Baldwin talk show won’t find him in SNL form

When his new talk show premieres Sunday night, don’t expect Alec Baldwin to get overly political. The 60-year-old actor plans to leave that on the set of Saturday Night Live with his occasional impersonations of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The Trump thing is just silly. Nothing we do on SNL about Trump is going to change anybody’s mind about anything,” Baldwin said. “There are people in Washington going, ‘That Alec Baldwin, I hate him’... and there are others that say, ‘Thank you, for helping us process this.”’

That’s why he doesn’t see an upside to being overly political on The Alec Baldwin Show on ABC. The show features candid one-on-one conversations with celebrities and cultural icons.

“If you have a very muscular political opinion, it has its consequences. I’m not afraid of that, and thankfully I have other venues to exercise that. But this is not about that at all,” Baldwin said.

His guests are another story. The talk show debuts with the politically outspoken Robert De Niro. The hour show will feature two interviews, with Taraji P. Henson as the other guest.

Baldwin plans to pick up where Here’s the Thing – his podcast for WNYC – left off, employing his unfiltered, provocative interview style.

Among the guests sitting down with Baldwin this season include Kim Kardashian, RuPaul, Kerry Washington, Jeff Bridges, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mike Myers, Regina King, Gloria Allred, Ricky Gervais and Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg.