The Last Word

''Which is ridiculous,'' Jablow says, ''because Kim didn't even have a nude scene.''

Baldwin believes the bad press doomed the movie. He and Basinger were in his Chicago hotel suite the day it opened and had the reviews faxed in. ''That day was the worst,'' he says, because nearly every review mentioned reports of their bad behavior.

''We just sort of sat there and thought it was sad. And unfair...In Disney's zeal to get me and her, they killed the movie.''

The Marrying Man had one white-hot bright spot: It made possible the relationship that Baldwin calls ''the most important thing in my life.''

One of Hollywood's most talked-about romances started before its participants even met. ''Kim came into my office before we started shooting,'' remembers Rees. ''I had a picture of Alec and one of her pinned next to each other on a wall so we could see how they looked together. And Kim looked at them and broke out into a smile and said very softly, 'We are going to make a terrific couple...'''

Their travails, Baldwin says, only solidified their relationship. Over the past year, he has steadfastly refused to talk about the romance, but on the Prelude set he spoke about it freely. ''This is not some Hollywood romance that's played out between 'action' and 'cut,''' he says. Eventually, they hope to marry and add children to their already crowded household: They have 12 dogs, including a boxer (the new mother of six pups) they rescued after the dog had been hit by a car. They recently bought a large apartment in New York with a view of Central Park and plan to move in later this year.

When the couple is in public, as they rarely are, they capture all eyes. ''They look like Aphrodite and Dionysius,'' says Prelude author Craig Lucas. When the line is relayed to him, Baldwin bursts out laughing. ''That's true of her. She's like this thing. She's striking; her hair, her skin color, her bone structure, her body...'' But the perception of them, he says, is all wrong. They are homebodies who prefer quiet nights alone, reading and watching favorite movies. Does that mean two of the major sex symbols of our time lead a monkish existence? Baldwin smiles. ''Look at her. Look at me. We are both healthy. What do you think?''

Two weeks after the Prelude interviews, my phone rings one Thursday at twilight. It is Baldwin calling, once again, to clear things up. During some of our discussions, the actor was explosive and seething; in others, upset and melancholy. Today he is all of the above. Another interview has been published, and he again feels misunderstood by a writer. He is beginning to think he talks too candidly. And for what? Reporters print his incendiary comments without the context, and he's going to stop talking to them after we finish. ''Does that mean this is your last interview?'' I ask. ''Absolutely,'' he says.

One of Baldwin's most recent zingers reads as though it was aimed at CAA chairman Mike Ovitz. ''I don't give a shit about what Mike Ovitz thinks of me. I care what Mike Ovitz's gardener thinks of me,'' he was quoted as saying. What he meant, he says, is that he makes movies thinking not of execs but of the average Joe who treks to the cineplex once a week with his wife. ''I feel like I'm in the audience with everyone else,'' he says emotionally. ''I love movies. As a child, I watched every movie in the world. I remember my passion as a viewer. And I don't want that to die.

''The picture that has been painted of me has been of this cocky wiseass. And I feel so unlike that. In many areas, I feel so insecure.''

In conversation, Baldwin seems anything but insecure. With no prodding, he offers astute, considered opinions on everything from the environment to the contras. But he wants it known that ''as much as I'm ambitious, I don't think I'm cut out for the movie business. I really think that for my own sanity, I'm not cut out for it. Don't rule out the idea that one day I might just chuck it all and open a tree farm somewhere.'' Or that he might run for office: Baldwin, a true-blue Democrat who studied political science at George Washington University, has always been drawn to politics and is very involved in the Creative Coalition, an advocacy group that fights against censorship.

Baldwin goes back to a day during the Marrying Man reshoots when costar Robert Loggia remarked that '''the light has gone out of your eyes.' Which was very true at that point.'' And, he says, that gleam of energy and concern is the greatest gift an actor can have.

But these days, with Prelude going swimmingly and his life returning to normal, Baldwin feels he's finally putting The Marrying Man behind him.

''You know,'' he says softly, ''I feel like I'm getting the light back.''