Baldwin vows to break talk show model

Associated Press

NEW YORK

When his new talk show premieres tonight, don’t expect Alec Baldwin to get overly political. The 60-year old actor plans to leave that on the set of “Saturday Night Live” with his occasional impersonations of President Donald Trump.

“The Trump thing is just silly. Nothing we do on ‘SNL’ about Trump is going to change anybody’s mind about anything,” Baldwin said. “There are people in Washington going, ‘That Alec Baldwin, I hate him’... and there are others that say, ‘Thank you, for helping us process this.”’

That’s why he doesn’t see an upside to being overly political on the new “The Alec Baldwin Show” on ABC at 10 p.m. The show features candid one-on-one conversations with celebrities and cultural icons.

“If you have a very muscular political opinion, it has its consequences. I’m not afraid of that, and thankfully I have other venues to exercise that. But this is not about that at all,” Baldwin said. His guests are another story. The talk show debuts with the politically outspoken Robert De Nirotonight. The hour show will feature two interviews, with Taraji P. Henson as the other guest.

Baldwin plans to pick up where “Here’s the Thing” — his podcast for WNYC — left off, employing his unfiltered, provocative interview style. Baldwin said the long-form interview format allows him to take a “deep dive” into the issues with each subject.

He also wanted to bring a fresh perspective to the talk-show format after being on the other side of couch for so long.