Alec Baldwin: I'm Quitting Acting in 2012

Hollywood: get ready to say "so long, farewell" to Alec Baldwin.

The Emmy-winning star of 30 Rock says that he plans to quit acting when his contract for the NBC show expires in 2012.

Check out photos of Alec schnarfing a salad on set -- and other stars chowing down

Says Baldwin in the December issue of Men's Journal: "I don't have any interest in acting anymore." At 51, he points out, "I'm not young, but I have time to do something else."

See a photo of Alec with his daughter, Ireland at an event

And while the actor has gotten the best reviews of his career playing Republican, bottom-line-obsessed Jack Donaghy on the hit comedy, he harshly dismisses all of his work on the big screen:

"I consider my entire movie career a complete failure," declares the star of The Hunt for Red October and Glengarry Glen Ross.

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Huh? "The goal of moviemaking," he explains, "is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that."

And, yes, Baldwin still regrets the infamous, leaked voicemail in which he called daughter Ireland a "rude, thoughtless little pig." "I feel the consequences of that every day," he tells the magazine.

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Baldwin's protracted custody fight with ex-wife Kim Basinger has affected his love life, too, leading to the recent dissolution of a seven-year relationship with another woman. Yet he claims that he doesn't mind. "I'd rather be lonely than wrong," he says.