Alec Baldwin has not been quiet about his desire to play the late fashion designer Halston on screen. A little over two years ago, he told the St. Louis Dispatch:
“Here's a man who watched his 50's, closeted, ‘Boys in the Band'-era gay culture dissolve under the weight of AIDS and become militant. By the 80's he was surrounded by younger men he was dating and sleeping with who were the new gay, completely out there and completely outspoken. And like all groups who need federal dollars to solve a problem, they were very political. AIDs made homosexuality political. I'm not anything like this guy — I'm not gay, I don't know about fabrics and textiles — yet I am dying to play this man!”
Even though he's been playing the tempermental fashion diva in real life, Baldwin's on-screen hopes have been dashed as producers replaced him with Brendan Fraser. Reportedly, Baldwin's too old.
Halston biographer Steven Gaines, upon whose book the upcoming biopic on the designer is based, tells Page Six that it wasn't Baldwin's age that would have cursed him for the role, but his weight. Said Gaines: “Too old? What about too fat?” Gaines seemed to think Fraser fit the role perfectly. “This movie will do for Brendan Fraser what ‘Capote' did for Philip Seymour Hoffman.”
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