time. what can be more of a preposterous waste of our time than that. alec baldwin, outspoken, unapologetic, and very, very funny. >> but i must ask you, piers, have you ever been properly in love. i was instructed by your staff to pose this very question. >> alec baldwin, piers morgan interview starts now. if you're alec baldwin, than life is pretty damned good right now. the man's at the top of his game, starring in "30 rock," making movies, have been hosting the new york philharmonics radio show. he's so busy, he apparently doesn't have time to run for mayor of new york city. he's also a man who's never afraid to say what he thinks or to leave a plane when he feels he's being annoyed. it's time for me to have some words with a friend, alec baldwin. alec, welcome. >> thank you. good to see you. >> now, we're going to come to that remarkable moment of you live tweeting your own ejection from an airplane a little later. and also, your dramatic new appearance. because for all the slightly chubbier end of the cable news anchor market like myself, you have been the standard-bearer of how not to live in the gym all day and be on camera. now i see this svelte new alec baldwin in front of me. you've ruined everything. >> well, you know, it's interesting, because earlier this year, i realized that i worked out all the time and i wasn't achieving results i wanted to, and i became aware of the fact that it's as much about what you eat and what you don't eat as it is about exercising. so i gave up eating sugar and that was a really, really big thing for me. >> well, we're going to come to this extraordinary transformation a little later, that's unsettling for me, because i will now try to have to do something about it. but let's talk about the state of the union. president obama made this big speech last night, and some core things, really, that came out of this were that america remains a great country. that america remains a country that is revered around the world still, it can still be strong, but it must go back, perhaps to basics, to manufacturing things. president obama said the following in the speech. >> during the great depression, american build the hoover dam and the golden gate bridge. after world war ii, we connected our states with a system of highways. democratic and republican administrations invested in great projects that benefited everybody, prosecute workers who built them to the businesses that still use them today. >> alec, that, surely, is the crux of the problem here, isn't it? america has been in tough times before. you know, we're not in the great depression now. we're in a recession. it's not as bad as it was in the '30s. and the way that america got itself out of that hole before was to build big things, to, i guess, inspire people, at the same time as creating jobs in its own country. >> well, i think that the united states, and i've said this kind of broad banner -- i've waved that banner before in this kind of conversation. where i say, america is great in direct proportion to when we do great things. and when we fought wars it was clear who our enemy was and that they were people who needed to be stopped from their aggression and so forth. in the last several decades, through the '60s and '70s, and now during this period in the middle east, i'm not quite sure that the wars that america were fighting were the best idea in the amount of money and the amount of american lives and the amount of innocent civilian lives abroad that were killed, especially in the middle east, is troubling to me. >> do you think president obama has the gumption, i guess, to carry through what he said in this speech. do you think he's going to start commissioning those kind of dreamy, inspirational projects that will get the whole world gasping in awe? >> well, i'm hopeful that he will, and that hope is based on the notion that presidents, regardless of party, have more flexibility or a perceived flexibility in their second term, because there is no possibility for re-election. many people play their cards pretty close to the vest and they play a rather conciliatory game, if not a kind of a zero sum game, if you will, especially when the other party is in control of the congress in their first term, and then in their next term, they kind of let it rip, they let it fly on a philosophical basis, because they don't have to worry about running for office again. >> when we look at the republican candidates, down to four, i did a little montage that i thought might bring a smile to your face of some of their greatest moments. >> the sacrament of marriage is based on a man and a woman, is at the core of our civilization, and is worth protecting and upholding. >> any type of sexual activity has no place in the military. >> we can start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine memories from the moon. i'm not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that. >> how many people here would use haeroin if it was legal. i need the government to take care of me. i don't want to use heroin so i need these laws. >> quite a good time to be a comedian, i would think, alec. >> well, my friends who are comedians are certainly spelling it out that way. but, listen, i think the republican party is in a tough place. i want to say this in kind of a nonpartisan way. i think the the republican party is in a tough place. they seem to be mimicking the way the democrats were 30 years ago or so, when the democrats were sorting out who the nominee was, and they were battling in the primary period. when it was over, they took their ball and they went home. they didn't share the remaining coffers they had from their campaign and donate it to the national party and donate it to the winning candidate. when they didn't win, they got a little petulant and they went home. the republicans seem to be running that program now. i've listeninged to gingrich on fox to say things about romney that are going to be very, very hard for gingrich to retract if romney is the nominee, which i still assume that romney will be the nominee. gingrich said the phrase "dishonest." he characterized romney as being a dishonest man, which is the worst thing that either party can say about their own nominee and the other person, but let alone a member of your own party. if romney is the nominee, how gingrich is going to back away from that statement, i don't know how. >> i think that's a very interesting point, isn't it? and it's also about the state of political discourse in america right now. not just between democrats and republicans, but between republicans and republicans. because once this the battle gets for real, once one of these guys wins the republican race and takes on barack obama, all he has to play -- assume it's mitt romney. all he has to play, repeatedly, is newt gingrich calling him dishonest. this man who wants to be president, wants to beat the president in the race is a dishonest man. as you say, i couldn't imagine a worse slur. >> well, what's happened now in the primary period, and you have a very, very kind of a strident group of people seeking the nomination for the republican party now, and you have the fox news channel amplifying all these kinds of statements on their behalf. you have a lot of anyone but obama rhetoric, and you're going to hear this all the way until the convention. but then that's going to end, and then you're going to have one man, presumably a man, unless there's a brokered convention where we have a woman step forward on behalf of the gop, but you're going to have one man running against obama, and then it's going to become more real. and you're going to start to see obama listing in his commercials. at no point obama really running any advertising. now, let this sort itself out. and then you're going to have an opponent, and obama will begin to categorize for everyone what he's accomplished. and when you look at what obama's accomplished in office, there are quite a few wonderful things that he's done. >> yeah, there are. i get a sense that a lot of americans don't fully appreciate what obama has done for america's reputation abroad, for example. >> well, i agree with you. listen, the war, for all intents and purposes, is over. the war as we know it, in which a large number of american soldiers, men and women, were in imminent danger, by the tens of thousands, on a daily basis over in iraq, that's over. there are still people there, and this is a hornets next that we kicked and we'll have to stay there, unfortunately, for probably an indefinite period of time, but i think that obama is responsible for finally bringing the bulk of our troops home. obama is responsible for stabilizing the economy. i look at the republican party and i look at men who are the standard-bearers of wall street. not that obama is someone who is, you know, abjured wall street money in his campaign, but i look at these men like romney who are just -- they might as well put romney's picture on monopoly money, he's so pro-wall street. and you look at the dow, the dow is in the high 12,000s now, and they'll never give this the guy credit for it. i think obama has done some wonderful things for this country. >> there'll be people watching this, alec, saying, look at this guy, he looks razor smart tonight, he's lost a bit of weight, and he's talking like a president. yet when you were given the chance to confirm if you would run for new york city, you finally said you wouldn't. and there are people like me going, well, why wouldn't you, alec baldwin? let's take a break and find out the answer. 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[ding] [fans whirring] announcer: chill raw and prepared foods promptly. one in 6 americans will get sick from food poisoning this year. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. the question is, can you speak for ten seconds without alienating your base? >> now the conservative base needs to know that rick perry stands with them 110%. i believe we need to lower the corporate tax rate, i believe we need fewer regulations, i believe all 10-year-old girls should be vaccinated for hpv so they can enter into meaningful sexual relationships. >> alec baldwin playing texas governor rick perry on "saturday night live." i mean, obviously, it seems to me, you get just a little more pleasure out of tormenting them comedically from actually doing this stuff yourself, alec, which is a bitter disappointment to political fans of yours, like myself, which would love to see you run for office. >> it's interesting you say that, because i was at work today, we were shooting today, and everybody is in this frame of mind now, as we're coming towards -- you know, the end -- we have a half of this season to go, and then we have, presumably, some kind of a season next year, which everyone thinks might be our last. and we were all saying how we're never going to have it this good again. and i really enjoy the opportunity to say that, that i will never, ever in my life, ever, no matter what happens, i'll never have a job as good as the job that i have now. and that's a part of what makes me think about running for office or not running for office. i have friends of mine, i mean, you know people in the political world, and you know more of them and more intimately than i ever will, by virtue of the many positions you've had in the media. and the ones i know, very prominent people i won't name, but some of them have held very high elective office, and nearly all of them try to dissuade me from running for office. they say, done do it, don't do it. you can have just as much influence in certain areas from your vantage point now and so forth. but i believe, you know, what i've been doing for the last 25 years, i've been heavily involved, periodically, i mean, intermittently because of my career with campaign finance reform and anti-nuclear power in this country and several different issues. most of them environmentally linked. and i don't have a government position. i don't have an office. i don't have a budget. i have to do all of this on my own and raise money privately from people to do that. and it's been a dream of mine to hold office so i would have some of the power to do some of the things and try to create some of the reforms that i've wanted to do. >> but the way you're talking, it seems to me, this is not something you've completely ruled out. i mean, you've not decided to go for new york mayor at the moment, but could that change in the future? >> that's a possibility. the only reason i say that is because right now, the timetable i'm on work wise, career wise, contracts i've signed, and obligations i have would make running for mayor, for example, very, very difficult. i mean, is it something i could do? possibly. and i see people running for mayor. to be very plain speaking, there are people who are running for mayor who i'm overwhelmingly indifferent about, most of them. there's a couple of them i think, if they made certain changes, they'd be okay. and there are certain people who are running for mayor that i'm appall eed that they're running for mayor, and i'm appalled they're raising so much money and appalled by some of their past actions. >> when you see someone like arnold schwarzenegger become governor of california, you must think to yourself, i could be at least as good a job as that. >> you would be reading my mind if you said that, yeah. i agree with that. but california, that's a very unusual place, where they have kind of a hysterical referendum procedure where they ousted davis. you know, the whole path that led, if you know the story, issa and the way that they deposed gray davis, that path and how it opened up the door for schwarzenegger was a very unusual and very anomalous set of circumstances. but, you know, for me, i do want to run for office one day, but what it would be and when and how is still something that i'm trying to think very seriously about, because, a, i'm not done doing what i'm doing now. i've got at least a couple more years of this kind of work i want to do on the drawing board. and, b, in the political world, two years is an eternity. i mean, whoever thought in the new york political world that spitzer would resign? who ever thought that hillary would run for the senate? who ever thought that hillary would leave the senate to become the secretary of state of the obama administration, obama who had vanquished her in the primary? there's so many different things that happened in the political world over the course of two years that in that amount of time, maybe the not too distant future, i'll survey that again and think about, is there an opportunity for me? because in new york, for example, where i live, with we have safe democratic seats around the horn, so to speak. it's the governor and the ag and the two senate seats. so what i would run for and when would be something i'd have to give a lot of thought to. but in the meantime, i have a job i love. >> well, a job that we love you doing. so there's no hurry on this. but when you look at somebody like newt gingrich, and indeed, arnold schwarzenegger, and you see personal stuff being used to hammer them into the ground, would you be concerned about that, if you ran for public office, given the very well-known travails you've had in the past? >> i would be concerned about that. i would be. not so much for myself, because i've developed -- i mean, for x example, the most handy example is this phone message i left for my daughter. that's been thrown at me by political opposition and people who want to do that kind of diminishing of your political opinion by bringing in these other things. my relationship with my daughter is normal. by that, i mean i'm a