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Surviving 'Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' Drama with Daniel Baldwin
by Troy Rogers
 If
there's one thing we learned after chatting to
the most recent cast-off from NBC's I'm a Celebrity
Get Me Out of Here!, it's that actor Daniel Baldwin
is just as uniquely vocal as his celebrity brothers.
After joining his brother Stephen in the Costa
Rican jungle to survive and compete among the
select group of celebrity competitors, Daniel
Baldwin soon found the greater challenge to be
separated from his pregnant wife while he tried
to live tribal-style with his old pal, John Salley,
new friend Lou Diamond Phillips, and the explosive
Janice Dickinson.
Although Baldwin faced an uphill climb to out-play younger contestants Heidi Montag and her sister Holly plus former American Idol contestant, Sanjaya Malakar, Daniel knew his days on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! were numbered simply because, as Baldwin told The Deadbolt, audience demographics weren't on his side.
The morning after the public gave Daniel Baldwin his Costa Rican celebrity jungle walking papers, we joined a conference call to find out how he enjoyed his time on the new reality series, who he liked spending time with aside from his brother Stephen, and how he feels his brother Alec would have faired if he were a celebrity competitor.
THE DEADBOLT: Since your family is so interested in politics, what was your take on Patti Blagojevich?
 DANIEL
BALDWIN: Well, you know, I think that one
of the great things about our judicial system
is you’re innocent until proven guilty, and
I’ve seen a lot of sensationalized cases go
by, and I’ll bring up a "for instance". Read
William Dear’s book, O.J. Is Guilty, But
Not of Murder, because after I read that
book I thought, "My God, is there really a true
possibility that O.J. Simpson didn’t do it?
Or that at least his son was involved?" Because
the book truly implies that forensically Jason
Simpson was on-site during that slaying. So
that doesn’t mean that O.J. wasn’t standing
right next to him, but I think most of America
would’ve absolutely guaranteed that he got away
with murder, no pun intended.
So I don’t know yet. And the tape suggests and implied dramatically that her husband may have been guilty of improprieties, but let’s wait and see because she vehemently denies it. She does not want to talk about it on camera and I’m going to wait and see that they go through the process that makes our country the great country that it is today.
THE DEADBOLT: How much of a boost was it to get to talk to your wife and daughter last night?
BALDWIN: I can’t tell you, you know?
I don’t think a lot of people understood the
two-fold thing that made my participation in
this very different. Try to imagine leaving
your wife pregnant - and she’s had some difficulties
in the pregnancy already - and also leave your
seventeen month old daughter behind and your
wife trying to take care of her while you’re
so far away that you can’t even talk.
This is very different than doing a film or TV project abroad, where you can pick up the phone and be available for, God forbid, anything [that] went wrong. I’m in a foreign country, I don’t even have my passport anymore, and I’m obligated to stay. Now that’s not to say if something really serious happened I wouldn’t have left immediately, because I would. But psychologically speaking, it played on both of us quite a bit more than anybody else on the show.
THE DEADBOLT: Aside from your brother, who did you like hanging out with the most?
 BALDWIN:
Well, I have a pre-existing long term relationship
with John Salley, and it’s almost like a high
school thing where you don’t have to see the
person or talk to the person for months and
months, or even a year, and if you bumped into
them or they ended up calling, you pick up right
where you left off. John and I have that kind
of mindset with each other and friendship and
love for each other that it was truly a pleasure
to see him. And I say the surprising relationship
that I think will be very similar to that, because
of what occurred in the jungle, will be my relationship
from now on with Lou Diamond Philips. He’s just
a fantastic guy and I always appreciated his
acting and his ability, but I never knew just
how intelligent and a wonderful man and father
and husband that he is. So I know that he and
I will not wait very long to get together with
our families and become even better friends.
THE DEADBOLT: How do you think Alec would’ve done on the show?
BALDWIN: I don’t know that with that cast Alec would’ve done that well patience-wise. I think one of the things, besides his SNL work, that I was really happy that he did was 30 Rock, because people don’t realize - because of his staunch political views and his stance that he has taken in a lot of ways in the press - just how funny and witty Alec is. You know, he is certainly right there with satiricalists in film that have been there for many, many years. He’s one of the greats and I love the banter that goes on between us in the private sector.
