Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958), known professionally as Alec Baldwin, is an American actor, writer, producer, comedian, and political activist. He is the eldest of the four actor brothers in the Baldwin family. Baldwin first gained recognition appearing on the sixth and seventh seasons of the CBS primetime soap opera Knots Landing.
In his early career he then played both leading and supporting roles in a variety of films such as Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988), Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob (1988), and Oliver Stone's Talk Radio (1988). He gained attention for his performances as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990) and in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Since then he has worked with directors such as Woody Allen in Alice (1990), To Rome with Love (2012) and Blue Jasmine (2013), and Martin Scorsese in The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006). His performance in the drama The Cooler (2003) garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has done voice work for The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie (2004), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Rise of the Guardians (2012), and The Boss Baby (2017).
From 2006 to 2013, Baldwin gained critical acclaim starring alongside Tina Fey as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for his work on the series, making him the male performer with the most SAG Awards in history. On stage, he portrayed Stanley Kowalski in the 1992 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire and the title character in a 1998 Off-Broadway production of Macbeth, the former earning him a Tony Award nomination. Baldwin co-starred in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) and Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), the fifth and sixth installments of the Mission: Impossible series. He is also a columnist for The Huffington Post. Since 2016, he has been the host of Match Game.
Baldwin has received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Donald Trump on the long-running sketch series Saturday Night Live, both during the latter part of the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign and following the inauguration, a role that won him his third Primetime Emmy in 2017. He was nominated again in 2018.
Last Updated: June 9, 2021