father who has a 16-year-old daughter, and i communicate with my daughter as often and as effectively as any 53-year-old man can with his 16-year-old daughter. i mean, i'm trying to be funny here. but i worship my daughter. >> you tweet her. >> i worship my daughter. we get along fine. and that situation was something which a certain group of people, you know, wanted to, you know, create a very, very sensational news story there. but the truth of the matter is that i have two things. one is that i have worked in this kind of silly and childish world of comedy and "saturday night live" and all of it's been very, very funny. but the day you run for office, you have to draw a line, and say, everything i was doing back there was, for the most part, for entertainment value. i'm on the record with some very, very firm, and what i think are well thought-out political opinions that i have. but a lot of what i've done has been kind of nonsense for entertainment purposes. >> has part of you always harbored -- and be honest here. has part of you always harbored the possibility that you could one day run for the presidency? >> well, i think that that's something that i used to think about a long, long time ago. it would be a little late in the game for me, i think, to set my ship on a course that would lead to that ultimately. i mean, it's something -- that's what i wanted to do my whole life. and quite frankly when i got into the business i'm in now, it was a very, on a personal level, this is a very personal thing, and i've said this on a couple of occasions, it was a job that i got, and i wasn't even quite sure that this is what i wanted to do. i still had this hangover of wanting to do something else in public policy or to go get my graduate degree or to go to law school. there was a whole menu of things i was contemplating. but then i got a job in this business, and i started to work, and i got the sense that i was on a bit of a roll, that i would always have work. and i had no shortage of opportunities. and i really did it to -- for the money. i did it to support my money. but i'm not complaining. i'm very happy with the way it's gone. in this business -- you know, it's funny. you do this for a living, and you talk to people all the full-titime. i have my radio show, "here's the thing," and you see how you get in this zone with someone you really like and you are really engaged with and fascinated with, you could talk to them for two or three hours. you and i, we need to order some sushi and have dinner together. i wish you were here having dinner. it has become such a -- in this business, the real thrill for me, the real joy, the thing that has made me happiest are the people i've met and the people i've gotten to work with. and it's not just the actors, although there are imnumerable actors i've worked like tony hopkins and i cried the day they called me. i was in north carolina on vacation, i had tears in my eyes crying when they told me i was going to make a film with tony, who i admired at the highest level. >> amazing guy. >> and the same with a lot of people on the crew, the technical people. the business is a huge collaborative colony and i'm so grateful for the people i've been able to work with. >> well, let's take a little break and come back and talk about the ultimate pinnacle for the people you've worked with. the oscars. i want to know who you think may win in the upcoming academy awards and i want to talk to you about a few words you've had with some ex-friends. i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance, it's a bit like asking if they want a big hat... ...'scuse me... ...or a big steak... ...or big hair... i think we have our answer. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. the new spark card from capital one. spark miles gives me the most rewards of any small business credit card. the spark card earns double miles... so we really had to up our game. with spark, the boss earns double miles on every purchase, every day. that's setting the bar pretty high. owning my own business has never been more rewarding. coming through! [ male announcer ] introducing spark the small business credit cards from capital one. get more by choosing unlimited double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase, every day. what's in your wallet? this was the gulf's best ontourism season in years.ay. all because so many people wanted to visit us... in louisiana. they came to see us in florida... nice try, they came to hang out with us in alabama... once folks heard mississippi had the welcome sign out, they couldn't wait to get here. this year was great but next year's gonna be even better. and anyone who knows the gulf knows that winter is primetime fun time. the sun's out and the water's beautiful. you can go deep sea fishing for amberjack, grouper and mackerel. our golf courses are open. our bed and breakfast have special rates. and migrating waterfowl from all over make this a bird watcher's paradise. so if you missed it earlier this year, come on down. if you've already been here come on back... to mississippi... florida... louisiana... alabama. the gulf's america's get-a-way spot no matter where you go. so come on down and help make 2012 an even better year for tourism on the gulf. