The 68-year-old actor, Alec Baldwin, who has worked in American entertainment for nearly five decades, made clear during an appearance on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast that he’s ready to walk away from Hollywood for good.
“I was home and I got used to it, and I don’t want to leave my house anymore. I don’t want to work anymore. I want to retire and stay home with my kids.”
Baldwin shares seven young children with his wife Hilaria Baldwin, and has a 30-year-old daughter, Ireland Baldwin, from his marriage to actress Kim Basinger.
The October 2021 Rust shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has left deep scars. Baldwin described the tragedy as “unspeakably difficult to deal with.”
On October 21, 2021, while rehearsing a scene at a ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, the gun Baldwin was holding discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, had loaded a live round into the revolver, though assistant director Dave Halls had told Baldwin the gun was a “cold gun” — industry speak for unloaded and safe. Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the hammer but never pulled the trigger, and the gun fired on its own.
Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison in April 2024. She was released in May 2025.
A Santa Fe judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin in July 2024, not based on the shooting itself, but because prosecutors concealed evidence from his legal team. Live ammunition connected to the shooting had been turned over to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office but buried in a separate case folder and never disclosed to the defense. Prosecutors tried to appeal the dismissal but eventually withdrew that appeal in December 2024, officially ending the criminal case against Baldwin.
Baldwin went on the offensive in January 2025, filing a civil lawsuit for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. The suit named special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, three investigators from the sheriff’s office, and the county board of commissioners.
Civil litigation continues to haunt him. On April 17, 2026, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter ruled that Baldwin must face a civil jury trial over the shooting, scheduled to begin on Oct. 12, 2026. The case was brought by Serge Svetnoy, a gaffer on the Rust set, who alleges he suffered emotional distress after the bullet that killed Hutchins narrowly missed him. Leiter rejected defense arguments that Baldwin and Rust Movie Productions bore no responsibility for set safety, allowing claims of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and punitive damages to proceed. “A reasonable jury could find that Mr. Baldwin recklessly disregarded the probability that pointing a gun in the direction of someone, with the finger on the trigger, would cause emotional distress,” the judge wrote. Baldwin’s assault claim was dismissed — the judge found no evidence he intended to harm anyone — but the core negligence case moves forward.
As part of a settlement with Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, the production gave him the movie. Baldwin described it bluntly: “We gave him the movie and said, You sell it and do whatever you want with it.”
Completing Rust in Montana proved physically taxing for Baldwin. He struggled through filming, describing repeated blackouts from orthostatic hypotension — a nerve condition caused by blood pressure medication — that left him bedridden for over a week. The completed movie debuted in select theaters in May 2025.
On the Dopey podcast in late 2025, Baldwin described the toll: “If I told you what my health conditions have been since Oct. 21 of 2021, it’s taken 10 years off of my life.” He said the ordeal “broke every nerve in my body, spiritually, financially, work-wise, career-wise.”
In February 2025, Baldwin and his wife Hilaria Baldwin premiered a TLC reality show called The Baldwins. Critics called it a distasteful image rehabilitation attempt. But Hilaria Baldwin revealed her husband had been diagnosed with PTSD, and Baldwin himself admitted on the show, “I’m happier when I’m asleep than when I’m awake.”
He has a few minor roles in development, including Kockroach, a crime thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, Zazie Beetz, and Channing Tatum. He also worked with director Rory Kennedy on The Trial of Alec Baldwin, a documentary about the legal fallout. That film premiered at DOC NYC in November 2025, but a wider release date hasn’t been set.
If Baldwin steps away for good, it would be the end of one of the more complicated careers in Hollywood history — spanning from Beetlejuice in 1988 to The Hunt for Red October to a seven-season Emmy-winning run on 30 Rock.
