20/20 aired their exclusive interview with Alec Baldwin last night, which we previewed. It was tough to watch at times. Baldwin is still really raw about what happened on the set of Rust in October, where he was handling what he thought was a “cold gun” (a gun without bullets) and he shot director Joel Souza and Halyna Hutchins as they were working out the blocking for a scene. He claims he didn’t pull the trigger, and the gun went off (firing a live round). In the hour-long interview, Baldwin went into greater detail about the things leading up to that moment. Some quotes from the interview:
He doesn’t know how a live bullet got in the gun: “Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property. Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me…. I don’t know what happened on that set. I don’t know how that bullet arrived in that gun. I don’t know. But I’m all for doing anything that will take us to a place where this is less likely to happen again.”
On Halyna Hutchins: “I loved working with this woman. She was a joy. Everyone loved her as a person. And everyone admired her talent.”
The First AD handed Baldwin the gun that day: During rehearsal, Baldwin said the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, handed him a revolver. Baldwin recalled Halls telling him, “This is a cold gun” – industry jargon for a weapon that is either literally empty or loaded with non-firing “dummy” rounds. “Now, what happened there, and why he made that statement, and what the realities were, I have, again, I have no idea.”
Halyna was directing him with the gun in the rehearsal: “This was a marking rehearsal. And [Hutchins] says to me, ‘Hold the gun lower. Go to your right. Okay, right there. All right, do that. Now show it a little bit lower.’ And she’s getting me to position the gun. She’s guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle. I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit.”
He swears he didn’t pull the trigger: “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger. I cock the gun. I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off. No, no, no, no, no [I didn’t pull the trigger]. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.”
He only learned what happened at the Sheriff’s office: “At the very end of my interview with the sheriff’s department … they said to me, ‘We regret to tell you that [Hutchins] didn’t make it.’ They told me right then and there.”
Whether armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed was up for the job: “I assumed because she was there and she was hired she was up for the job. I mean, I’m not a producer that hires the crew.”
How he handles prop guns: “In terms of the handling of the gun, that day I did exactly what I’ve done every day on that movie. The actor’s responsibility is to do what the prop armorer tells them to do. When that person who was charged with that job handed me the weapon, I trusted them… And I never had a problem, ever.”
On George Clooney saying that Baldwin should have checked the gun: “There were a lot of people who felt it necessary to contribute some comment to the situation, which really didn’t help the situation at all. If your protocol is you checking the gun every time, well, good for you. Good for you. My protocol was to trust the person that had the job. And it worked up until this point.”
Whether he feels guilt for Hutchins’ death: “No. no. I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible, and I don’t say that lightly. I have dreams about this constantly now. I go through my day, and I make it through the day. Then I collapse at the end of the day. Emotionally, I collapse.”
Whether he thinks his career is over: “I couldn’t give a s— about my career anymore,” he said. “Is it over?” Stephanopoulos asked. “Well, it could be,” Baldwin said.
What the Rust shooting exposed – and what Baldwin has exposed – is that every actor seemingly operates under different protocols and rules when they’re handed what they’re told is a cold weapon. Some actors (Clooney) check the weapon themselves. Some actors (Baldwin) trust that everybody is doing their job. Some actors expect the armorer or prop-master to demonstrate that the weapon is cold in front of them and the crew. What this exposed is that it was very easy for the worst case scenario to happen.
Baldwin clearly does feel guilt, because how could he not? Even if he can rationalize his tunnel-visioned negligence, a talented, passionate young woman is still dead, and a little boy will grow up without his mom. Baldwin said in the interview that as producer, he was merely concerned with creative – the script and the actors – and not the technical people. I believe him that he would have given up part of his own salary to ensure that the crew had better conditions as well, but honestly, there were red flags all over the set that things were being half-assed and someone could get hurt. That is more of Baldwin’s culpability, as opposed to what happened with the gun. It wasn’t murder and Baldwin genuinely had no idea he was handling a gun with live rounds. But he did know that the crew members had walked off the job because of the conditions.
ABC has the whole interview up on YouTube, broken into segments:
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, ABC.