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. back with my special guest, alec baldwin. alec, oscars coming up. who do you fancy? >> well, i think that the only thing i could say about that is i have some personal favorites. i have people that were nominated that i was excited about and some that i was, like anybody, i was, you know, maybe perplexed by, if you will. i do know that to climb that mountain, as you know, observing this business, to climb that mountain and to complete that cycle, where you get the script and the movie gets made and you shoot it and it comes out well and the distribution works and the marketing works and people buy some tickets and sometimes they buy a lot of tickets and then you get that buzz and then the votes come in and you're nominated, it's really, really a great thrill. i see george and brad and people who have made a lot of films, and you know, my hat is off to them. because that's a tough, tough thing to pull off. i was nominated for an oscar for a supporting actor years ago in 2004, or whatever it was, and i lost to tim robbins, and i remember everybody said, you know, it's just an honor to be nominated. but you really do want to win. really. i really would have been so grateful. i mean, i'm happy for tim and i admire tim, but you really do want to win. i mean, i say, i saw really a bunch of great films this year. i loved rooney mara. this woman is hypnotic on film. >> i totally agree. >> i saw "moneyball." i thought jonah hill was fantastic. i'm glad he got his nomination. there's a lot of wonderful films. i do think this idea, though, that they've expanded the best picture category in this way was not such a good idea. and i do hope they go back to just five nominees. because i do think it's kind of a way that they're kind of gaming the promotional equity of the nominations. you know, now people who are nominated will have a full 60 days to go out and market that film and say, it's an academy award nominated best picture film. and i think it's kind of diluted the value of that award to a degree. i hope they go back to just five nominees. >> i mean, i always like it when truly, what i call proper stars, win the big awards. and the reason i say that is because i reckon, and i'm not an expert, but i reckon that the two best performances i've seen this year were george clooney in "descendents" and meryl streep in the margaret thatcher movie. if they were to win best actor and best actress, to me that immediately gives the oscars that kind of heavyweight glamour, you know? >> well, to the extent that the oscars, i mean, sometimes those votes, as you well know, even in recent history, they swing in a very wide track. they will want to honor someone for their career, they're really handing them a career achievement award, even though their particular work in that specific film may not have been their best work, it may not have been the best work in that category. they're going to want to honor someone who they deeply admire, and they might not have a chance to do so again. and then there's someone who just is like a hood ornament for hollywood glamour, someone who they think is a great star. and then there's someone who is not going to make a lot of movies. they might not star in a lot of movies, but they're going to give them -- i mean, when roberto beneny won, when he was climbing over people in the audience to, i mean, he didn't go on to make a lot of films in the united states, but sometimes the academy decides, they're really just going to stick that thing in the hand of the person that they think gave the best performance. >> i spent last night watching you have sex with meryl streep. >> yes, yeah. i got paid a lot of money to do that toop too. >> i couldn't belief it! i was watching, "it's comple complicated," which is a terrific movie. what was she like to actually work with? because meryl streep to me is the best actress alive today. what was she like? >> i mean, meryl's -- i'm not going to say anything fresh about her or new that hasn't been said by countless other, more formidable leading men than i'll ever be. she's made some of the greatest films. but for me it was a question of beyond the kind of sex play of the two characters, where it was a man who missed his wife on a kind of chemical level. i remember i kept saying to nancy while we were working in whatever way we could imbue this into the film was to point out that my character was still in love with his wife. he still loved her. it wasn't just about he wanted to sleep with her and he missed, you know, having sex with her, he was still in love with her and deeply in love with her. and the great thing for me, meryl is very easy to fall in love with. she's very easy to play love scenes with her, because you love her the moment you lay eyes on her. she's a great, great person. >> we'll take another break. and we are going to get to air travel this time. because i want to know what happened on that plane, what happened in that exchange, and why the airline is now an ex-friend. