it. Hurry, the floor is lava.

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