Alec Baldwin to Star in Emilio Estevez Film 'The Public'

Amagansett’s Alec Baldwin will star alongside Orange Is the New Black‘s Taylor Schilling, Jena Malone (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1) and Emilio Estevez in Estevez’s new film, The Public. Currently in pre-production, the movie is expected to begin filming in Cincinnati, Ohio next month.

According to IMDB, the film’s story begins with an act of civil disobedience when a conscientious librarian offers the Cincinnati Public Library as an impromptu homeless shelter during one of the coldest nights in recent memory. the most brutal cold snap in recent Cincinnati history. The tension kicks off as the library’s administrators and law enforcement attempt to stop this “Occupy type sit-in” and the homeless and mentally ill patrons. Sides are drawn over the crisis and the battle over what to do with these people who aren’t capable of caring for themselves.

The site calls The Public “a richly depicted character piece,” and describes the library as the perfect setting because it’s “one of our most vital, yet crumbling institutions” and “our last bastion of democracy.”

Baldwin plays a crisis negotiator trying to de-escalate the standoff, while Estevez, who wrote and directs, plays one of the librarians in the “socially conscious ensemble dramedy,” according to Deadline.com. The site says Schilling will play a woman working to expose the truth of the situation, even as corrupt media outlets spin the story in search of ratings, and Malone plays another librarian.

Hip hop artist Rhymefest, aka Che Smith plays one of the homeless library occupiers.