The director who treated Alec Baldwin like “the spatula you use to flip an omelette”
In terms of active performers and their legacies, few are going to be as complicated as Alec Baldwin. Obviously, his name will be forever tarred by the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer shot and killed by a prop gun on the set of the film Rust.
Even before this awful event, he wasn’t squeaky clean, particularly when it comes to his personal life. However, his body of work is undeniable. For the better part of half a century, he has delivered knockout performance after knockout performance. He’s easily the best of his brothers, which admittedly isn’t saying much.
Very early in his career, Baldwin landed a role in the romantic comedy Working Girl. Melanie Griffith plays a secretary who, after her boss (Harrison Ford) takes credit for one of her ideas, assumes his identity following an accident that puts him out of action. The movie was a huge hit, scooping an Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ and even spawning a TV series starring Sandra Bullock. However, don’t bring this up around her.
The movie was directed by the great Mike Nicholls, the genius brain behind The Graduate, Silkwood, and The Birdcage. This was a glorious opportunity for a young Baldwin, considering he’d also worked with Jonathan Demme, John Hughes, and Tim Burton in that same year. However, according to this one interview with The Guardian, he might have conflicting feelings about the EGOT winner.
“To Mike Nichols, I was just the spatula he used to flip an omelette with,” he said. “I wasn’t the omelette. I wasn’t the spinach or olives in the omelette. I was just some salt you might have sprinkled on.” Let’s try and unpack that, shall we?
Baldwin’s character in Working Girl is Mick Rugan, the cheating boyfriend of Griffith’s main character. Side note, Griffith claims that she hit on Baldwin for real on set, but he apparently turned her down. His is the fourth name in the credits, which isn’t bad when you consider who else is in the cast, but in terms of impact on the story, he’s much further down the list. Compared to Griffith, Ford, and Signourney Weaver, he’s a bit of a nobody. What he’s probably trying to say is that, while those three were the main ingredients of the film, he was something of a tool to make them look better. He was the undetectable go-between that tied everything together.
Nichols was known for getting great performances out of his cast. He worked with everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Robin Williams to Cher. 18 different actors were nominated for an Oscar under his watchful eye, making him one of the most successful man-managers in Hollywood history. He knew how to work with people. If you were a spatula, it’s because you were a damn good one.
Of course, Baldwin could have just been saying any old nonsense to make himself sound intelligent. It’s not clear if he liked being a spatula or not, but the success of Working Girl was key in establishing him as a leading man. Like it or not, he owes a lot of his career to it.
