Billy Baldwin on Gossip Girl and Underage Barbados Trips with Mick Jagger

Do you think the privileged roles you played on Gossip Girl and Dirty Sexy Money are accurate portrayals of New York's upper class?

Certainly it was heightened on Dirty Sexy Money. You have to have the dramatic act-out, the cliffhanger or season-ending cliff hanger to elevate it a bit. I have friends that grew up in Manhattan and were privileged and went to the Carlyle. I have one friend who was hanging out in Studio 54 with Halston and Calvin Klein -- her mother would take her there when she was 11 and 12 years old. She would go to these places and people would offer her cocaine. She was snorting coke in Studio 54 when she was 12. I say it's heightened and it is, but you would be surprised how accurate and honest and these shows can be based on my experience in them.

My own wife's father divorced her mother when [my wife] was two years old. Her father was John Phillips and then her mom went on to live with Warren Beatty for four years. Then she lived with Jack Nicholson for 3 years, then married Dennis Hopper for a week or two. In the midst of this, she was having an ongoing friendship and relationship with Mick Jagger. My dad was my little league coach and my Cub Master. My wife, when I was at Cub Scouts with my dad, was on private jet with Mick Jagger heading to Barbados when she was 7.

How has your life prepared you for these roles of privileged individuals?

Only my acting has prepared me for this -- certainly not my early life. I grew up as one of six kids. My dad was a high school teacher and made no money. We lived a very modest life -- a lower middle class [life], not destitute, but it was real tough blue collar lower middle class -- but it was a rowdy, rambunctious Irish upbringing.

In my adult life, I started to meet people from different walks of life. I portrayed Robert Chambers, who was the preppy murderer. I had a lot of exposure to privilege on the Upper East Side. When you become famous, you start getting invites to parties where there are famous athletes and famous rock stars, politicians, people who have tremendous power and affluence. It's not in my DNA, but certainly I have been exposed to it.

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