“I wanted to jump on here quickly and say how stricken I was to learn of the death of Sam Neill,” Baldwin said to start his video.
He went on to share memories from the 1990 action film The Hunt for Red October, which they both starred in.
Baldwin shared a video tribute that was nearly three minutes long on social media, which has been described as “insane” and “narcissistic” by social media users.
“That was probably my first big movie in terms of having a decent-sized role,” Baldwin said.
His tribute then took a turn as he went on to describe the “exciting parts” of creating the film, rather than speaking about his memories of Neill.
He then mentioned 14 co-stars that he enjoyed working with, including Sean Connery and Tim Curry.
“What an experience it was to do that movie with those people. I mean, every time you turned around to do a scene, you were with this great actor,” Baldwin said.
He only mentioned Neill in the first 10 seconds and the last five seconds of the video.
As he concluded the video, he said, “My God. Sam Neill. My love to his family, My love to his family,” he said.
‘The narcissism is insane’
After the movie star’s video was released, users on Reddit condemned Baldwin’s tone and content.
“The narcissism is insane,” one person wrote.
“This is a man who is thinking about his own eventual death because of the death of a colleague, instead of eulogising the colleague at all,” another said.
One Reddit user came to his defence and said, “he’s just vibing with memories, sometimes old people ramble haha, I think this sounds kinda normal for someone getting up there in age”.
Neill’s death was announced on social media earlier this week.
He died at the age of 78 in a hospital in Sydney, just months after announcing he was cancer-free in April.
He had been receiving treatment for a rare form of blood cancer for several years.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople co-star and friend of Neill, Rima Te Wiata, told Ryan Bridge TODAY he had recently been sick with pneumonia.
“It really sucks actually. As he said in the press once, he’s not scared of death but he would be annoyed. He would be like, ‘Oh for goodness sake I just got over my cancer and now look, now I get pneumonia. What next? But he’s on his big journey now’.”
Neill’s family said in a statement that his death was “sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free”.