LOS ANGELES, California—"How could you bring that up?" actor Alec Baldwin asked, then covered his face with both hands and sobbed.

Alec, showing the comic chops that have been earning him raves in the TV series "30 Rock," was just kidding around, of course.

"That" was about him turning 50 last April 3. "Yes," he whispered to laughter when a reporter asked him to confirm his recent big five-oh milestone.

"I had a nice party," Alec replied when asked at this press con for more details about his celebration. "All my friends in New York threw me a party."

When pressed about his goals after notching half-a-century on earth, Alec replied, "I want to retire from acting." A journalist countered, "No way."

50 more years

We think though that the 2007 Golden Globe winner for Best Actor in a TV Series (Comedy or Musical) was just expressing his deep wish. He has commitments to "30 Rock" (which also stars Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer), documentaries and film projects. Plus, if he keeps displaying the comedy acting brilliance in the TV show, Alec may have enough work coming his way for the next 50 years.

"I want to do something else," he added. "I try not to think about it, but when you realize that you have only so many years left, you want to do exactly what you want to do. And enjoy doing them."

Like what? "I have a book coming out in September and if it does fairly well, I might want to write more," disclosed the actor who went through a bitter child custody and divorce battle with actress Kim Basinger. "Writing a book was extremely hard but I enjoyed the process."

Asked for details about his coming book, Alec answered, "It's called 'A Promise to Ourselves.' It's published by St. Martin's Press. The book is a critique of the family law system through my own experiences in divorce. It's not a memoir. I have no desire to settle some score with my ex-wife because of my custody battle. Not at all. Writing the book was something that I did very reluctantly for that reason. I didn't want to be perceived as stirring the pot or calling attention to that (custody battle) again.

"However, I found that the custody court system, especially as it's configured in Los Angeles County, is one of the great disgraces of American society. The judges, lawyers and the court-appointed therapists - it's a racket that they have set up to line their pockets. They take people at their most miserable, painful and anguished time of their lives and suck them for as much money as they possibly can. It's a money-gathering racket. The judges are moral cowards who do nothing to get toward conflict resolution. Their goal is to make sure everybody stays at the table and keep gambling and gambling. I'm very measured in dealing with my ex-wife whom I have no desire to antagonize. I absolutely urinate in the face of the judges and lawyers as long as possible."

As the topic returned to his post-50 goals, Alec declared: "I want to do some things differently. I want to be me now. I don't want to be someone else seven months out of the year and say the words of someone else. This business is very time-consuming. I will tell you that as much as I've enjoyed doing a lot of what I've done, some of it I didn't enjoy. The thing I enjoyed most was the people I met, really cool people in the business, including the crew, writers and cast. But never have I sat back and said, 'God, I was good in that movie.' I have not had one ounce of self-satisfaction from anything I've done in film or television. Never. I don't look at the show and go, 'I really am pretty funny.' I don't do that. You do the job; you hope for the best."

But the actor, who moved from LA to New York after the divorce, also rued: "On the other hand, you're sitting in your trailer and you get your mail shipped to you from New York. I open it and I learn that Charles Dutoit (conductor) and the Philadelphia Orchestra are performing at the Carnegie Hall and I'm not there. I don't want to miss that anymore. I want to go and do what I want to do. You get the idea. The Francis Beacon exhibition comes to the Metropolitan (Museum of Art) and you're away. When you come back, you have other things to do like you have to see the dentist or the doctor. Before you know it, the exhibition is gone-it has closed."

Missing everything

He continued, "I'll never forget one day. There was an Andrew Wyeth exhibition in Philadelphia and the last day was a Saturday or a Sunday. I was working in LA and the only way I could go was to take a red eye that night to Philly, and in the morning, go to a Starbucks, sit for two hours reading the New York Times and wait for the museum to open. I did it only to prove a point to myself that I was so sick of missing everything as a result of this business. They don't pay me to act. They pay me to help alleviate the pain of missing on all the other things when I'm on the set all day."