This dude needs to stop talking. I need to ask – who is he trying to make things better for? Himself? I can’t imagine this benefits Halyna’s family or helps their grief. He sounds like a man who is worried that there might be consequences for himself (legal, civil, criminal, etc.) and is trying to get ahead of things by putting out this idea that the gun misfired.
It is still an active investigation. I have a very hard time believing the gun truly “misfired.” Depending on the weight of the trigger, he may have subtlety squeezed it without even realizing it. If his finger was even lightly on the trigger, that could happen. He also sounds like he’s leaning into this theory that somebody intentionally sabotaged the gun.
Like I said, it’s still an active investigation. Let law enforcement do their jobs and sort through things. I have no doubt he feels awful, but this interview does him no favors.
Yes, this interview makes me feel a whole lot LESS sympathy for him. And I may be wrong, but aren’t actors trained in gun safety to never point a gun directly at a person even when rehearsing? It’s supposed to be slightly off to the side away from people. So, despite not having pulled the trigger, Baldwin was unsafe in his handling of the weapon as an actor. And that’s separate from him being culpable in failing to maintain a safe work environment as an executive producer!
Basic gun safety dictates that unless you are actively preparing to fire the gun, your finger should NEVER be on the trigger – not even in the trigger guard. I would assume that any actor who is expected to handle a gun (or any weapon period) during filming would be subject to at least basic weapon safety training before shooting. I’d assume that SAG would mandate such a thing for its members’ protection. But maybe they don’t?
+1
So many people do not follow the basic gun safety rule of keeping your finger off the trigger. Not even law enforcement these days.
I agree. I initially held some sympathy for him, but the more he talks, the more he deflects, the more he tries to minimize his role as producer, the more I believe he is culpable – not of murder, but at least of negligent homocide or something.
He needs to stop talking. But then again, Baldwin has never been very smart about when to stop talking.
I suspect he’s been advised legally to never say he feels guilty. And honestly he really shouldn’t be saying he feels “guilty” but that doesn’t mean he should announce to the world that he doesn’t feel guilty. What kind of human doesn’t feel guilty about their involvement in a tragedy even if they had no responsibility? That’s just a normal human response and the reason the psychotherapy industry is so widespread and lucrative.
Yes, I think legal considerations conditioned his response. It’s unfortunate that that comment is making headlines around the world, though, as it’s apparent that he DOES feel deep remorse.
Personally, if there is a qualified “armorer” on set, I think it’s reasonable for an actor to relax and follow direction, as Baldwin did.
I have read elsewhere that Alec Baldwin thinks police officers should be on set when weapons are handled and teach actors about gun safety. That is the Armorer’s job. Alec then snarks about Clooney saying he always checks on-set weapons to be sure they’re cold. Alec can be as snarky as he wants to but the fact remains that Halyna Hutchins is dead and would not be had Alec checked the gun. Funny that he seems to think that taking a minute to check a potentially deadly weapon for safety is not his responsibility. I might have bought that argument before, that he should be able to trust his crew, but a woman is dead now and she shouldn’t be. Safety is everyone’s job, Alec.
That being said, ultimately this falls on the Armorer as I see it but I wasn’t there.
“Safety is everyone’s job.” Well said. The amount of deflecting he’s doing is really alarming. Especially because something tells me he’s not the type to just let someone do their job if he had any issues. Except in this case, of course. How very convenient for him.
That is the mantra at my job. I’m in marketing for my company, but safety is still a part of our core values. Feels weird sometimes to do a safety moment in board meetings, but it’s to instill it in our culture the awareness. I work in manufacturing.
And with something an inherently unsafe as a gun (that are meant to injure/kill people and things), even with a “prop,” I would think everyone would want to ensure safety and quadruple check.
I’m not a fan of his, but I genuinely believe he’s not deflecting. He’s been doing this for 30 or 40 years, he has trusted the crew to their job on all the films and nothing has happened, then this. I think that he trusted the people in their job to do their job. I’d say frankly that I would have just trusted the person who handed me the gun to know what they’re talking about because I don’t have and do NOT want to have any knowledge of a gun whatsoever.
