Smart Alec stuff

Alec Baldwin has something in common these days with Donald Trump.

Both of their careers have reached new heights, with Baldwin’s taking off on the coattails of Trump becoming president. Baldwin’s biting impersonation of Trump on “Saturday Night Live” over the past half-year has re-energized the 59-year-old actor’s career, as evidenced by the covers of Vanity Fair and The Atlantic.

Baldwin’s recently published “Nevertheless, A Memoir,” gets first serial treatment in Vanity Fair, allowing the star to tell his story in his own words. But Graydon Carter’s monthly skips the biographical stuff, selecting the passages from the book that focus on Baldwin’s long association with SNL — back to 1990, when he first served as host.

“I was scared to death,” Baldwin admits, adding that he doesn’t consider himself funny. Baldwin also ruminates about “30 Rock” co-star Tina Fey, claiming “I fell in love” when he first met her.

Baldwin tells Vanity Fair that he initially rebuffed SNL boss Lorne Michaels when Michaels asked him to play Trump on the show.

“I didn’t hate Trump,” Baldwin recalls. Readers who want to get inside Baldwin’s head as he portrays Trump will be disappointed. He offers little insight into how he constructed his character with one exception: “To me Trump is someone who is always searching for a stron- ger, better word, but he never finds it. Whenever I play him, I make a long pause to find that word, and then I just repeat the word I started with.”

On first blush, it may seem that Baldwin is being humble when he describes himself as “not funny.” But given the lack of zingers from the former Hollywood bad boy, one has to wonder if his Trumpian triumph has more to do with SNL’s writers than Alec’s talent.

The Atlantic brings out the Baldwin we all thought we knew. He is plenty sarcastic, witty and self-deprecating as Chris Jones trails the actor on the set of SNL, where he offers a string of spontaneous impersonations of Al Pacino, Tony Bennett and even David Gest.

Anyone craving a glimpse of how the magic happens at SNL — which is enjoying its mostwatched season since 1993 — will lap up this 13-pager, including skits that were cut because they were seen as inappropriate. Imagine that! The Atlantic asks on its cover whether “Satire can Save the Republic” and seems to deliver a negative answer.

“Laughter is the best medicine only if what ails you isn’t very serious,” Jones writes.

But it’s hard to argue that the delicious performances Baldwin has been delivering for 17 SNL episodes aren’t serving some higher purpose. He plays the role of the “deflator-in-chief, a weekly pinprick in Trump’s balloon,” Jones writes.