Alec Baldwin is Santa Claus in Rise of the Guardians

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin (North) began his prolific career in television, appearing in series such as “Hotel” and “Knot’s Landing” before seguing to roles on Broadway and in film.

In 2004, Baldwin received an Academy Award for his role in “The Cooler.” In 2008, he lent his voice to the DreamWorks Animation feature “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”

According to Billy Joyce’s books, North, better known as Santa Claus, is the de facto leader of the Guardians – but it is the Man in the Moon, “the wise watcher of the world,” Ramsey says, who chose him many centuries ago. “When the Man in the Moon decided a group of special people was needed to protect Earth’s children from Pitch, the first guy he found was Nicholas St. North,” says Joyce, who envisioned North as a sword-wielding Cossack in his early days, “the wildest young warrior and thief in all of Russia,” until his mission in life changed to become a protector of children.

For the film, everyone agreed that North, with his booming voice, blustering, uncompromising attitude and “naughty” and “nice” tattoos emblazed on his forearms, was a boisterous, larger-than-life character that needed to be played by a larger-than life actor. Who better than Oscar nominee Alec Baldwin?

Arthur Christmas Opens on December 7

Imagine a city under a starlit sky. It’s Christmas Eve, and the children are nestled in their beds, dreaming of Santa on his sleigh pulled by eight beautiful reindeer. Suddenly, a shadow comes over the city. A million pinpricks of light. A million figures descend. The invasion has begun and there’s not a jingle bell to be heard…

…but don’t panic. This is how Santa gets the job done every Christmas: with a huge, mile-wide, state-of-the-art sleigh with stealth cloaking technology, and a million elves, working in precision teams of three, who have 18.14 seconds to get into each house, deliver the presents, and move on to the next one.

Santa Claus is coming to town, but this time, he’s not coming down the chimney.

“They have all the technology in the world and no expense is spared,” says Sarah Smith, who directs and co-wrote “Arthur Christmas,” the new 3D, CG-animated film from Aardman Animation for Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures. “This movie reveals what their equipment looks like and how they do it.”