Alec Baldwin was well known for his Donald Trump impersonations on Saturday Night Live. Playing and parodying the President of the United States might be the closest Baldwin will ever come to being a political figure. However, he once seriously considered a career in office, which was a very short-lived dream thanks to his wife Hilaria Baldwin.
Why Alec Baldwin wanted to run for office
Baldwin had been mulling over making a career transition to politics for years. Due to his candid nature when talking about the government in the past, Baldwin had even been retroactively approached by interested political parties. But he was concerned politics would get in the way of his film career, which benefited from a variety of memorable movie roles.
“It’s something that I’m very, very interested because…people would say to me all the time, ‘Why would you want to do that?’ And sometimes I don’t want to do it because to leave what I’m doing now would be extremely painful,” Baldwin said in a 2011 interview with CNN.
Baldwin also asserted that he was beginning to understand his purpose as an actor more than ever before, making it even more difficult to switch jobs.
“However,” he added. “I do believe that people want to believe that someone who deeply cares about the middle class, for whatever reason…whatever your heritage and your background and so forth, would like to seek public office. We’ve had men, who are, regardless of their background, and I don’t want to say this in an anti-elitist way, who [are] Ivy-league groomed running this country since 1988. We’ve had 22 years of Yale and Harvard running this country right now, and the problems aren’t getting solved.”
Still, Baldwin didn’t give a definitive answer on whether or not he ever planned on running. But it seems the idea has been in the back of his mind even after all these years. An idea might be all his political desires are, though, since his wife Hilaria Baldwin made sure he stayed away from office.
“My wife said she would divorce me if I ran for office,” Baldwin quipped in a 2020 interview with Us Weekly.
Additionally, the long commute would also add an unnecessary burden on his family that he’d prefer avoiding.
“I only say that because 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,” he added.
Alec Baldwin once shared what would’ve made him a good politician
If Baldwin ever did run for office, the 30 Rock actor felt he would’ve started off locally.
“If I did run, I’d want to go out and learn as much as I could about the way the city’s finances work. You can be someone running—not me—who is just a soaring leader of people. But if you don’t have the finances down, you’re going to have a problem,” he said in a resurfaced interview with Newsweek.
But Baldwin didn’t think he’d make a decent politician just based on passion alone. Rather, the actor believed he already somewhat took on the duties and responsibility of his elected public officials.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time doing what a congressman does with the exception that I don’t have a federal office and budget. If I were to finally cross over one day, it would be very natural,” he said.
What further motivated Baldwin was the fact that he seemed certain he’d make it far in the world of politics.
“I’m quite confident that I can do whatever all those other men and women have done in order to obtain political office. I don’t think there’s any trick to running,” he added.
Despite his past comments, however, it might be safe to assume that the ship has sailed on Baldwin going on any type of political run. Especially when considering on how much time has passed for the actor.