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength of a global financial leader. the heart of a one-to-one relationship. together for your future. ♪ [♪...] >> announcer: with nothing but his computer, an identity thief is able to use your information to open a bank account in order to make your money his money. [whoosh, clang] you need lifelock, the only identity theft protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud. lifelock: relentlessly protecting your identity. call 1-800-lifelock or go to lifelock.com today. you know, he had some trouble on the plane a couple weeks ago. and the one thing, when i heard that news story, my first reaction, the thing that i was upset about was last spring, like seven months ago or whatever, i said to him, hey, there's this really fun game called words with friends, and it's a lot like scrabble but it's a little different, you should get it. he's like, i don't know. i said, get it! so anyway, i didn't think he ever got it, because he's never invited me to play him! >> that was tina fey on "late show with david letterman" taking the blame for introducing my guest, alec baldwin, for words with friends. was it really tina's fault? >> no, of course not. my advice to the people, when you get on a plane, turn off your phone. try with all your might, try with all your strength -- >> you don't mean, alec baldwin. >> i do mean that. you don't want to have happen to you what happened to me. butly s li will say -- >> tell me. >> there were some extenuating circumstances. i had flown for years on an airplane that in the past seemed to be a more relaxed atmosphere while we were at the gate. and the flight was almost 45 minutes late prior to anything that went wrong with me. the plane was late prior to anything that had happened, so i don't think they can pin all of that on me and my cell phone. but, i was on this plane, and then all of a sudden, i was in the presence of someone for whom all those rules changed and we were going to have a very, very soviet level enforcement of the rules in an instant. and it was done without any -- with no quarter. and it was done very brutally. this woman was very harsh and very, very snappy. and i reacted baldly to that. i got really, really very upset. and then i was asked to get off the plane and get on another plane. and to the extent, as i said, that i inconvenienced anybody else on the flight, i was very, very sorry. and i really mean when i say, when you get on the plane, even though most people are aware about the rules of this stuff while they're on the ground or while they're at the gate, these rules are kind of stupid and inane, it's still something you have to contend with. just turn your phone off while you're in-flight. and the other thing -- >> you're on this plane, you're on this plane, how are you feeling as this woman is giving you this lecture? other people around you presumably knew it was you as this scene unfurls. this is all a bit -- how were you feeling? embarrassed? angry? >> i was very embarrassed and i was very upset. because first of all, the joke when i got off the plane, there were four other guys twittering from their cell phones as i was getting kicked off the plane for using my cell phone. so there was a lot of -- but i've heard a lot of people say that that's a weak defense to say, well, everybody else was doing it, and they do have a point, but i feel this woman had kind of marched directly at me and toward me and singled me out. i mean, maybe she's a kind of christian conservative republican who is on the pafyrol there, i don't know. but she was very ardent and she was very tough. and she really, really came at me with everything she had. she was pretty blistering. but the truth of the matter is, in the end, turn your phone off when you're on the plane, literally. really. >> if american airlines had spent more time on that particular flight apologizing to you as a paying first class regular passenger for all these years for the inconvenience of being kept waiting 45 minutes rather than focusing on a harmless game you're playing while at the gate, then perhaps they wouldn't have slipped into the bankruptcy position they found themselves in. to me it's utterly ridiculous. >> i'll let you say that. right. >> i just did! >> well, american airlines is in bankruptcy. american airlines is in a lot of trouble. and i feel bad, because, i mean, as i said, i flew with them exclusively for 20 years and i mean, every now and then, i would work for somebody where they had a deal with united or some other company. but i can see where maybe the people working at the airline are under a lot of pressure, because they're not quite sure about what their job security is. i mean, i'm very understanding of that as well. >> and i agree with you, and part of it, i'm afraid, it does come town to customer service. you've got to look after your clients. would you ever fly american again? >> i guess if they gave us -- if they gave us a device on board that we could play words with friends while we were flying on the plane with other people on the plane. play words with friends with other people on board. press seat 3j. press seat 41f. would you like to play words with friends? i think that's a super idea. and we can be playing a smart word game rather than watching supposed of nbc sitcoms all the time. i mean, what could be more -- what could be more of a prepo preposterous waste of our time than that? >> we got the message. it brings me to another great love of yours, which is twitter. the most devastating fallout for me was you went off twitter for a month. thank god you came back. let's talk about twitter after the break. ♪ ♪ you and me and the big old tree ♪ ♪ side by side, one, two, three ♪ ♪ count the birds in the big old tree ♪ ♪ la la la [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. ♪ ♪ you and me and the big old tree side by side ♪ but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust. take away the singing animals, and the charming outfits. take away the sprites, and the storybook narrator... 