It's a smoggy summer morning on the aramount Pictures lot, and Alec Baldwin can't stand still. "Lets' get the hell out here," he growls at me, standing outside his trailer by Soundstage 15. The gravelly voice is Long Island; the delivery borders on manic. And the tone is at once playful and hostile. Given the fact that we've just introduced ourselves, I don't know what to say except okay.

Naturally, I'll need to take a number. The Today Show is also here to interview him. Apologizing, Baldwin instructs me to wait inside his trailer, where Dvorak is blasting from the CD player and an Amnesty International sticker is prominently displayed on a black notebook beside a football. We were supposed to go back to his house to talk, since he prefers not having reporters lurk around the set while he's working. But today Baldwin is pressed. He's just been called in to work on what was supposed to be a day off, and he has to jam in time to talk. Though polite, he's clearly not thrilled at getting sucked into doing publicity when he could be focusing on The Work. Or maybe playing a savage game of tennis.

Tall and athletic-looking, with his ice blue eyes riveted on your face, Baldwin projects a wary but knowing watchfulness. For the past four months, he's been shooting The Hunt for Red October, the film that many say will make him a star. Until now Baldwin has stolen films with smaller, supporting roles, most often playing the oversexed cad who can't keep his pants on. He was the smarmy best friend in She's Having a Baby; the horny hit man, "Cucumber" Frank DeMarco, in Married to the Mob; the cheating boyfriend in Working Girl. But he's also versatile, a chameleon of an actor whose good looks metamorphose with each role, be it as a Sammy Glick-style radio producer in Talk Radio, a goofy ghost in Beetle-juice, an earnest Jimmy Swaggart in Great Balls of Fire, or a psychotic ex-con in Miami Blues. The Hunt for Red October is an adaptation of Tom Clancy's best-selling thriller about the defection of a Soviet missile-submarine skipper; in it, he plays CIA analyst Jack Ryan opposite Sean Connery's Marko Ramius, the Russian submarine captain.

Back in his trailer, Baldwin is undressing, anxious to get home for ten short minutes to accommodate me. I am sitting on a couch. Four feet away from me, he has removed his shirt and is starting to undo his pants. I ask him if I should leave. "Nah, that's okay," he says, repairing to the bathroom to put on jeans and a cutoff Syracuse T-shirt. When he comes out, he gives me a look as if he's suddenly noticed that I'm there and in the way. "Do you mind if I put on my socks now?" he says.

A production assistant knocks on the door and delivers a fresh batch of studio publicity shots. Baldwin groans and reaches for a cigarette. "These guns have gotta go," he says, eyeing a picture of himself fondling a revolver a la James Bond. "I hate guns. They made me hold a gun like you-know-who."

That Baldwin is self-mocking about his macho publicity duties is only part of his allure. The "you-know-who" reference is an in-joke on the set. At one point during production, director John McTiernan (Die Hard) worried that Scan Connery was too proficient at handling a gun. McTiernan politely reminded Connery that he wasn't "you-know-who" in this movie, and the crew cracked up.

Baldwin may not be Bond either, but weeks later, he'll insist on doing his own stunts and find himself falling out of a helicopter, or, more precisely, dropping into the ocean from a 25-foot line attached to a Navy helicopter five miles offshore. "He wanted a big close-up while letting go of the rope," McTiernan teases, referring to Baldwin's motives for doing the stunt. "Actually, the scene is better if the audience knows it's him instead of a double."

Baldwin says simply, "I would love to have done more. I disengaged the cable and fell 18 feet. I wanted to fall 30 feet. They wouldn't let me."

He laughs, a sort of sardonic bark. Then he is instantly serious, the perfectionist who is his own worst critic. "It was good, but it could have been better."

APROTEAN ACTOR with classical training, Baldwin is on a hot streak. It's not just that he's graduated to top billing. Or that with Red October he's begun to command a cool $1 million per picture. By Hollywood standards, that's still not top dollar (especially compared to the $4 million Connery reportedly was paid). But the industry buzz is that the guy's got chops. He's been courted by such directors as Martin Scorsese and Adrian Lyne. Steven Spielberg wanted him for Always but lost out because Baldwin had already been tapped for Red October. George Armitage's Miami Blues is coming out shortly after Red October. Last year, director Philip Kaufman cast him as the young Henry Miller in his film adaptation of Anai's Nin's book Henry and June, but Baldwin backed out of the project at the last minute, citing "exhaustion." He took some time off and then accepted a part in Woody Alien's new film.

