In 1991, Baldwin met his future wife Kim Basinger on the set of the critically panned The Marrying Man. He appeared with Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 Steve McQueen film of the same name.

In a brief but memorable role, Baldwin played a ferocious sales executive in 1992's Glengarry Glen Ross, a part added to the film version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play. He then chose to star in 1992's Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, based on the Broadway play, rather than reprise his role as CIA analyst Ryan in another Tom Clancy thriller, Patriot Games. His film was a commercial flop, while Harrison Ford scored back-to-back hits as Ryan.

Baldwin played the title character in another film that failed at the box office, 1994's The Shadow. His late '90s roles also had a lukewarm reception. They included several thrillers, such as The Edge (with Anthony Hopkins), The Juror (with Demi Moore) and Heaven's Prisoners (with Teri Hatcher).

Baldwin then shifted more toward being a character actor, including his Academy Award nominated turn in 2003's gambling drama The Cooler and in working with director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator and The Departed.

Born April 3, 1958, Alec grew up in Massapequa, Long Island where his father was a high school teacher for twenty-eight years and his mother raised six children, including his sisters, Beth and Jane. Alec is the eldest of his brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen Baldwin, all of whom are actors in film and television.

Alec attended George Washington University and planned to attend law school, when he auditioned for the New York University Undergraduate Drama Program on a dare. He was accepted, and in 1979 began what would become his professional training. In 1980, he was cast in the daytime TV series "The Doctors" on NBC and has worked in nearly every venue as a professional actor ever since.

Whether in regional theater or on Saturday Night Live, blockbuster movies or Broadway, literary festivals or television mini-series, Alec has always attempted to balance his love of communicating with an audience with the demands of a motion picture and television career.

On Broadway, Baldwin appeared in The Roundabout Theatre Company's 2006 revival of Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr. Sloane" directed by Scott Ellis. His previous work with The Roundabout Theatre Company was with their 2004 revival of Hecht and MacArthur's "The Twentieth Century", directed by Walter Bobbie, co-starring Anne Heche. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the 1992 revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the television movie of that same production, won an Obie Award for the 1991 off-Broadway production of Craig Lucas' "Prelude to a Kiss" and a Theatre World Award in 1986 for his turn in Joe Orton's "Loot" on Broadway. He has also performed on Broadway in Caryl Churchill's "Serious Money". Other stage includes David Mamet's "Life in the Theatre", (directed by the late AJ Antoon), the Williamstown Theatre Festival and at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, where he performed in Ira Lewis's "Gross Points".

Alec has starred in several films, including "Beetlejuice", "Miami Blues", "The Hunt for Red October", "Malice", "The Shadow", "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Heaven's Prisoners", "Ghosts of Mississippi", "The Edge", "The Cat in the Hat", "The Aviator", "The Departed", "Running with Scissors", "The Good Shepherd" and many others. He received the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor for "The Cooler", directed by Wayne Kramer (2003) and was nominated for an Oscar for the same film.

Baldwin has always had an active interest in politics. He recently revealed in a British magazine interview that he plans to leave acting in a few years to pursue a career in politics. When interviewed by the New York Times, Baldwin was asked what public office he would consider running for, he replied: "If I ever ran for anything, the thing I would like to be is governor of New York." When asked if he was qualified, Baldwin answered: "That's what I hate about Arnold Schwarzenegger. His only credentials are that he ran a fitness program under some bygone president...I'm Tocqueville compared to Schwarzenegger." When asked why not be governor of California, Baldwin replied: "Then I would have to live in California. And who wants to live in California?"

During his appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 11, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, Baldwin said "if we were in another country... we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families". Baldwin later apologized to Hyde for his remarks and NBC has promised never to re-air the show.

In 2000, an interview with Basinger appeared in the German magazine Focus, in which the actress said that Baldwin promised to leave the United States if George W. Bush beat Al Gore for the presidency. This statement provoked a great deal of controversy for both Baldwin and Basinger. He was criticized by Florida governor Jeb Bush and temporarily shut down his website after receiving what he described as hundreds of "hideous and graphic" writings from "political extremists whose only goal is to harass and disrupt." Baldwin claimed he never heard of Focus and that Basinger was never interviewed, although subsequently he did admit the interview took place. He has stated that he never threatened to leave the United States and believed he might be confused with director Robert Altman, who did indeed make a vow to leave the United States if Bush was re-elected. As Snopes.com has shown, no actual quote has ever been published showing that Baldwin in fact made the controversial promise.Baldwin said, "I think my exact comment was that if Bush won it would be a good time to leave the United States. I'm not necessarily going to leave the United States."