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[ male announcer ] the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries. and it's surprising what it goes through in the course of a day. but what's even more surprising is that brushing alone isn't enough to keep it clean. fortunately, you've got listerine. unlike brushing which misses 75% of your mouth, listerine cleans virtually your entire mouth. so what are you waiting for? it's time to take your mouth to a whole new level of health. listerine... power to your mouth. you already know what i would say, and you know i'm right. >> i'm ignoring. you're not here. who's not here, liz? i don't know. i love you. i love you too. >> i might as well meet him and get it over with. i'll probably love him. we're both princeton men. >> princeton, no, chris went to -- no, i'm on to you. >> alec baldwin starring in "30 rock" and my favorite comedic character ever, jack donohue. i love that man. i love him. >> it's been such a thrill for me, because, i've said countless times, the writing is so good, we have such greater writers, and they give you the scripts and every week, i get the scripts and i look at them, and i go, you've got to be kidding me. you want me to what? you want know get drunk and talk to a peacock, and my boss' character has entered the body of a peacock. you want me to play this the patty duke twin character while i talk to myself in a scene. i play in mexican soap opera actor. the stuff they have me do, it's always been insane, but fun. >> it's a fantastic show. do you get more or less fun from twitter than you do from "30 rock"? >> i get infinitely more fun with "30 rock" than with anything. but twitter, when i first went in that direction, what i liked about it, and up until i stopped, was that it's -- it was a direct way and a very terse way, a very kind of, you know, concise way to communicate directly with your fans. because so much of what people do is stuff like this. where we talk to a producer and you work out a time and a segment, and your staff was very, very kind and very, very kind of cooperative with me to try to make this happen in a certain time and everything. but doing this with filtering who you are through a television show, which is more direct, but even more difficult is a magazine, let's say, as a writer. twitter removes that. it's you writing what you want to write directly to people, instantly. and i was very, very fond of that possibility. but then i realize that talking to people on twitter might not be such a good idea. because a lot of people, they want to just attack you and they want to kind of wrestle with you and they want to kind of -- >> but the great thing about you, alec, is you react like i do. which is the way it should be. you're very visceral and raw. and you get stuck into these people and re-tweet the abuse and abuse them back. >> i love to give it back to them. i love getting down in the mud with them and wrestling in the mud with them. and i see that you kind of give as good as you get too and i love that. but i thought to myself, i'm going to stop and kind of hit the reset button here and come back on twitter and have kind of a different program. where the people who come on, who attack you in a very vulgar way, for example, that there's no thought behind it. people say to me, i think your stance against nuclear power is idiotic because -- then i'll retweet that or i'll discuss that. but people who say, i'd like to beep you in your beep, because you're a beeping beep, then i delete them. i block them. >> it is quite fun, isn't it? although it's rather addictive. >> it can be. it is because you, and i'm a big fan of yours, you love to communicate, and you want to communicate something smart and something relevant and you want to kind of whittle it down and get down to the core, to the r marrow of what you think really, really matters and focus people's attention on what's important and what really, really matters. because god knows we live in a culture where there's a lot of de detritus that doesn't really matter. >> well, let's take a final break and come back and talk love, alec. i want to talk to you about your love life. you know what's exciting, graduation. when i look up into my student's faces, i see pride. you know, i have done something worthwhile. when i earned my doctorate through university of phoenix, that pride, that was on my face. i am jocelyn taylor, i am committed to making a difference in peoples lives and i am a phoenix. then i found new pronutrients omega-3. it's from centrum. it's a smaller minigel. with two of the best omegas to support my heart, brain and eyes. new pronutrients from centrum. twhoa.port my heart, brain and eyes. whoa. how do you top great vacations? 