Interview: Adam Baldwin Reveals The Truth About Acting In Modern Hollywood
Adam Baldwin exclusively spoke with Bounding into Comics and revealed the truth about the acting profession in modern Hollywood. And you get to read all about it in an interview like youâve never read before.
Instead of writing up a straightforward Q&A, which bores some readers, I turned the conversation with Mr. Baldwin into an outlandish narrative. In short, this means that the below story (intentionally with some truly terrible prose) is entirely contrived.
Itâs a very thin framing device that has Mr. Baldwin and I contracted out by a wealthy individual to stop a group of thieves from robbing him blind. So itâs fake and without much detail but the questions and answers are one hundred percent realâenjoy it!
âWith all the choices in entertainmentâTV, movies, streaming, internetâhas that changed the acting profession and is it now much harder or more competitive? Or do you think things are kind of the same?â I asked Adam.
Blood continued flowing from the head wound that the woman had given me. Our client had told us that the thieves would be eager for a fight but that was okay, because we were eager too.
âThere seems to be more work for less money,â Adam answered as we advanced. âI think thatâs what it really is because itâs all spread out unless youâre a bona fide star on the cover of magazines, or if you put butts in seats.â
He nodded at shadows moving behind the frosted window of the door ahead of us and I nodded back. âBut the down-the-line folks, theyâre probably paid less.â
Our client had initially failed to mention that he owned this upstate mansion and so we had been focused on securing his city penthouse. By the time we pried it out of him that he had this place and a safe full of cash here as well, the lady gang had a huge head start and their theft was well underway by the time we arrived.
âOnce upon a time when I started in the business you could do two or three independent movies for 50-60-100 grand a year, and your year was set, and there were lots of those. Thatâs not so much true anymore,â Adam continued.
âEven if you werenât one of the leads you could still make a living that way, so I would hate to be starting now into the business. Itâs tougher, more competitiveâwhich is fine since Iâm all for competitionâbut Iâm glad to be looking at it in my rear-view mirror.â
As we neared the door, one of the shadows behind the frosted glass reached for the handle. I held out my hand towards Adam and raised my purloined weapon.
âHow much experience have you had working on streaming, dramatized podcasts, or any other forms of new entertainment?â
âIâve visited with many over the years and Iâm comfortable with the podcast format,â he replied. âI think itâs fun.â
The door flew open and two women burst out with rifles leveled. I popped off two shots, each piece of lead flying past their ears and slamming into opposite sides of the doorframe.
The gals shrieked and collided into each other, cracking their skulls together. We rushed them.
âHave you ever thought of doing one of your own like Joe Rogan has?â I asked as I charged into the woman on the left and sent her heels over head.
âI have except for itâs kind of a saturated market,â he answered as he bowled over the woman on the right like an angry tornado tearing into a trailer park. âWhat would I even talk about?â
I dropped an elbow on the womanâs head and took her rifle from her. After a quick field strip, I pocketed the firing pin.
âWould I get in there and start looking for rage clicks and criticize the business, or be a film critic, or TV critic?â he asked as he rendered his foe unconscious and grabbed her weapon. âThat sounds boring to me: invite some friends on and talk about life, golf, travel, movies, guns, bombs, planes.â
âBut isnât that what people are doing?â I asked. âZach Braff did the whole thing with Scrubs, and there are more actors going that way.â
âYeah, Jason Batemanâs got one; thereâs a bunch out there,â he said. âYou got to set up the whole studio in your house, and you got to shut the dogs up.â
âYep. You got to invest a lot of money into it,â I said.
âThatâd be okay. Itâs just the time,â he told me.
Zip ties secured the women and we moved through the door. On the other side of it was an even larger room and darkness consumed it long before we could see its end.
âAs far as acting goes, you said on The Salty Nerd Podcast youâre kind of tired of that,â I said. âDid you say that facetiously or are you at the point where youâre ready to stop working?â
âHalf-and-half, I guess,â he replied. âThereâs some work out there but like I said on the podcast, I was warned early that the late 20s would be tough and the late 50s, 60s would be tough so I was prepared for that.
âBecause Iâm still too young to play grandpa. So Iâm biding my time here and weâll see what happens.â
âOn the podcast you said that in your late 20s youâre no longer really a kid but youâre also not really a man,â I mentioned. âDid you say that because of what studios were looking for physically or are you talking about the whole packageâbecause youâre not mentally there either?â
âBoth. Also, Iâve always been a tall guy, a large guy, and so I think folks may have thought I was older than I was yet baby faced, or inexperienced, younger than I was,â he told me.
