Stage & Screen Star Alec Baldwin Considering Career Switch to Politics

Emmy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Alec Baldwin may be looking to add another major role to his resume: Congressman. The 30 Rock star recently spoke to Playboy magazine about running for office, an aspiration he recognizes is fraught with obstacles.

“I’ll put it this way,” Baldwin told Playboy. “The desire is there; that’s one component. The other component is opportunity.”

According to CNN, the opportunity may have presented itself in the form of an unnamed Democratic law firm, which Baldwin says has approached him about running for governor of Ohio. The actor, a native New Yorker, also mentioned considering moving to New Jersey or Connecticut to pursue political positions in those states.

“I’d love to run against Joe Lieberman,” Baldwin said of the Connecticut Senator, who outraged liberals by endorsing Republican presidential candidate John McCain during the 2008 election and leaving the Democratic party to turn “Independent Democrat.”

Baldwin, who has appeared on Broadway in Twentieth Century, Serious Money, Loot and the 1992 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, which earned him a Tony nod, wouldn’t be the first performer to make his way to Capitol Hill. Funnyman Al Franken recently took his seat as Senator of Minnesota after an arduous recount, while Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura, Senators Fred Thompson and Sheila Kuehl and Rep. Fred Grandy have also crossed from mainstream entertainment to mainstream politics. And let’s not forget President Reagan.

“It’s all fantasy,” Baldwin ultimately admitted of his political dream. “If I run for political office, they’ll have a forest of material to kill me with.”