Alec Baldwin talks his love for 'Peanuts' and the 'immeasurable' effects
of his trial
[July 26, 2025]
By ANDREW DALTON
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Alec Baldwin says the year since his trial suddenly
ended with a dismissal has been far better than the few years that
preceded it, and the affect that time has had on him has been
“immeasurable.”
“Something as powerful as that happens in your life, you don’t know how
much it changes you,” he said. “I can’t even tell you how different I am
from three-and-a-half years ago. And what I want and what I don’t want,
and how I want to live my life and not live my life.”
The 67-year-old actor spoke to The Associated Press at San Diego's
Comic-Con International, where he was part of a panel on 75 years of
Charles Schulz's “Peanuts,” whose simplicity, existential philosophy and
moral outlook have been very much on his mind.
Baldwin spoke while a suited Snoopy character stood nearby after posing
for photos with him.
In a foreword Baldwin wrote for “The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978,” he
said while reading Schulz's newspaper comic strip every day as a child,
he realized Charlie Brown, more than anyone, wanted the things he
wanted.
Chief among those wants are “the desire to have friends and the desire
to hold your friends close to you.”
That hasn’t changed in the years since.
“Come on, what man my age doesn’t relate to Charlie Brown? If Charlie
Brown was 67 years old, he’d be me, but he wouldn’t have been stupid
enough to have seven (small) children,” he said with a laugh.
But he aspires to the qualities of a different character.
“Lucy. I want to be Lucy. Lucy is in charge. She’s got it all figured
out,” he said. “She pauses for a moment of self-awareness, but not too
long.”
Baldwin said he admired Schulz's simple line drawings combined with the
real circumstances of the characters, embodied by real children's voices
when the animated holiday specials emerged in his childhood.
“It’s so complicated and simple at the same time, which is what I think
makes it beautiful,” he said.
And he admired Schulz's willingness to embrace melancholy, and deeper
darknesses, in stories about inner struggle that needed no villains.
“A dog sitting on top of a dog house would have the same impact on you
as, like, Nietzsche, he said,” looking across the room at Snoopy. “They
should have named the dog Nietzsche.”
Baldwin's career has had several distinct phases. Early on he played
tough husbands and boyfriends in supporting roles including “Married to
the Mob” and “Working Girl.” He moved on to heroic leading man in “The
Hunt for Red October” and “The Shadow.”
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Alec Baldwin, left, and a person dressed as the character Snoopy
from "Peanuts" poses for a portrait to promote the 75th anniversary
of "Peanuts" during Comic-Con International on Thursday, July 24,
2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
 Downshifting to memorable character
parts, he showed his gift for manly speeches in “Glengarry Glen
Ross” and “The Departed,” and his comedy prowess in seven seasons of
“30 Rock” and as a constant host and guest on “Saturday Night Live.”
In July 2024 his trial in New Mexico on an involuntary manslaughter
charge in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
on the set of the Western “Rust” fell apart halfway through. A judge
dismissed the case on allegations authorities withheld evidence.
“I can’t believe that happened on that day the way it happened,” he
said. “And it couldn’t have been better for us in certain terms
because of the malice and so forth and everything that’s embodied in
that whole situation.”
The next phase is uncertain. He says he's “just trying to move
forward with my wife and my family.”
He and wife Hilaria and their seven small kids recently appeared on
the TLC reality series “The Baldwins.”
He says he has successfully sold his young ones on “Peanuts,”
especially the Halloween and Christmas specials, as he did with his
now nearly 30-year-old daughter Ireland when she was young.
He notices their personalities zig-zagging between the traits of
Schulz's characters.
“They’re Charlie Brown, now they’re Snoopy, now they’re Schroeder,
now they’re Linus, now they’re Pig-Pen,” he said. “They’re Pig-Pen
most of the time, I must say.”
And their house is full of themed toys.
He keeps a small Snoopy figure among the things in his office, a
reminder to try to maintain “love, kindness, patience.”
"Peanuts are still kind of like, in that zone," he said. “Let’s just
try to be good people.”
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