How Alec Baldwin’s Life Has Changed Since Starring in Beetlejuice, as He Prepares for Manslaughter Trial

Alec Baldwin has lived several lives since playing a ghost in 1988’s Beetlejuice. 

The 66-year-old actor-producer-author was still establishing himself as a Hollywood star when he played Adam Maitland in Tim Burton’s ghoulish comedy classic opposite Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton and Geena Davis.

He and Davis, 68, are reportedly not appearing in sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (in theaters Sept. 6), because their deceased characters “don’t age” in the afterlife, as Davis told PEOPLE in 2022. "How would they explain that they're older?" 

Thanks partly to Beetlejuice’s success, Baldwin’s movie career since has included hits including Glengarry Glen Ross, The Departed and It's Complicated, and he earned an Oscar nomination for 2003’s The Cooler. On the small screen, he won Emmy Awards in 2008 and 2009 for playing Jack Donaghy on Tina Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock, followed by another Emmy in 2017 for appearing on Saturday Night Live as then-president Donald Trump. 

In recent years, the Boss Baby star has also produced more and more screen projects, some of which he’s also appeared in, like game show Match Game, drama series Dr. Death and, among his upcoming titles, the Western film Rust. 

It is because of Rust that Baldwin’s life has been mired in controversy since Oct. 21, 2021, when a prop gun he was holding went off, resulting in the tragic death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins at age 42 on the movie’s New Mexico set. The actor-producer has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and repeatedly insisted he did not pull the trigger. He is scheduled to face trial on July 9 and faces up to 18 months in prison.

A statement from Baldwin’s lawyers in 2023 promised they “will fight these charges, and we will win," noting that he “relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds." That April, charges against Baldwin were dropped, but he was indicted anew by a New Mexico grand jury in January 2024.

The case’s latest development was June 28, when New Mexico judge Mary Marlowe Sommer upheld the involuntary manslaughter charges for the third time following the legal team’s requests for dismissal.

Writer-director Joel Souza, also injured in the incident, returned to complete shooting Rust in 2023. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, meanwhile, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a New Mexico jury in March. She was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 18 months of incarceration and acquitted of a separate charge of tampering with evidence.

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That verdict has Baldwin "understandably worried" these days, a source told PEOPLE in May. "He has an excellent legal team. I don't think anyone is thinking jail time, but given the decision for Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, it’s hard to know."

Yet amid the legal developments in the Rust case, Baldwin’s family life continues. In the years after Beetlejuice, the actor became a father to daughter Ireland, now 28 (and a mother herself!), with ex Kim Basinger, who he was married to from 1993 to 2002.

After Baldwin wed current wife, yoga entrepreneur Hilaria, in 2012, seven more children followed. The couple share daughters Carmen Gabriela, María Lucía Victoria and Ilaria Catalina Irena, plus sons Rafael Thomas, Leonardo Ángel Charles, Romeo Alejandro David and Eduardo "Edu" Pao Lucas.

Furthermore, the actor’s onscreen and off-screen lives are due to come together in 2025, when the extended clan will take center stage in TLC reality series The Baldwins. "We're inviting you into our home to experience the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy," Baldwin teased in a promotional video posted in June that offered glimpses of the couple's crowded life. (A legal expert source then called the timing of the show’s announcement before his July trial “not ideal.”)

Of course, Hilaria, 40, is finding the fallout from the Rust shooting "very stressful" too, as a source told PEOPLE in January. "The back and forth is hard." 

But the couple are still celebrating life’s milestones. On June 30, Baldwin and his wife celebrated their 12th anniversary via social media. “Not only have there been joyful ups and sad downs that life inevitably brings, but we have also experienced everything from sideways, zigzags, tremendous love and also things that are so painfully and plainly backwards," Hilaria captioned her post.

While a cameo in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could presumably rise from the grave come Sept. 6, Baldwin’s next appearance in the public eye will be during the roughly two-week Rust shooting trial, beginning July 9.