Asked why he decided to do a TV series (it turned out to be a very smart decision), Alec explained, "When you do a television show, you give up other things that you're doing because it's such a huge time commitment. That's something you need to consider very carefully. I have spent about five years examining that possibility with different people. When this opportunity to shoot in New York came along, the schedule was going to be very favorable in terms of me being able to see my daughter who lives in LA. Everything just came together. It was almost like a miracle, not to mention that it was Lorne (Michaels) producing - who's a friend - and Tina was writing. Tina is like the Elaine May of her generation. There was just no way I could say no."

He elaborated, "Plus, I was ready to have a normal schedule. Because to me, what used to be exciting about filmmaking is tedious now. In filmmaking, you never know where you're going to be three months from now. I used to like that when I was younger. But now I want a schedule that I can rely on. So doing this show was also a lifestyle choice. I got tired of travel."

Moms love him

On whether being a TV star has brought a different set of fans, the actor who starred in stage plays and films said, "Television's right in your face. When people see the show, the next day, when you're walking down the street, they say things to you. It's amusing. Even some kids watch the series and they say stuff to you like 'I love your show.' Usually, when people walk up to me, they smile, say how they want to meet me and the next line is, 'My mother loves you.'"

As his eyes lit up, Alec, who' s a good storyteller (the comic timing he demonstrates on "30 Rock" was on full display at this interview), stated, "And now, even those women who were telling me that their mothers love me, are getting older, too.

One of those women was Elaine Cassidy of Ireland, who went on to become an actress in the acclaimed film, "Felicia's Journey." Alec did not remember meeting her on his trip to Ireland in 1977. When he congratulated Elaine on her performance at the Toronto Film Festival, she reminded Alec how she met him.

"Elaine said it was in Christmas 1977, when my (then) wife and I stopped at a gas station in Wicklow and we ordered sandwiches at the counter of the store," Alex recounted. "And then she told me, 'I'm the girl who made your sandwiches. I said, 'What?' She said, 'I knew it was you and your wife right away because you wore sunglasses. Only American film stars wear sunglasses in December in Ireland.'"

On his TV character Jack Donaghy, a brash, egotistical network executive, Alec dished, "What I love playing about the guy has nothing to do with his politics. Although his politics is where his love life is. An erotic opportunity is him on the phone saying, 'Where are you right now? What are you doing? What are you wearing, Condoleezza (Rice)?' Tina and Robert (Carlock) write that stuff so well. My character is kind of a barbarian. One of my favorite lines was when my character greets Carrie Fisher and after she leaves, I say to Tina's character, 'Don't ever make me talk to a woman of that age again.' The character is horrible in that sense. He's so barbarian on every level that it's funny. I don't see myself that way at all."

Funnier now

"Tina is the center of the show," Alec said of the actress/co-writer/creator of the comedy set behind-the-scenes of a live variety program. "In the past, when women were the center of shows, they had to play it with a certain caution in terms of dealing with sexual and office politics, like 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show.' What makes our show funny is that we live in a world where Tina is free to say whatever is on her mind." It's also an international hit, according to Alec, "because I don't think greed and sex are peculiarly American ideas."

"I think I've become funnier," he conceded. "If humor is founded in pain, then my divorce is the source of my humor. No, I credit my childhood. Back then, before there were iPods, computers and so forth, we grew up in a family. You had to develop your own entertainment quotient. My brothers (actors Stephen, William and Daniel) were incredibly funny."

On whether he gives acting tips to his sibling William "Billy" Baldwin, whose character in the series "Dirty Sexy Money" dates a transsexual, Alec joked, to chuckles from the journalists, "My brother Billy makes his living right now making love to a transsexual actor on a television show. I couldn't possibly know what to suggest. I wouldn't know where to go with that. I have no tips. I have no suggestions."

As for the hot Obama-or-Hillary question, Alec the staunch and outspoken Democrat said, "I think in terms of mix and match, Obama would be the better president. The decision was hard for me to do because I admire Hillary Clinton enormously." With a smile, he quipped, "Hillary should be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. She will do a great job there. She's an exceedingly bright and thoughtful woman. I think (John) McCain should retire, go to Arizona, rest and write books and his memoirs. He and I could write a book together."

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, "The Nepales Report," on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport