{"id":675152,"date":"2026-11-04T23:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T23:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675152\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T23:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T23:30:11","slug":"the-trial-of-alec-baldwin-filmmakers-talk-actors-reaction-to-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675152\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Trial of Alec Baldwin’ Filmmakers Talk Actor’s Reaction to Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cThe worst thing for me is to be misunderstood,\u201d Alec Baldwin<\/a> states minutes into The Trial of Alec Baldwin<\/a>, the documentary about the aftermath of the death of Halyna Hutchins, who was shot and killed on the set of Rust on Oct. 21, 2021, when a prop gun held by the actor discharged live bullets into the cinematographer as well as director Joel Souza.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a somewhat unsurprising confession from Baldwin, whose seemingly combative public persona has garnered as many headlines as his TV and film roles. But it\u2019s one that reverberates throughout the film, calling into question how Baldwin\u2019s desire to change the public\u2019s negative perception of him \u2014 which the film argues is what ultimately put him on trial \u2014 shapes the insights he discloses on camera.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[That question is] one that we grappled with in the film,\u201d director Rory Kennedy<\/a> said in a Q&A following a screening of The Trial of Alex Baldwin during the SCAD<\/a> Savannah Film Festival<\/a> on Oct. 27. \u201cI think part of our experience was that Alec wasn\u2019t always the most reliable narrator of himself. \u2026 So part of what we\u2019re trying to do, because we have these questions as filmmakers \u2014 when is he acting, what is real, what is not \u2014 we want to bring the audience into those questions as well so that it\u2019s not like we\u2019re presenting this as here\u2019s all the facts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOur feeling at the end of the day,\u201d Kennedy continued, \u201cis you can feel what you might about Alec \u2014 and people have, often, strong feelings one way or the other \u2014 and you may still have those feelings at the end of the film that you had going into it, but I think most people, in watching the film, will feel like there was an injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKennedy and her husband and producing partner, Mark Bailey, began following Baldwin in March 2023, just as filming on the set of Rust was set to go back into production after Hutchins\u2019 death, and a mere weeks before the initial charge of involuntary manslaughter brought against him was dropped. In January 2024, a grand jury re-indicted Baldwin on the same charge as the cameras continued following him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary is both biographical and culturally expository in nature, detailing Baldwin\u2019s decades-long career onscreen and the democratic Irish Catholic upbringing that fostered the aggression often witnessed in his notable run-ins with the press. Throughout, Baldwin expresses a love-hate relationship with his profession and the microscope under which it has placed his personal life, in one scene shedding tears over his young ambitions as an actor and in another saying he\u2019s embarrassed by his thespian pursuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI find him incredibly sincere in that he believes what he\u2019s saying when he\u2019s saying it; he\u2019s not trying to consciously con you,\u201d Bailey said at SCAD. \u201cHe\u2019s not on script when he\u2019s saying, \u2018Movies didn\u2019t mean anything to me. I just did it for the money.\u2019 He actually, in that moment at the kitchen table, believes that, and [his wife] Hilaria is calling him out like, \u2018But honey, you don\u2019t really think that when you go and work with students \u2026 .\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe other piece that complicates that even further for a guy like that who doesn\u2019t really have a filter is that he was under enormous stress and strain,\u201d Bailey continued, referencing footage of Baldwin expressing sorrow for Hutchins\u2019 son and reflecting on how his own children would feel if something happened to their mother. \u201cHe\u2019s so raw because you\u2019re catching somebody in a real moment of crisis, which was sort of, I think, courageous of him to let us in his life at that time and to let Rory be so close there. It\u2019s kind of a remarkable thing to see somebody, in my mind, that unguarded because even if he wanted to guard himself, he is not in that place of stability to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film ends with Baldwin ultimately being acquitted during trial proceedings yet aware that his standing in the court of public opinion will continue to require additional reframing, the work for which he says he\u2019s willing to do. As for his own thoughts on the finished film, which premiered at Doc NYC last November and was released worldwide on Oct. 1, 2026, by Abramorama: \u201cHe really, really, really didn\u2019t like it,\u201d Kennedy admitted.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s traumatic for him. And I think as his lawyer says at the end, he has to live with this. And despite all of his limitations, he\u2019s a deeply caring, emotional, sensitive human, and he carries this with him,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe had five jobs in Hollywood, all of his producing friends called him up and fired him, and he has seven kids, and then he was just annihilated in the press and in social media and people said really mean, horrible things about him and he reads them \u2014 which I would advise him not to do \u2014 but in any case, I think it\u2019s traumatic to watch this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to Baldwin\u2019s specific feedback, Kennedy added, \u201cHe didn\u2019t particularly like our take in sort of focusing on things like the voicemail [in which he called his daughter, Ireland, a pig in 2007] and where he sort of misbehaved historically or wasn\u2019t at his best, so I think it was complicated for him. But, over time, and now that it\u2019s gone on the festival circuit and people have seen the film, and people who he respects have seen the film and feel like it really helps do this story justice and helps people really understand what he went through. \u2026 I think for him, and for so many people around him who care about him, they\u2019re like, \u2018This really helps you understand what happened.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the full SCAD Q&A in the video above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe worst thing for me is to be misunderstood,\u201d Alec Baldwin states minutes into The Trial of Alec…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[39321,321,93,61,60,134246,285945,285946,285947,285948],"class_list":["post-675152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alec-baldwin","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-rory-kennedy","tag-savannah-film-festival","tag-scad","tag-scad-docs-to-watch","tag-the-trial-of-alec-baldwin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}