I’m a fan of Clooney’s (not so much of Baldwin’s), but I 100% agree that George Clooney’s commentary was eminently UNhelpful. Look, not only is George Clooney much smarter and more capable than the average actor, but he’s also directed eight (EIGHT!) movies — including a war movie and a spy movie — so yes, prop gun safety really IS in George Clooney’s wheelhouse, thus he is knowledgeable enough to do a final check of the cylinder himself. This is NOT the norm for an actor. I don’t think Clooney meant to say that it WAS the norm! Just that it’s a thing he does because he respects that even prop guns can be super dangerous!
If I were an actress, I’d be Alec, not Clooney. I don’t know ANYTHING about guns so I’d heavily rely on others to make the situation safe.
You’d pull the trigger of a gun, that’s pointed at a coworker, just based on someone’s word? Yikes. I sure wouldn’t. I too know absolutely nothing about guns, but I’d at the VERY least need to see someone check the gun with me watching, to make sure there are no bullets in it.
If Alec had had to point the gun at his own head, you can guarantee he would’ve checked the gun.
Completely disagree because ultimately it’s your job to make sure something you are using is safe.
Most actors/actresses, who do action movies, do their own checks. People like Keanu Reeves, Jason Statham, Angelina Jolie etc are known to be extra safe with it comes to guns.
I would rather be a Clooney than Baldwin in this situation.
No – if you are handling a weapon, you have a duty of care to the people around you. Period. End of story. Don’t know anything about guns? There are competent, licensed weapons instructors would will help you learn. There is never an excuse to wield a weapon, especially a gun, without knowing anything about it.
I suppose it comes down to what the written rule is (if there is a written rule). Was he legally obligated to check the gun himself or does the armorer hold full legal responsibility for the safety of the weapon on a film set?
Given that different actors have their own habits, I suspect responsibility lies with the armorer, but idk.
It doesn’t matter what you know right now. If you’re supposed to be handling by a gun, you should be trained on gun safety. So you would then have no excuse for not knowing because you would have been trained and would know.
I was thinking the same. I’m not a fan of guns, afraid of them. If I was an actor I wouldn’t be checking either, have as little contact as possible.
I think he can say he didn’t pull the trigger because the police investigation have proven that.
The person who put the bullet in the gun is the guilty party.
No, I’d be a Clooney. The Baldwin way didn’t work.
If I’m holding something potentially lethal in my hands, then I’m making sure it’s safe.
If you were an actress and your role required you to ride a horse, you would just jump on the horse without training, relying heavily on others to make the situation safe?
If you were and actress and your role required you to pole dance, you would just jump on the pole without training, relying heavily on others to make the situation safe?
If you were an actress and your role required you to perform a fight sequence, you would just film the fight scene without training, relying heavily on others to make the situation safe?
What kind of logic is this? Is this Hilary–I’m sorry–Hilaria Baldwin?
Nanny, actors are saying that the established procedure is that the actor also checks the gun when it is handed to them. There is a reason we have not heard of a repeat of the Brandon Lee accident in all these years of Hollywood movie production until now. Baldwin screwed up big time.
If I was an actor I would have no clue whatsoever on how to check a gun, I would trust the experts to do that and know their job. If actors are suppose to know how to check the gun and are expected to do so, then I would hope they received the necessary training and licenses to do so before handing the weapon on set.
Yeah, that’s actually what I said to my husband — would we expect someone like Megan Fox to stop and check the cylinder of a prop gun before filming?? Did Bryan Cranston have to check his own gun?? Because I feel like Bryan Cranston was surrounded by MANY people making sure Bryan Cranston didn’t shoot anyone. I think there ARE action stars who are capable of a self-check, but people who have been acting their entire lives? Soft skills only.
This whole interview was a prime example of Prince Andrew syndrome. I think a lot more people are much less sympathetic this morning than previously.
I was never especially sympathetic so I feel vindicated. When my SO was like “Alec Baldwin killed someone,” my immediate response was “that was inevitable.” When I actually read the news, I realized he hadn’t killed someone. He’s not responsible for that bullet. I really don’t think so. As a producer he has some culpability, but I was willing to let him grieve in private and not criticize his decision to disappear and take the time he needed to recover from this. Only, he hasn’t done that. He’s begging for our absolution, but what specifically has he done to earn it?