"I'd call him a working-class Cary Grant," says director Oliver Stone, who cast Baldwin in Talk Radio after seeing him onstage in the short-lived Broadway production of Caryl Churchill's Serious Money. Paramount production chief Gary Lucchesi calls Baldwin "a classic American leading man. This is a young Burt Lancaster; he has that sort of charisma and intelligence." Red October producer Mace Neufeld (No Way Out) says that when he first met Baldwin, "I had a sense ofdeja vu. I had had the same feeling when I met Kevin Costner, that this was going to be a major leading man."

AFTER SPENDING TIME WITH BALDWIN, one suspects that all this actor-on-the-brink-of-stardom hype is grounded in truth, mostly because he's not just another pretty face. Not only does he have range as an actor, he is also well-informed, quick-witted, an apt mimic, and brimming with raw energy. His looks aren't perfect, though they're close. His ears are pinned back a little too far, his nose is roundish, and his eyes, though blue beyond belief, are a little too narrow. At 31, he can look both older (especially with his auburn hair slicked back and dyed black) and younger than his age suggests. Still, the overall effect—a look that is at once wholesome and menacing—bespeaks an intelligence that one casting director describes as "stunning."

"You look at his face and see that Alec feels responsible for his lusts and hungers, maybe even feels an exaggerated sense of his own responsibility for the wrongs of the planet and those that are inherent in being alive," says actress Elizabeth McGovern, who worked with Baldwin on She's Having a Baby. "I found Alec to be, well, um, fascinating. Really fascinating."

Maybe it's a Catholic boy's lingering guilt. Or maybe it's a ribald lust for life. But nothing about Baldwin is prosaic. Not his smile, a larger-than-life and infectious thing, neither sly nor subtle. Not his laugh, the sharp kind you might hear echoing in a pool hall. Not his mind, working overtime from insomnia. Baldwin is a man on the edge—not just the edge of stardom but the edge of life. Sort of like the way he drives. "I drive like a New Yorker," he explains, gunning the engine of his new Ford Mustang as we drive to his rented house in the Hollywood Hills. "It's 'Out of my way and out of my mind.'

DRIVING NORTH ON GOWER, Baldwin is stuck behind a bus and cursing the quality of the air. "I fucking hate L.A.," he says, adding that it's a racist, apolitical, industry-centered town. He can't wait to get back to New York; he's renovating an old farmhouse near Montauk Point and has an apartment in the city.

"At least in New York, people aren't impressed with anyone unless you're an athlete. You can be the pope, and they'll say"—affecting a Brooklyn accent— " 'Hey, Pope, how ya doin', babe. Can we get the pope a coupla scrambled eggs, please? Wheat toast for the pope, Joey. Sorry, the bathroom is for customers only, Pope.' Ya know, you can be Al Pacino walking down the street, and it's 'Hey, Al, the movie Author! Author!—it sucked, okay?' But if you're Mike Tyson, it's 'Mike, I love you!' "

He softens, veering in the direction of the giant HOLLYWOOD sign. "People talk of L.A. as this mecca of enlightened thinking. I get out here, and it's a filthy hole. The air. God, the city itself is its own worst polluter. The buses are disgusting.

"I lived in Venice for six years, man. I swam in the water every day for a year and a half. Then one day I got hip and said, 'Hey, what am I doing out here if I can't go in the water anymore? It's so dirty.' I gave up my apartment."

Baldwin is on a roll. "And another thing, they never talk about that out here. Santa Monica Bay is polluted. You can't swim in it. People get cancer, eye infections. If you've got an open sore, you can't go in the water or you'll get an infection. All this crap. In New York, when all the needles were floating off the beach, people flipped out. People out here are like sheep, like"—affecting the tone of a Deadhead—" 'Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. What's on sale at Ralph's today?' "

DRINKING EVIAN WATER, BALDWIN IS SIT-ting at his kitchen table in the house he's temporarily sharing with his younger brother Billy, also an actor. A visit to the Baldwin brothers' rental brings to mind life at a frat house. At 11 A.M , Billy is just waking up, staring into the refrigerator. Alec lights a Marlboro by striking a match on the underside of the kitchen cabinet and continues talking. About Mike Nichols, who directed him in Working Girl: "He's very German. Although he does not mean to convey this, what comes across is 'I'm Mike Nichols. And when I tell you to take your clothes off, you take your clothes off.' "

About his own performance in Beetlejuice: "I hated myself. I thought I was boring. Honest to God, I wanted to cry. ... I didn't have the weight as an actor in my career yet to start telling them, 'This is what I'm going to do, and if you don't like it, get yourself another boy.' Which is kinda where I'm at now."

