Alec Baldwin, 68, whose career has spanned nearly five decades in American entertainment, opened up about wanting to retire during a recent appearance on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast. During the interview, he didn’t sugarcoat the impact of the Oct. 2021 shooting, calling it “unspeakably difficult to deal with.”
“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, plus a 30-year-old daughter, Ireland Baldwin, from his marriage to actress Kim Basinger.
The fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust set remains central to Baldwin’s decision. While rehearsing a scene at a ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, on October 21, 2021, the gun Baldwin was holding discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding film director Joel Souza. Assistant director Dave Halls had declared it a “cold gun” — industry speak for unloaded and safe. However, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had loaded a live round into the revolver. 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.
Baldwin faced involuntary manslaughter charges himself, but a Santa Fe judge dismissed the case in July 2024 after prosecutors concealed evidence. Baldwin’s defense team discovered that 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. The judge ruled that that was a fatal flaw. Prosecutors tried to appeal the dismissal but withdrew that appeal in December 2024, officially ending the criminal case against Baldwin.
Baldwin then filed his own civil lawsuit for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations in January 2025, naming 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 legal troubles continue for the actor. 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.”
To complete filming Rust in Montana, Baldwin struggled with 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 put it this way: “If I told you what my health conditions have been since Oct. 21, 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.”
Baldwin and his wife premiered a TLC reality show called The Baldwins in February 2025. 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.” Around the same time, the couple relisted their 10-acre Hamptons estate in Amagansett, New York, for just under $20 million — the third time the property has been on the market since 2022, when they first listed it at $29 million. In a March 2026 Instagram video, Hilaria Baldwin said the family planned to leave the area for an undisclosed new location, calling the decision “bittersweet.”
He has a few minor roles in development, including Kockroach, a crime thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, Zazie Beetz, and Taron Egerton. He also worked with documentary filmmaker 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.
The Alec Baldwin who existed before October 2021 is gone. What’s left is someone who sounds like he’s just tired.