Absolutely, this sounds AWFUL.
Any feeling human being, even though this was a complete accident by all indications, would feel tremendous guilt at the loss of life.
Alec sounds like a disconnected, cold monster claiming he doesn’t feel guilt.
(Not to even mention this interview was far too soon after and makes it look like he’s centering this tragedy on himself and not the woman killed.)
I could see how he might not feel the dictionary definition of guilt, and still feel utterly terrible about it. I also think he needs to stop speaking about it because hearing about it is probably not great for Halyna’s family. It is such a complicated situation and no matter where the ultimate blame lies, a woman is still dead. I still can’t see the need for real guns in filming- they are ACTORS so why can’t they ACT like a gun was fired? This was completely unnecessary loss of life.
I get what you’re saying about Alec feeling devastated vs feeling guilty. It’s a distinction that is obviously important to him from a legal standpoint and, I imagine, to keep himself from mentally losing it. Just looking at him you can tell he’s haunted by the experience. He accidentally killed someone and has to live with that fact for the rest of his life. We’ll see if he gets charged. Meanwhile, Halyna’s family is still reeling from their unfathomable loss. This is all so tragic.
All this BS he’s spewing (and that’s all it is), is to try to get it in the public’s head that it wasn’t his fault, to taint the jury pool. What a narcissistic POS he is. His lies aren’t even remotely believable. The interview was all about “poor, poor him”. He doesn’t care at all about Halyna’s death and has made that very clear with his statement that he feels no guilt and with the way he & his crazy fraud of a wife have been posting boastful, taunting Instagram posts since right after the shooting. He cares only about himself. I hope the Hutchins family takes every cent he has.
I’ve been saying this since those parking lot paparazzi photos were “leaked” and I’m glad more and more people are seeing through the PR.
Alec Baldwin is a piece of sh!t, he always has been . I think when something tragic like this happens people tend to forget the past. Alec has always been obnoxious, and angry and just generally unpleasant. This interview does him no favors but to remind me of how much I’ve always disliked him.
I agree. And I felt like he was kind of blaming the victim. “she told me to hold the gun here; she guided me; I’m holding the gun where she told me..”
Personally, I think that’s harsh. External judgement can make suffering much worse, in my experience & I think he’s living through a tragedy right now.
Halyna’s bereaved husband and son are the ones living through a tragedy right now, one caused directly by the act of Alec Baldwin (even if really it was totally ignorantly / unintentionally). It is inappropriate that AB is now trying to shift the spotlight to how HE feels. I have no doubt he’s fully horrified and shocked, well, why not take this time to grieve and heal privately and try to help the family you devastated? (Again, even if a total accident, take ownership for your own negligence / mistakes.) Why does he need a “feel sorry for ME” tour? It’s gross. All we needed was a brief statement about how horrified and deeply sorrowful he is, and that he is taking time to grieve and heal and try to help the family. Done. Instead we get this?
What this interview suggests to me is he is worried about a lawsuit, more specifically, of LOSING a lawsuit brought against him for negligence / wrongful death.
Ugh what a horrible situation. (He doesn’t intend to accept any responsibility. So this is just going to be a nightmare and he will fight tooth and nail against having to admit he did anything wrong. So callous, really.)
Baldwin says in the interview, “No, no. Someone is responsible, and I know it’s not me.” Then he said if he HAD felt in any way responsible, he would’ve killed himself. My dislike of Baldwin is intense — he’s a bloviating, walking id, incurious, self-aggrandizing, deeply unpleasant — but he’s right, he isn’t in any way culpable. Liable, perhaps (he actually sounds open to that). Shame, sure. Grieving, probably. He’s definitely very angry that someone screwed up his last big chance at reinvention. He isn’t trying to “taint the juror pool”; he wants to learn who is responsible for putting a live round into a replica gun so that his memory can be vindicated.
i don’t think different actors can just make up their own rules regarding gun safety on set. I think that’s what Baldwin wants you to think here but I listened to that podcast episode with Clooney and he flat out says there is a certain industry approved way to do things on set and a lot of the things he was hearing re: Rust made no sense to him as someone who’d been on set for 40 years. This is also borne out by the union members on the crew walking out due to on set lapses. Baldwin is spinning here and I’d say it’s probably against the pending lawsuit. Look at his language – he’s not responsible for the gun, he’s not responsible for hiring the people who check the gun, he’s not responsible for the protocol, he’s not responsible for the gun firing, he’s not responsible period. Definitely feeling less sympathy for him right now.