âSo I think until I actually achieved some personal experienceâgravitas or whateverâwhen I got married and had kids, that I was still a kid,â he continued. âI was in that in-between stage but I was ready for that and I said to myself: âOkay, so I guess Iâll be raising my kids now.ââ
âI guess I thought it was interesting because I found the same thing in my life when I was in my late twenties,â I said. âI was aging out of the young demographic but nobody really considered me to be an adult at the same time.â
âI did work in that 27-35 age range,â he clarified. âBut I was piecemealing it together, or as I like to call it: connective tissue.”
âIt was when I hit 35, or 36, and into the 40s when things took off again. I got Firefly when I was 40, and I guess I got into The X-Files a little before that,â he added.
âBut in the connective tissue years? I was just hanging out with my wife, raising the kids, playing a little golf, doing some traveling, living life.â
A blur came at me from around a corner and I dodged it just in time to avoid a buttstroke to the head. A right hook from me connected with the temple of the woman holding the rifle and she hit the floor like a sack of potatoes; zip ties did their work again.
âYou mentioned that the acting profession is more competitive now,â I said. âHave you ever considered creating your own intellectual property by putting together a comic book, or writing a novel, or something else like that?â
âYeah, Iâve considered that but there are some challenges.â He squinted and maneuvered around an overturned desk.
âYou need to have a publisher willing to publish your material and I had that at one point but we ran into some headwinds, shall we say,â he continued. âI wonât go into detail but you can probably fill in the blanks if I give you the year: 2014, 15, 16.
âIn any case, whatever the future holds I have some material Iâm holding in reserve and weâll see if anything ever comes of it. But again, hey, man, Iâm 60 and Iâm having a ball.â
Some sounds resonated off the walls and ceiling in the distance, but it was a lot less than I expected considering the rest of the women knew we were coming. We made like wraiths as best we could, weaving around furniture and keeping our rifles at the low ready.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness but I still didnât see the end of the room. âDid writing for Breitbart ever cause you problems since Hollywood and the ruling class viewed Andrew Breitbart as an enemy?â
âWell, again, like I said on The Salty Nerd Podcast, I think the great majorityâthe silent majorityâof Hollywood reflects the silent majority of the country,â he replied. âThe outspoken folks in Hollywood, I guess, didnât like conservative views of which Breitbart espoused, and I think he was a villain because he was fearless and he took on the powers that be.
âBut youâd be surprised by how many people in Hollywood are conservative. So maybe there were Breitbart problems, but I met him and wrote for him starting in 2009 or 2010âsomewhere in thereâand I worked consistently during that period of time.â
âSo youâve figured out how to maintain relationships with people who donât necessarily agree with you,â I noted.
âThe trick is, number one: never lie, and number two: donât personalize things,â he explained. âI learned that in marriage; avoid the word âyouâ and you can go a long way.â
Two more female foes slowly came into sight. We split up with me against one wall and Adam on the other, and we kept whatever we could between us and them so they couldnât get a clean view of us.
He grabbed a heavy jar off a shelf but I couldnât tell what was in the lump of glass. He shot me a look and I glued my boots in place.
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Both of the women growled unintelligibly at us right before he removed the lid from the jar and threw its contents at their feet. I hazarded a peek around my cover and saw both of their legs go out from under themâit was the olâ marbles-on-the-floor trick.
We rushed them and kicked their rifles away from their desperately reaching hands.
I gently subdued one woman with a few crushing body blows and a rear naked choke before tying her to a post. âOn the Salty Nerd Podcast they mentioned something about how Hollywood views the military.”
âI was in the military for a few years and I always find it interesting to see military portrayals on TV. Other veterans kind of flip out if things arenât exactly right and I always thought that was stupid,â I said.
âFor instance, Chuck was always more focused on the interactions between the characters than the technical details, which worked well for the show,â I continued. âBut have people ever come up to you and said, âThatâs not how the military really works,â or anything like that?â
I retrieved the womanâs weapon. And I rendered it inert the same way as the others.
âWell, Iâm always interested in getting things technically right. I evolved over time learning how to handle handguns and rifles,â he told me.
The furious female fought hard against him but it was as if he didnât even notice it. He immobilized her in seconds.