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>> well, yeah. yeah. you know sh it's funny. it is true that what people will always say. it's you have to to make your way to that place, i guess, where you stop looking. you know, i was married. i was with somebody for ten years. and then after i got divorced, i dated people and i had one girlfriend for several years. and then kind of right before i met ilaria, i did, you know, lay in my bed and say this is it. i'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. i'm going die alone in this apartment, in this bed. i'll have my friends. i'll have twitter. i'll have words with friends. i'll have my new yorker subscription and my table at elio's. i'll have my quiet manhattan life. when i put it all on the shelf and over and then i walked into a restaurant downtown and i met this woman who is probably one of the greatest people i ever met in my life as a person. forget about the man-woman thing. >> i must have you, piers, you have ever been properly in love? i was instructed by your staff to pose this very question to you. >> well, i'm not -- >> i have been properly in love. >> you have? >> and i was about to ask you how many times you've been properly in love in your life? >> the past is just a blur to me, piers. now is the time. now is all that matters. the woman i'm with currently is the woman i've ever really been in love w everything else was just child's play before now. i wasn't properly in love. you actually do a brilliant british 5:00 accident. >> actually, i don't. >> no, i'm very, very happy. and i have a great line. i'm going to quote tony bennett. tony is married to susan. tony is a few years older than susan. twoint tony's school. i went to visit the frank sinatra high school for performing arts that tony and susan built. his wife is a wonderful partner of his. i said i'm dating a woman who is younger than i am. and i know you're with susan and you're quite a bit older than he. he looked at me and goes, yeah, people say that to me all the time and i say to them, consider the alternative. i want to thank tony for that perspective. you have a baby, correct? you have a child? >> i just -- my wife gave birth to a little baby girl two months ago. >> how long ago? >> two months ago. >> you have a 2-month-old baby. wow, well, you're a very, very spri and very, very perky for a man with a 2-month-old child. does she sleep well, your child? >> she doesn't sleep too badly, yeah. >> you have thought about adding little alec baldwins? >> would i tlik have more kids? >> yeah, sure that, would be great. that would be fantastic. as my friends said to me, when you have children, typically in a second marriage, when you're older and you get married again to a woman who would have children, you must always remember that you make sure they attend a college where the commencement ceremonies are held in a facility with a wheelchair accessible ramp. >> what is the single greatest moment of your life? the moment if i could relive it for you now, you would ask me to relive it? >> this -- there's a few of them. i mean there's quite a few of them. but i think that i was driving in a car, you know, becoming involved in the political process is something that has great meaning to me. and i had traveled around the western part of the state of massachusetts in 1994 to campaign for teddy kennedy's re-election. and his nephew, ethel kennedy's son michael kennedy was my in-state coordinator of activities. i went to massachusetts for four consecutive four-day weekends in the month of october of 1994 to cover all these community colleges and these different stops. and we covered a lot of ground. we went to a lot of small venues. it was presumed that kennedy already had the boston democratic vote in his pocket. so we went out to western mass. and when we were done, we were driving back to town for me to jump on a plane. we were driving from williams town or springfield across the state to go to logan and fly home. and the phone rang. i was in a van with michael, the late michael kennedy who died, unfortunately. it was ted i did kennedy called me. he said i want you to know that if i win this race, you are partly responsible for that. he said you put your brick in the wall of my campaign and i will never be able to repay you or thank you. i got this call. i just was -- i felt like i was going to cry. i worked so hard to try to, you know, puff my little wind into the sails of teddy's campaign. people were saying that he was going to lose that race. >> fantastic moment. alec, it's been a real pleasure. we straddled almost every divide imaginable. it's been a delight. i forgot to mention that you're an ambassador for the sag foundation. tell me quick wla that is. >> the sag awards are on sunday this weekend and the foundation, they're a not for profit arm, the charitable arm of the foundation that does a lot of work for human resources for members of the screen actors guild. every year i assume they're going to have a new ambassador to represent the foundation at the ceremonies and present a check to -- that's been