Baldwin saves day as Boss Baby
LOS ANGELES — When the comedy poop hits the fan, count on Alec Baldwin to come to the rescue.
Just ask The Boss Baby director Tom McGrath, who was stuck finding the right expletive while recording the voices for his animated film about a baby with the mind of a sharp businessman. Baldwin, who voices Boss Baby, finally stepped in.
“We had tried all of these exclamations. And Alec just blurted out: ‘Fartpoopdoody.’ It was just perfect,” says McGrath. “What’s great is Alec knows just where the comedy is.”
Baldwin, 58, has always shown he can zero in on the funny. But with The Boss Baby hitting theatres in the midst of Baldwin’s run as impersonator-in-chief of U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live (Baldwin hosted for a record 17th time in February), the actor is showing he’s the true comedy boss.
It’s a run that surprises even Baldwin.
“There’s a more typical path you’re on when rounding the corner toward 60, with retirement not far away, or at least slowing down,” Baldwin says during an interview. “But it’s like the old saying, you make plans and life happens.”
For Baldwin, the comedy resurgence started with his seven-year stint as executive Jack Donaghy on TV’s 30 Rock, making him a natural choice to voice Boss Baby.
McGrath even tested his story concept about a business-savvy baby living in a normal household with a demo featuring Baldwin’s voice from his cutthroat role in 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross dubbed over an adorable animated baby from Megamind.
DreamWorks Animation jumped on the concept and McGrath immediately signed up the real Baldwin. This was all before Trump was even a presidential candidate and before Baldwin married Hilaria Baldwin in 2012.
The arrival of three young children (Carmen, three, Rafael, one and six-month-old Leonardo Ángel Charles) has ensured Baldwin will be happily busy.
“Like anybody who has a career, you want to slow down, whether you are a cop or business owner. But then I went and got married and had three kids,” says Baldwin. “So I’m probably going to retire when I’m 80.”
The national attention that has resulted from his Trump sendup has ensured that Baldwin will have no problems finding the work. He is already hosting ABC’s game show Match Game, a role he acknowledges he might not have taken if he “were not remarried with little kids.”
Though Baldwin insists that his Trump performance will end with SNL’s spring season, he will get a few more comic jabs in. He’s teaming up with satirist Kurt Andersen to write a book as Trump mocking the first 100 days of the presidency, You Can’t Spell America Without Me. Baldwin’s own memoir, Nevertheless, is out Tuesday.
His fascination with the president won’t end. When asked to compare Trump with his Boss Baby, Baldwin tees up and lets it fly.
“Obviously, the two characters make a lot of demands on people. They are very self-seeking in that way. They want what they want,” Baldwin says.
“But I’m hard-pressed to figure out what Trump really wants, that may be the problem. It seems to change every 48 hours what Trump wants.
“Trump is the most frustrating and inscrutable person I have ever seen.”