 There’s
been so much talk for years, "When are the four
Baldwin brothers going to do a movie?" Of course
they come up with the typical, "Let’s see them
do a western. Let’s see them do an Irish mafia."
And I always said if we’re ever to do anything,
if it’s not a comedy we’re really falling short
of the mark, because we’re very funny together.
And I think one of the things to come out from
having Stephen and I on the show - and believe
me, imagine how much footage hit the floor because
it would’ve been R-rated between Stephen and
I, particularly from my mouth moreso than Stephen.
One of the first things said by Jayson Dinsmore, the brilliant executive producer of the show, was, "Any day you’re ready, whenever you say, and I don’t even have to have a script. I can sell this to many venues, The Stephen and Daniel Show. You know, we’ll just follow you guys around with a camera. You guys cracked us up so much in the booth that we don’t know how to replace you now that you’re gone," to a point where he went back to NBC standards and practices and said "You know I have final say. Can I have someone else leave the show before him? You have no idea how funny they are together." And they said, "Unfortunately, we can’t do that." So, you never know. If I can generate a large enough number to go to my mother’s breast cancer research fund, I would consider doing a show with Stephen, provided he’s willing to do it, too. So stay tuned.
THE DEADBOLT: Aside from hoping your brother is going to win the whole thing, I’m kind of pulling for Sanjaya as well. What are your thoughts on him?
BALDWIN: You know, I think that Sanjaya
is the surprise. I won’t call him dark horse.
I mean, obviously in some ways he has the advantage
because he’s been through this scenario of not
us voting him off, but he’s been through the
American public scenario before in his attendance
in Idol. So, with that said, he knows that it
is out of his hands. He is what he is. And if
they didn’t make it as easy as they did, poor
Sanjaya, a good stiff breeze would blow that
kid away, and there were a couple of times when
the storms hit that I thought I was going to
have to tie a string to him anyway.
But, with that said, he does have an advantage of having an in-house audience, and certainly this type of show. And again, I’ve used this analogy: The people that vote on this show are mostly people that can be shampooing their head with their right hand and not even looking, with the cell phone out of the shower and texting blindly. Now who is that? That’s not mom and dad, those are kids, and those kids are going to take the time and spend a buck on their mom and dad paying the cell bill, by the way, are going to vote for Sanjaya over Daniel Baldwin.
 It’s
like when I play in a celebrity golf tournament
and a nine year old kid will walk up to me and
go, "Excuse me, Mr. Baldwin. Can I have your
autograph?" And I’m thinking to myself, "This
kid doesn’t even know who I am," and his mom
smiling in the background at 40-plus years old,
who sent the kid over to have me sign a golf
ball. So it’s mom and dad who know who I am.
I’m almost 50 years old, I’m not an idiot, but
I was hoping that they might depict me the way
I actually played it, which was somebody who
out-worked everybody and was truly there with
no agenda but with a personal relationship with
my mother in trying to save women’s lives around
the world.
Now I think I might have got some of that message across, and I’m hoping that certainly the fallout of it is that I get to do things like I’m doing now, press, and get people hip to the fact that we’re not some of these other big breast cancer funds where - God bless them, I’m sure their intentions are good - but we don’t have a huge staff of people flying around the world and leasing cars and big offices. We’re a mom and pop operation with nine oncologists on our board that we receive information from people who are asking for a grant because they’re showing promise in finding a cure for breast cancer. So we release the money directly to the researcher in hopes to find a cure.
If I can turn around and save some 26 year old mother of two who might find a strange lump and go, "Oh, gosh! That hurts," and wait too long before she goes. Or someone, God forbid, that doesn’t even have these symptoms yet and have her go in and have a mammogram done, because that’s what I’m about. I’m not somebody who is Eddie Murphy, who they would pay a million dollars just to show up. I’m somebody who’s Daniel Baldwin, a working actor and has a conscious.
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