Alec Baldwin and others join me for Fresh Air

I’ll be hosting Fresh Air this week, giving Terry Gross a well-deserved week off.

Today’s guest is Alec Baldwin, who’s been in the news for all sorts of reasons, including a scrape last week with a New York Daily News photographer.

But he’s also in two new films – the Woody Allen comedy “To Rome with Love,” and the new musical “Rock of Ages.”

And he’s been doing a Fresh Air-like gig of his own, hosting long form interviews with celebrities and newsmakers in a podcast series called “Here’s the Thing” for the New York public radio station WNYC.

He has plenty of interesting things to say in the interview, about working with Woody Allen, Russell Brand and Tom Cruise, and a bit about what a burden it is to be a public figure in New York as opposed to Los Angeles.

On tap tomorrow is writer Kevin Carey on why college tuition costs are through the roof and students are walking out of college with mountains of debt . He also has interesting things to report about changes in higher education he thinks will rock a lot of established colleges to their foundations.

I’ll also talk with chef Marcus Samuelsson, a fascinating guy who was born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, and now owns a one-of-a-kind restaurant in Harlem called the Red Rooster.

And I’ll talk with a veteran of the airline industry who is now a writer and consumer advocate for passengers named William McGee. His book is an explanation of why flying sucks these days, and a scary look at some new industry practices, like outsourcing airplane maintenance to foreign companies, some of whose workers who can’t read manuals for the equipment they’re working on.

You can catch Fresh Air at 3 and 7 on WHYY, 91FM. If you’re listening outside the Philadelphia area, find a station here.