Alec Baldwin says lost interest in acting, will soon quit

Actor Alec Baldwin arrives at the Tisch School of the Arts awards gala in New York November 2, 2009.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. actor Alec Baldwin says he has lost interest in acting and considers his film career a failure.

"I don't have any interest in acting anymore," Baldwin, 51, told "Men's Journal" in an interview for its December issue.

Baldwin, best-known for his Emmy-award winning role in the NBC comedy "30 Rock" and the man chosen to co-host the 2010 Oscar ceremony, added: "Movies are a part of my past. It's been 30 years. I'm not young, but I have time to do something else".

Baldwin began a television acting career in the 1980s and has filmed scores of movies, including the 1988 cult classic "Beetlejuice". He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the 2003 film "The Cooler" and stars in the upcoming movie "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep and his Oscar co-host Steve Martin.

Men's Journal quoted Baldwin as saying it was "pretty much it for him" after "30 Rock", "in a couple of years or so". He told Playboy Magazine this year he was "done" with his career in 2012 and would retire at "30 Rock"'s wrap party.

"I consider my entire movie career a complete failure," he told Men's Journal. "The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that."

Baldwin said the 1990 action film "The Hunt for Red October", in which he starred and which made more than $200 million worldwide, was successful because it was based on a popular Tom Clancy novel.

"And now, the movies I've been in, I never give them a moment's thought. Every movie I've ever been in, I just avoid," he said.

Baldwin has expressed interest in politics in the past but did not say in the interview what he intended to do should he quit acting.

Baldwin's interview with Men's Journal hits newsstands on Friday.

(Reporting by Corinne Heller: Editing by Jill Serjeant)