âIâve gotten better at it as Iâve trained and I think thatâs important to depict if thatâs a character youâre portraying,â he said. âBut if there are holes in the plot, you know, Chuck was a smart action-comedy, so we didnât take that stuff too seriously.”
âObviously we took the weapons seriously when we were quote-unquote live-firing with blanks because we know how dangerous that can be and everyone needed to be trainedâor are required to be trained, actually. So I pride myself on being competent with firearms.â
âSo thatâs pretty well-regulated on set as far as there are steps and things you need to do when handling a firearm,â I said.
âAbsolutely,â he replied while securing the womanâs weapon and clearing it. âState laws can be very specific about the handling of firearms or other dangerous substances or objectsâa car, explosives, whateverâand there is no actorsâ exemption in state laws.â
âBut above and beyond that you have union requirementsâsafety requirementsâthat you must be trained by the armorer and the prop master,â he continued. âAnd any time you feel uncomfortable with your weapon you have to ask questions and continue training, and the responsibility falls on the actor.â
Ahead of us was a wall and a mahogany door with a coat of arms featuring a wyvern on it. We moved to the leftâto the hidden door that the intruders obviously hadnât found.
I stood next to the hidden door, my hand gently touching the secret panel. âOne of the strange thing people ask actors is if they stay in touch with their co-stars.”
âI say itâs strange because at the end of the day actors are just coworkers,â I added. âThere are a lot of coworkers whom Iâve never contacted again after I left a job, so I was wondering if there is more of a tendency for actors to stay in touch with one another or if it all depends on who it is.â
âIt all depends on who it is,â he answered. âIf you make friends on a set, thatâs gravy, but we donât make TV shows to make friends; if thatâs an outgrowth from the experience, great.”
âIâm still acquainted with and have friendly conversations with the Firefly gang; we have a text chain that whenever news in anyoneâs life comes along it just gets blinged on that text chain. Same thing with Chuck, and thatâs a beautiful thing,â he explained.
âAnd I got to work with Zac Levi again in American Underdog,â he added. âThat was fun.â
âHe played Kurt Warner. Didnât he?â I replied.
âYes. Heâs a wonderful man,â he said.
I activated the secret panel and the hidden door swung open. Inside, off to our right, was the Brunette, with her focus fully on the mahogany door.
I kicked a chair at her before she realized what was happening. It slammed into her and down she went, her gun skittering across the floor towards the open safe and all of the dough spilling out of it.
âHis career kind of blew up after Chuck,â I said.
âI call him the modern Dick Van Dyke,â he told me. âHeâs a quadruple threat: he can sing, dance, act, andâwhatâs the fourth one?âhe can shoot.â
The Brunette got up and I bounded after her. I tackled her right before she reached her lost gun.
âWhy arenât conservatives creating entertainment instead of just complaining about it?â I asked. âI left the conservative movement because I discovered that their complaining isnât a means to an end, but an end in itself.â
Adam calmly secured the gun as I wrestled with the Brunette. âWell, the mistake is calling it, or labeling it, a conservative or Christian project.â
âJust make a good story, and you can have foundational family, Christian, conservative values in and amongst it as long as the story is good,â he told me. âYou know, loyalty, family, courageâthose sorts of things.
âI mean, you look at Top Gun: Maverick and you think about why thatâs doing well. Because it wears its Americana on its sleeve but thatâs the franchise.â
âLike The Searchers with John Wayne.â The Brunette elbowed me in the mouth and I tasted copper.
âRight. Or The Incredibles,â he added.
âWhat about The Daily Wire? Anybody contact you from there or canât you say?â I asked.
The Brunette gave me a solid punch. I slugged her even harder and she went limp.
âWell, theyâre my buddies,â he said, stuffing all the money back into the safe and shutting it. âIâm open to good stories and I would like to lean towards playing a villain.”
âLike I love Nick Searcy as a villain. Thatâs the sort of role I gravitate towards now.â
I got up and threw the Brunette over my shoulder like a rolled up wrestling mat. âHe got good reviews for the movie, which said it wasnât preachy or conservative but just a good film.â
âTheyâre good guys,â he said. âJeremy Boreing is a wonderful guy; they all get a bad rap because theyâre fighting against the status quo.â
âJeremy is a brilliant, brilliant man,â he continued. âAnd that reminds me, I need a shave; got to go get my Jeremyâs Razors.â
We exfiltrated and I pulled out my phone and dialed the client; next Iâd call the authorities to get most of the women. As the client answered, Adam nodded and hopped in his car and drove away.
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