“I’m happy to be where I’m now at 60. I’m so blessed. And I absolutely believe that the best is yet to come,” Baldwin tells PEOPLE

NEED TO KNOW

• Stephen Baldwin says he chose faith and ministry over pursuing mainstream Hollywood fame after The Usual Suspects success
• Baldwin embraced born-again Christianity in 2001 and launched a skateboarding youth outreach inspired by evangelical events
• He now produces Christian films and hosts a podcast while celebrating life as a grandfather and devoted family man

In 1995, actor Stephen Baldwin was enjoying massive Hollywood success after starring in the hit crime thriller The Usual Suspects.

“I probably could have pointed myself in the direction of becoming a big star,” Baldwin, now 60, tells PEOPLE of the accolades the movie brought him at the time. “But that wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be Tom Cruise, and have to make $100 million at the box office. I’d rather be a schmuck from Massapequa!” he says with a laugh, adding, “I’m good at that!”

The year before The Usual Suspects came out, Baldwin played Barney Rubble in The Flintstones, and then the following year, he co-starred with Pauly Shore in the stoner comedy Bio-Dome — which recently marked its 30th anniversary.

“I love Bio-Dome,” Baldwin says about the cult classic. “I think it’s right up there with The Usual Suspects.” He says that at the time he was thrilled to get the offer. “I totally adored Pauly and his sense of comedy. I remember falling out of my seat laughing at the theater at his movies In The Army Now and Son in Law.”

But he says his brother Alec warned him it could be a career killer.

“He said, ‘Let me get this straight. It’s called Bio-Dome and it’s you and Pauly Shore trapped together in the biosphere… I think perhaps that could be the biggest career-ending mistake you could ever make,’” Baldwin recalls with a laugh.

Baldwin’s steady work in mainstream Hollywood did slow not long after, but he says that was a conscious choice rather than the result of flops.

In 2001, Baldwin — who got sober in 1989, the year before he married his wife Kennya — embraced born-again Christianity and spent the following decades focused on ministry, particularly a skateboarding youth outreach.

“After the birth of our daughter Alaia, my wife hired a woman named Augusta from Brazil to come over and live and work with us and help out. She didn’t speak English, she only communicated with my wife, who is Brazilian, in Portuguese,” Baldwin explains of how his faith deepened. “One day, Kennya and Augusta were talking and she said, ‘I think it’s funny you believe I’m here to clean your house.’”

Augusta explained that she’d had a prophetic vision at her church in Brazil, when she saw the notice that Americans were looking to hire someone to help with their family.

“My wife tells me, ‘I just spoke to Augusta, and she said the real reason she’s here is because God spoke to her, and she said in the future you and I will become born-again Christians and have our own ministry,’” Baldwin recalls.

He admits he was skeptical at first. “I said ‘Hun, we’re from New York but we’re in Arizona and I think you need to go back into the air conditioning and lie down.’ Because it was just so absurd.”

When their daughter Hailey was born, the family moved back to New York and Baldwin attended an evangelical event in Syracuse with his sister Beth, who had already become a born-again Christian. The festival featured gospel artists including Kirk Franklin, whose music Baldwin respected. He later attended another evangelical festival in Fort Lauderdale and found himself struck by a skateboarding ministry there.

“Down on the beach, they had built a skate park on the sand with plywood. And these funky, super committed, cool, tattooed, pierced skateboarders were there and they’d skate, stop, pick up a microphone and start preaching evangelistically, and like 5,000 kids would be around watching because of their interest in the skateboarders,” he says. “I felt a calling.”

Baldwin approached Kevin Palau about producing a skate video with a Christian message, blending punk-rock-style Christian music and skate culture. The project became the Christian skateboarding video Livin It.

“In the first six months we’d distributed 10,000 copies. Then one of the bigger churches called and asked what it would cost to bring the skaters from the video to their church for a live event. So that’s when I left Hollywood.”

“I went to 125 churches over four years,” he says of touring with the skate ministry and meeting people whose lives were affected by it.

“Jesus and the holy spirit fascinated me,” says Baldwin, who is now a grandfather to Jack, almost 2, whom Hailey shares with Justin Bieber, and to Iris, who Alaia shares with husband Andrew Aronow. “They’re so cute,” he says of the grandkids. “Iris, who turns seven soon, is the funniest, kookiest kid. She likes to steal my daughter’s phone when we’re on FaceTime and put a cow filter on and just makes me laugh.”

Baldwin has faced setbacks over the years, including legal and personal challenges. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to tax evasion and agreed to pay back taxes. In April 2025, Baldwin and his brother Alec were involved in a single-vehicle car crash in the Hamptons during severe weather.

He says Hollywood has not always embraced his outspoken faith and political views. “I think they thought I act a little too weird,” Baldwin says. He supported Donald Trump in 2016 and again in 2024, though he has said he’s “retired” from politics.

“But I’m fascinated by people like George Carlin and Steven Wright, people who play with words and have sarcastic, smarmy senses of humor,” Baldwin says of how he now uses his social media platforms to share his faith. “And I get a lot of DMs from people who tell me how my work has touched them and that’s all that matters. I’m happy to be where I’m now at 60. I’m so blessed. And I absolutely believe that the best is yet to come.”

Baldwin is working on producing Christian films aimed at young audiences in the spirit of his skate ministry and continues his podcast One Bad Movie, where he talks to actors about the worst film they ever made (or the worst experience they had making one).

“My commitment to the Lord now is simple. I said, ‘Lord, give me the platform and, and the resources to tell, to tell stories about you like John Hughes,’” he says of his upcoming producing goals.

He says he no longer craves mainstream fame the way he once did. “I’ve done 100 movies, I’ve made more money that I could have wildly imagined, and I’m married to the hottest chick I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. “Jesus is my rock. My wife is my anchor. I’ve had the most amazing life and I’m only 60. I’m so blessed. I’m just waiting for more doors open that I’m supposed to walk through.”

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