Alec Baldwin Walking Out of the Courtroom in the Middle of His Own Homicide Trial to Grab a Coffee is the Most Alec Baldwin Move Ever
Whatever else you expected going into the trial of Alec Baldwin, one thing was for sure. You may think the accidental shooting death of camera operator Halyna Hutchins was his fault, or that she was the victim of someone else's negligence. You may believe the charges are justified or should never have been brought. But we all knew to a moral certainty that this trial was going to be a circus. Because at the center of it all is one of our nuttiest, most unhinged celebrity crackpots:
Credit where it's due to Baldwin for getting in shape for this. He looks good. I mean, he's no where near where he was around the time he was making Beetlejuice or Old Balls' Deserted Island choice Hunt for Red October. But he's lost at least some portion of that massive Easter Island head he developed somewhere during the series run of 30 Rock. And the eyewear, while probably non-prescription and only being worn to give him an air intelligence and respectability, is working for him.
But this is still Alec Baldwin. One of the Top 3 craziest Baldwin brothers. So this was going to be a sideshow dominated by him no matter what else went on. From him turning his back on the proceedings to the point his Bostonian wife who pretends to be Spanish had to remind him to pay attention. Using the most seductive and alluring finger gesture any court room has ever witnessed:
But this is what you do when you're Alec fucking Baldwin. You give off that Leading Man Energy. The prosecution might have the authority of an entire state behind it. But there's only one star of this show. And Baldwin showed them who that is with one of the boldest gestures these (vision corrected) eyes have ever seen:
In 17 years of working criminal trials, I never saw anything like this. If it happened, I imagine the judge would've ordered us Badge Monkeys to go stop him and take him into custody. But here they were just too shocked to know what to do. Because the defendant walking out while the ADA is in mid sentence is positively unheard of. As you can see from his own lawyer's stunned reaction:
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And coming back with a coffee in his hand is the ultimate power move. Get a load of this YouTube attorney's response, because it's absolutely priceless:
He just stormed off the set like he was working with a first time director to show everybody who's boss around here. He might have been planning on spending the rest of the afternoon in his trailer, out of force of habit. Maybe he was going to tell his assistant to get his agent on the phone. Until he realized where he was. And just decided to grab a cup of notoriously lousy court house coffee, just to save face.
These are the actions of a man who knows his way around the dramatic arts. It's his non-verbal way of saying, "You might have the power to throw me in jail, but you're boring as shit. I can't even get through your clumsy, amateurish monologue without a caffeine boost. I wouldn't cast you in a community theater production of To Kill a Mockingbird, much let you try an actual case, you hack."
Which is perfectly understandable when you're dealing with a star of Alec Baldwin's magnitude. Think about it. This is a guy who acted circles around Oscar winners Pacino, Spacey and Lemmon to steal Glengarry Glen Ross, and he was just doing a cameo. You think for one second he's got the patience to listen to this ADA flip through her papers and hem and haw because she doesn't know her lines? This is opening night! She ought to have been off-script weeks ago!
It's still early. We still have no idea how this is going to play out. All we can do is hope that Baldwin keeps this up. And that, above all else, he takes the stand in his own defense. I came for the mid-trial coffee run power plays. I plan to stay for him doing the "I am God" speech from Malice: