“Rise of the Guardians” unites Santa Claus (Alec
Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and Jack Frost
(Chris Pine) in a
perfect storyline for the holiday season. As leader of the Guardians, North (better known as Santa Claus) with his booming voice, uncompromising attitude and “naughty” and “nice” tattoos, needed to be played
by a larger-than life actor. Who better than Oscar nominee Alec Baldwin?

“Alec personifies North,” says director Peter Ramsey. “He’s
playful and mischievous, and he’s a bit of a hotshot. When audiences see North’s
eyes on screen with Alec’s voice coming out of him, there will be no mistaking
whose soul is inside that character.”

Baldwin sees his character this way: “In my mind, North is a
combination of personalities. He’s kind of a magician – almost like the Wizard
of Oz. He’s very benevolent, like your favorite teacher, and he has the best
interests of his constituency – children – at heart. On the more human side,
he’s obsessed with getting credit for everything. He wants to make sure
everybody knows that Santa is the one who’s laying down this deal here.
Christmas is number one. He’s constantly fighting with the Easter Bunny about
which is more important, Easter or Christmas. In that regard, he’s like Donald
Trump.”

As the story unfolds, it is North (along with his massive
Yetis, who make all his toys, and the ubiquitous elves, who just get underfoot)
who encounters the shadow of an enemy he thought was long gone: The bogeyman
Pitch, who invades the workshop of North’s magnificent North Pole Fortress and
sends menacing black sand swirling around North’s sputtering Globe of Belief.
The globe is an enormous orb usually lit up with millions of tiny lights
representing the belief of children around the world. The fact that it’s
growing dim is evidence that Pitch is up to no good.

Award-winner Alec Baldwin began his prolific career in television moving on to roles on Broadway
and in film. His feature credits include John McTiernan’s “The Hunt for Red
October,” the David Mamet-penned “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Martin Scorsese’s “The
Departed,” and Nancy Meyers’ “It’s Complicated,” among many others. In 2004,
Baldwin received an Academy Award nomination for his role in “The Cooler.” In 2008, he
lent his voice to the DreamWorks Animation feature “Madagascar: Escape 2
Africa.” Since 2006, Baldwin has played the charismatic Jack Donaghy on the NBC
comedy “30 Rock,” a role that has garnered him two Emmy and six Screen Actors
Guild Awards.

HOMBRE: What was it about this film that made you want to
take on this role?

Alec Baldwin: It happened when they showed me that these characters were going
to be edgier. Usually Santa Claus is kind of a ‘Wilford Brimley’ type, with
rosy cheeks, a saintly man. But this Santa has more dimensions to it. They
assured us all our characters were going be different. The film has little
touches, but it doesn’t cross the line. I love how Isla’s character (the
Tooth Fairy) is hitting on Chris’s character (Jack Frost) when she meets
him, its more real and I like that.

H: How did you approach your character?

AB: For me the key with these kinds of films is to work your way to a much
warmer, humanistic place. You’re literally doing a lot of radio acting,
where someone else will render your physical dimension, draw it out. 
You want to make sure you keep it with a great deal of love and warmth

H: What about the accent?

AB: What accent? (Laughs)

I’ve had the same experience in doing plays when they had a dialect coach. You
were given copious notes about your dialogue and then you get into the play and
they tell you to throw much of that away. We didn’t try for ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle.’
I hit the ball right down the middle.

H: How is the process of making an animated film?

AB: Very much like theater. 

Normally in film it’s very difficult to change your mind. You shoot and shoot
and shoot but to alter the script and the characters is very costly.

An animated film is much more like the theater. When you’re two weeks in and
someone says, let’s reblock this scene and do it completely different, it’s the
same here. You just hit delete and you can render the whole thing again, you
change the whole direction of the film. As I said before the thing for me is to
think of the tone.  The guy is powerful
in some scenes but in others he’s quirky, fun, cute, silly and child friendly.

H: What kind of magic do you believe in?

AB: The magic that I believe in is that I want this movie to make a lot of
money! (Laughs) That would be magical for me.

The cynicism of that aside, I hope the film is a great success. It’s good for
movies like this that are very creative, that are different. The artwork in
this film is very beautiful.  The work in these films is difficult so I
hope it has the success it deserves. It’s an excellent children’s film.

H: How did you first hear about this film and what was
your initial reaction?

AB: I did “Madagascar 2” and had a small role. When you get a call from (Jeffrey)
Katzenberg and he wants you to work on one of these DreamWorks things the
answer is pretty much always yes. They’re really the best at this. We were at a
meeting and they showed me the cells and the drawings. I didn’t really think
about it too much.

H: Why is it important for children to believe in fairy
tales?

AB: When you’re a kid everything is very small. You can play with a ball, you
can play with a toy, you can play with an animal, run around the field for
hours and do something very simple. Then the world gets broader and broader and
more complicated with things that are more distracting. You have all these ambitions
and you have your sexuality and your fantasies about money and power and whatever
you want to do in your life. Then you turn 50 and it goes the other way. It gets
narrower again. For me I’d rather just stay home with my wife and my two dogs
and watch TV. Now I’d rather watch a movie than make a movie any day.  The
world becomes a lot smaller and you’d rather do fewer things and do them well.
It’s more important to have a satisfying personal life than the way I was for
20 years of my life.  I was chain smoking; my ambition was to do more and more. 

H: In certain cultures, if you’re not nice you don’t get
gifts for Christmas, how is it in your household?

AB: That lives on! Katzenberg said if we’re not nice we don’t get paid. That’s
why we’re here (laughs). We have a lot of steps to go.

H: How do feel about the way the film turned out?

AB: I always use this example: I was offered an exorbitant amount of money
to voice a character in a video game where I was going to play this
contract killer for the mafia who kills a police officer. And I said to them,
that’s never happening. Some think it’s all about money but most people
have a conscience about it and I knew I wanted to do this one because it’s good
for kids. It’s very sweet and it reinforces the idea of believing in yourself. I
found the arch of the Jack Frost character very touching.

H: What memories do you
have of watching children’s movies as kid?

AB: I guess I was of a generation where much of a childhood experience was a
book, it wasn’t TV or movies like there are now. I was born in 58 so in 1970 I
was 12 years old. You’d watch “Charlie Brown Christmas” on TV. You’d watch “The
Grinch that stole Christmas.” There was lot of Seuss and Schultz animated
programming.  It was nothing like it is
today. There was no DreamWorks, no Pixar. Films tended to be more like “The
Wizard of Oz,” the real pillars of children’s entertainment back them. I remember
when I was young there was no cable TV, no DVDs, none of that. It was all
broadcast networks. It’s funny; they showed a movie on TV five years after its
theatrical release. I remember they showed a restored print of the Wizard of Oz
on TV in the 60s and say “A MAJOR TELEVISION EVENT!”  And everyone would
gather around and it was so exciting. It wasn’t at all like it is now.