About directors in general: "Some directors I've worked with didn't know dick about my role. There are a lot of people in this business who have a rent-an-actor mentality. They look at you, and they say, 'Well, you look like the guy and you sound like the guy. Stand there and say it this way, and we're gonna get along fine.' I never want to work with people like that. And I won't."

Which is not to say that Baldwin has an inflated ego. In fact, despite all the bravado, he approaches his work with a curious mix of awe and skepticism. He says he's surprised that McTiernan cast him in Red October. "When I got this job, I was really blown away. I don't see myself as this kind of character, an innocent sucked into a world of adventure. I'm sure there were people they wanted to do this movie who weren't available. Or they priced themselves out of the job, or whatever."

If Baldwin has achieved a new standing in the industry, or has at least made smart career moves that could lead him into the ranks of A-list players, he says he doesn't think about it. "You don't, because it becomes another thing that they can take away from you. It just becomes another thing you have to worry about, like these people who have a lot of money and they're constantly worrying about the day when they won't have that much money."

Nor has he embraced the adulation that other actors might covet. "Here everyone is 'great.' " He clears his throat, which he does often. His voice—he's done voice-overs for Noxzema skin cream, Cover Girl makeup, what he calls "rub-it-all-over-your-body products"—sounds husky, partly because he has asthma. "But if I'm great in Talk Radio, what is Albert Finney in The Dresser? Or Al Pacino in The Godfather? When everything is special, nothing is special."

BALDWIN IS THE SECOND ELDEST OF SIX children. His father, Alexander Rae Baldwin II, wanted to be a lawyer like his father before him, but he had mouths to feed and became a much-beloved high school social studies teacher instead. In 1983, he died of cancer, a loss that left Alexander Rae Baldwin III bereft. Even now, when he speaks about his father, his voice becomes barely audible. "We were very close," he whispers.

When Alec was in the third grade in the working-class Long Island suburb of Massapequa (nicknamed "Matzoh Pizza" by residents for its Jewish and Italian mix), his teacher noted on his report card: "Will become famous or the president of the United States—one or the other."

Like his father, Baldwin dreamed of becoming a lawyer, "but only a prosecutor, so I could try white-collar crime, like prosecute the White House burglars and Republican assholes for perjury." He worshiped Supreme Court justice William 0. Douglas and famed Watergate interrogator Sam Ervin. In fact, his plan all along was to go to law school and get into politics. A political-science major at George Washington University, Baldwin ran for president of the student government his junior year—and lost by two votes. "All these guys who ran student government hated my guts because they were all slide-rule-in-the-breast-pocket geeks. They weren't the least bit socialized. I was like Hugh Hefner to them, some oily social type, you know?" He says he and friends later discovered that the election was rigged.

Although Baldwin ap-pears to be an overnight success, he has been acting since he was seven years old, when he starred in his own homemade movie of Frankenstein. At twelve, he was already reading screenplays, most notably William Goldman's Butch C as sidy and the Sundance Kid, so he could read the fight scene in which, according to Baldwin, "Butch delivers the most aesthetically swift and painful kick to the balls in the history of the American cinema."

Following his disillusionment with electoral politics, college-style, and the breakup of a two-year romance, Baldwin promptly moved to New York to study in New York University's drama department under the tutelage of Method guru Lee Strasberg. After drama school, he continued to study with Mira Rostova, who is perhaps best known in acting circles as a member of the Moscow Art Theater and as Montgomery Clift's acting coach. Baldwin says he was grateful just to be employed on such shows as the daytime soap The Doctors and the nighttime soap Knots Landing, and to have the opportunity to work with some gifted actors. "People love to bash TV. But I loved Knots Landing, because it gave me the chance to work with Julie Harris. She's like an emotional swimming pool. You just want to jump in when you act with her."

