Alec Baldwin cast in movie about Kent State shootings

Fresh off completing his starring role in the Western film “Rust,” Alec Baldwin has joined the cast of the historical drama “Kent State.”

Producer Kristen Moser of Autumn Moon Productions announced Thursday that Baldwin, 65, would appear alongside Dermot Mulroney, Clancy Brown and others in writer-director Karen Slade’s independent feature about the 1970 shootings, in which the Ohio National Guard fired upon an anti-Vietnam War student protest at Kent State University. Four people were killed and nine wounded; the shootings became international news and a touchstone of the anti-war movement. Jeffrey Miller, a student from Plainview, was one of those killed. The hit song "Ohio" by the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young helped raise international awareness of what happened.

“Alec Baldwin will be playing the Kent State University president [at the time], Robert I. White,” Moser told Newsday, adding that the Amityville-born and Massapequa-raised actor “has a resemblance as well." She added there will be no real guns on set.

Baldwin has not commented publicly. 

Production of the Western drama "Rust" resumed in Montana last month after shutting down in October 2021 in New Mexico after a prop gun's accidental live round killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded writer-director Joel Souza. Principal photography on that movie will continue through May 22. 

Criminal charges were dropped against "Rust" producer-star Baldwin, who was holding the prop gun when it discharged in 2021, but lawsuits remain. Baldwin and Hutchins’ estate settled a wrongful-death lawsuit in October. 

"Kent State" filmmaker Slade is making her feature debut following three narrative short films. According to her biography, she workshopped her “Kent State” script at Stony Brook University Southampton’s screenwriting program.

According to a synopsis, the film, “based on real events, tells the story of how a family’s buried past coincides with the brutal truth of one of the most significant events in American history … . Told through the perspective of lead character Will McCormack in two time periods in his life, the film asks the question of not just what happened then, but why these kinds of events continue to happen. Through Will's story, we look at history through today's lens, understanding its impact on our lives now.”

“The Kent State shooting was a dark and pivotal moment in our nation’s history,” Tom Ortenberg of Briarcliff Entertainment, the U.S. distributor of the film, told Deadline.com in September. “This is a story that needs to be told and surprisingly never has. We are looking forward to bringing it to the big screen to educate and inspire both the young and old alike.”

An NBC-TV movie about the events at Kent State aired on Feb. 8, 1981.