Alec Baldwin tells who’s ‘Boss Baby’ in his house
Actor concedes his 3 young kids are the ones with real power
Even in the formidable and famous Baldwin brothers clan, Alec Baldwin was born to be the Boss Baby.
The oldest of the four Baldwin brothers at 58, Alec showed the signs early over brothers Daniel, 56; William, 54; and Stephen, 50. So it’s fitting that he should star in the animated The Boss Baby (in theaters now), voicing an infant with a businessman’s mind.
“I really was pretty clear about how I wanted things to be and how I didn’t want them to be,” Baldwin says. “My brothers were much more childlike. They would go out and play basketball for six hours all day. And I would go out and cut grass and I had a job making money. I was much more industrious.”
Long into adulthood, Baldwin has given up the Boss Baby throne to his own children with wife Hilaria: daughter Carmen, 3; son Rafael, nearly 2; and 6month-old Leonardo Ángel Charles. (Daughter Ireland, with ex-wife Kim Basinger, is 21.) Carmen, especially, takes the crown.
“Carmen is very commanding and very decisive,” he says. “And very persistent.”
Baldwin says he’s pretty much drowned out of the family conversation.
“I am happy that I am getting closer, as they start to speak more, to a world where other people do all the talking and I get to listen,” Baldwin says. “I am there to facilitate. I am there to help things move along. I am there to lift heavy things, load the car and unload the car.”
His apartment in New York City and house on Long Island have been consumed with children’s toys. It’s hard to find the adult furniture.
“A dear friend of mine came over the other day, and I said, ‘I am so sorry, but we’ll have to find a place for you to sit down,’ ” Baldwin says. “And she said, ‘Yeah, I get it. When you have kids, your apartment becomes a preschool.’ ”
Boss Baby director Tom McGrath says Baldwin knows how to give a spot-on infant googoo, even if Boss Baby spends most of his time speaking like an adult.
“He could mimic baby expressions when recording,” McGrath says. “These noises would just come out of Alec like a baby with his contorted face. It’s funny to see him go from power businessman baby, then reverting to true baby.”
Baldwin knows the rule: Most moviemaking is about looking good, while animated voice work is about looking bad to sound good.
“In fact, the more you try to look good, the worse it sounds,” Baldwin says. “You really have to make an (idiot) of yourself.”
Baldwin also has come to respect the lifestyle, and playstyle, of baby living, especially with his youngest.
“Leo has that (activity jumper) where you sit in and bounce up and down. It plays music and there are rattles attached to it and all kind of knobs and gadgets around the perimeter,” Baldwin says. “You’d think as a little baby, he’d be exhausted. But he does it for 30 or 40 minutes. Then he eats and passes out.”