Still, those early days in L.A. weren't easy. "I was Mr. Telephone Thrower," he says of his rages then. "The holes where I put my fist in the wall dictated where we hung pictures. I was a total madman. All fear. My whole life was agony. I didn't know anybody."

From TV, Baldwin headed for the stage. In what may have been his wisest career move, he resisted lucrative offers to appear in TV mini-series by leaving Los Angeles and landing work in the New York theater. His Broadway debut, in Joe Orton's Loot, won him the prestigious Theater World Award in 1986. "I always dreamed of being on Broadway, and so I was, like, delirious," he says of that time Even now, working in the theater is his greatest high "If I have one stupid, childish thing I wish for," he says, "I'd like to win a Tony Award That would really, really make me happy " Maybe that's why he's opted for stage work this year—in the spring he'll star in Craig Lucas's Prelude to a Kiss at the Circle Rep and this summer he may be appearing in The Taming of the Shrew for Joseph Papp's Free Shakespeare m Central Park.

His screen debut, Forever, Lulu, directed by Amos Koliek (son of the mayor of Jerusalem), was, according to Baldwin, "one of the worst films ever committed to celluloid " When Jonathan Demme began casting Married to the Mob, his black comedy about a Mafia wife trying to go straight, he wanted Ray Liotta to do a cameo as Michelle Pfeiffer's husband "But Ray didn't want to play [another] bad guy," Demme recalls "I asked Alec to come in and read a scene with Michelle Then I said, 'Thanks very much,' and he walked out the door Michelle and I looked at each other, and I said, 'We should get him, right?' and she said, 'Yeah' and I ran down the hallway and said, 'You've got the part, dude, if you want it.' "

Oliver Stone says he felt lucky when Baldwin agreed to do Talk Radio "I thought he did us a big favor, because he was getting hot then, and it was a small-budget movie in which he took a supporting role. But he approached it as an actor wanting to be part of a team, not a star. You gotta get them when they're young, because pretty soon, his three assistants will be answering the phone for him."

INSIDE SOUNDSTAGE 15 SIXTEEN WEEKS INTO the shoot of Red October, the mood is surprisingly upbeat Baldwin, by all accounts, acts like one of the guys here. A sixteen-ton mock-up of a Soviet sub's control room is mounted on a 22-foot-high, mechanically maneuverable platform. Despite its size, the control room is claustrophobic, with actors, crew, and visitors sardmed together, as if the film is being shot in a phone booth. And since McTiernan is big on affecting a smoky look onscreen, a steady and stinky stream of mineral oil is being misted into the air.

The Hunt for Red October is your basic $30 million action-adventure motion picture with lots of special effects. It is also shaded with political irony Author Clancy's right-wing sentiments struck a chord among pre-glasnost readers, but it is Baldwin, to whom George Bush is "a CIA mass murderer and carpetbagger from Maine who is owned by the oil companies," who has to breathe life into Clancy's Jack Ryan, a wooden CIA nerd who becomes an American hero.

Baldwin is a stickler when it comes to preparing for parts For Red October, he and other cast members were given a day's briefing by the US Navy aboard a nuclear-powered attack submarine. "The actual nautical speed and maximum depth of the sub are classified," he says: "I'd ask them a question, and they'd say, 'I cannot confirm or deny that ' That spilled over onto the set Someone would ask, 'Are we wrapping at 6.30 tonight?' And everyon would say, 'We cannot confirm or deny that.'

For the first time in his career, Baldwin has nothing external, outside of the action-movie paraphernalia, to use to insinuate himself into his role. And that scares him. To be a hero, he says, is to play yourself and be exposed "Usually, if people don't like me in a movie, I can at least say, 'That's not me there on the screen, that's my character,' " he explains "But if you hate me in Red October, you hate me I'm not hiding behind things."

Sitting in a red sling-back chair during a break in filming the scene in which his character first comes face-to-face with the Russians aboard a deep-submergence rescue vehicle, Baldwin gnaws on a bagel by the food table. He doesn't want to talk about himself or the movie so much as the current state of domestic political affairs "My heart," he says, "is broken. We don't have one person you can look up to in government anymore. Not one."

He neatly folds his naval officer's jacket on the back of his chair. "I get uptight about being in this business," he continues "Some days, I wake up and can't believe what we've gotten ourselves into The HUD scandal. The S&L scandal. Iran-contra. These guys are crooks, the lowest you can go. Reagan was nothing but eight years of Chinese water torture. Look at Ornn Hatch, the Pee-wee Herman of all conservative Republicans trying to dictate what is right because they parade around as patriotic. The cynicism they've fostered has become an insurmountable thing. You know how long it's going to take to undo the damage?"

His hankering for public service has not abated. "I want to get m the position where I can make a good living at this," he says, "and then I'll get out and do that, maybe be head of the school board. " In how long7 "In ten years, maybe eight. This is the kind of business you can gag on after a year. "

BALDWIN DOESN'T DRINK OR DO DRUGS. He doesn't smoke either, except when he's working, which is just about all the time. His only real vice, if you can call it that, is that he's an incorrigible flirt. We are a virtually empty hotel restaurant on a Saturday afternoon. By turns charming and funny, he is also slightly worn at the edges, complaining about his insomnia, about how his dream in life is to get a good night's sleep. Dressed in a black shirt, black jeans, and black jacket, he says he's homesick and, as his attire suggests, "ready for New York". He seems to enjoy, almost cultivate, his bad-boy image as he pontificates on the difference between romance and lust "At least I'm honest about it," says Baldwin, who is notoriously single "I've learned m my life these days to just see it for what it is. So often, people veil lust as romance. It cracks me up.

Why was he attracted to Henry and June?
"Because I like to be naked in movies," he says, laughing "I have a reputation to uphold. I'm even naked in Red October, in a shower scene. The director of photography says to me"—affecting a Dutch accent—" 'We can't shoot the scene this way because your flesh-colored underwear, I can see it. You have to take it off.' "

Is that embarrassing? "Oh, yeah. What, are you crazy7 You think I grew up in a burlesque club7 You think I'm Bob Fosse?

"It's uncomfortable for me Women think that guys are like"—affecting a tough-guy voice— 'Here, babe Get a naked girl on top of me and have some fun.' It's not. It's very uncomfortable. There's always people around. "

Baldwin, who admits to having gone through a brief period as "a womanizing jerk" before realizing that that didn't work, assiduously avoids discussions about his personal liaisons, except to say that he hasn't figured out how to work and maintain a relationship at the same time. Baldwin mentions how he's "fallen in love" with Elizabeth McGovern, Julie Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer, among others, hastening to add that he loves them "as friends." When he's pressed about the nature of these relationships, he bristles and says, "Dodge, Alec, dodge. " Then, as if to a superego propped on his shoulder, "Don't give away any of your secrets to this woman. She is the Devil. " After lunch, the waiter wraps my leftovers in foil and shapes the package into a swan. Downing a second cappuccino, Baldwin grabs a crayon from the cable and begins drawing a swan on the paper tablecloth. Next to it, he draws a phallic-looking thing. "It's the barrel of a gun," he says.
'I can take a hint. He'd like to kill me?'
He laughs "I have to kill a man in the movie next week I'm worried about it ". Right.

ALEC BALDWIN IS NO ICON NOT YET ANYWAY. We're walking through the Beverly Center, a tony West Los Angeles shopping mall, and no one stops him for an autograph. No one bothers him. No one, it seems, even looks at him, aside from a few sidelong glances. And that's fine with him. He zips into a men's clothing store and snatches up an Armam shirt on sale "Money," he says, "is no longer an object when lust is involved ". He tries on a pair of black Italian loafers, but they don't fit. "Feet like paws," he says, laughing. Now, what he wants, the real reason for this shopping expedition, is not to be found. He needs a special grip for his tennis racket. But the mall doesn't have a sporting-goods store "I'm having, like, an apoplectic fit here," he snaps, getting indignant on the escalator and blaming L A for being a wimp of a town.

Downstairs, in the bowels of the parking garage, he's in such a snit that he can't find his car. Then he laughs "Either you think I'm a complete moron because I can't find my car," he says, still roving the aisles, "or it's just around the corner here and I'm a genius ". A master of hyperbole, Baldwin is neither moron nor genius. He's in the right place but on the wrong level. In the parking garage, as the professional universe he now inhabits, Alec Baldwin has no choice but to go up before he can get out.