Alec Baldwin’s big heartache

Alec Baldwin is a big ball of disappointment, says Ian Parker in The New Yorker. At 50, with his film career in tatters, Baldwin has a starring role in the hit TV series 30 Rock, but he takes no pleasure from it. Working on a TV series faintly embarrasses him, and acting in general has come to bore him. “I spend the waking hours of my life saying things that other people think and say and do,” he says. “I’m tired of it. I want to be me!” The real “me,” unfortunately, is brooding over his bitter divorce from actress Kim Basinger. “I loved her,” he says. “I loved her the way I loved my father. I loved her the way I loved my mother. I loved her the way I loved people I cared about on the deepest level.” For the past seven years, Basinger has been his most bitter enemy, after a protracted custody battle over their daughter, Ireland. “I only wanted to have a healthy relationship, a meaningful relationship, with my child,” Baldwin says. His anger boiled over last year in an infamous voice mail that someone gave to the press; he called Basinger “a thoughtless pain in the ass” and Ireland “a rude, thoughtless little pig.” When the tape went public, Baldwin was mortified. “I wanted to die, literally. Every night I’d say my prayers and I’d say, ‘Please don’t let me wake up in the morning. I don’t want to do this anymore.’” Baldwin says his relationship with Ireland is now good, but admits he hasn’t let go of his feud with his ex-wife. “Think I’m walking stiffly?” he asks. “Yeah, there’s a 120-pound actress on my back.”

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