@Des – Amen! Every word you wrote was spot on. Also, feeling less sympathy for him than I did in the beginning. He may live to regret this interview.
This is a whole lot of shirking responsibility as a producer, an actor, a coworker, and a human being. A woman died and a child doesn’t have a mother because of this, Alec. You ARE responsible no matter how you slice it. This cover your ass interview tells me exactly who you are.
Alec Baldwin has been a hot headed,mean,verbally abusive jerk for as long as I can remember.I don’t think he intentionally killed this lovely young woman;obviously it was an accident,but one that could have been prevented if he would have checked the damn gun.
Now he’s out talking and I don’t think what he’s saying is helping himself to look any better and Lord knows it’s not going to bring a young woman who was also a wife and mother back.
Again I don’t think he meant to do this but his past jackass behavior does make people think differently about him,and what I hear is a lot of Alec being just as sorry for himself as he says he is for Halyna and her family.
I pray her family can start to heal from this most senseless tragedy.
All of this. Of course, it was an accident. However, his PR campaign, which is what this feels like, is failing miserably. Alec’s head is too far up his ass to realize he has no accumulated good will to get people on his side. Playing the victim is not going to work.
Agree. Agree. Agree.
Completely agree. I have no doubt he never intended to harm Halyna and is crushed and devastated. With that said — this interview is all kinds of twisted.
He has an incessant need for attention and validation, as does his wife. He does sound gutted about what happened, and also a bit delusional. He is clearly trying to get his story out there and “prove” he’s not guilty. Will have to see how it all plays out.
Gutted and a bit delusional sums it up.
You should never trust anyone handing you a gun. You always check it yourself.
What if you don’t know what to look for? I’ve never handled a gun in my life. I don’t know what counts as safe, and unsafe, and frankly, it’d take me years and years of handling guns on a fairly regular basis for me to even feel close to comfortable with that sort of thing, if the responsibility of checking these things falls onto me. So if I have to check the gun myself, I can do that. But would I trust my own judgement? No, likely not.
And how would I know if I put everything back together the same way the armourer and prop master did to keep it safe in the first place? What if I opened it to check, then in my experience, I do something wrong that then causes an accident as a result of my inexperience?
I can say, well, I just won’t work on shows or movies where I need to handle prop guns. But does the industry allow anyone that much leeway, unless they’re big stars?
Not everyone is an expert in everything, and that’s fine. My responsibility as far as guns are concerned is that I don’t go near them, don’t own them, and do not handle them, bc I don’t know anything about them. If the case is that individuals in a similar position to me also can’t trust experts on this to do their due diligence bc that’s not sufficient enough, then that’s perfectly fine and valid as a safety precaution–but that means that I won’t be touching the things. I simply don’t have the knowledge to ensure that I’m keeping myself or anyone safe by doing that type of check. If I were an actor, and this were required of me, that would mean I wouldn’t do this job. Are people prepared for that? Is the industry prepared for that? You can argue that they should be, and I’d say that’s perfectly valid as a position, but, it comes with consequences too. I’d argue that that’s a fine trade off to have only actors trained and experienced with firearms to be in roles where they might need to use them as props, if it means keeping people safe. But that is the trade off.
I just watched it and it was intresting the way he tried to deflect on to the 2 people that filed lawsuits before the husband. It was very…look at them they are the bad guys not me! The Baldwins will never change and never take responsibility.
So much deflection throughout the hour. Also, I found this very odd? The gun you are holding goes off (?) and two people immediately fall to the ground- one presumably screaming – and the other quiet. Why would you not run to them? Makes no sense. If I was within eye contact of someone falling and “fainting” – you bet I’d run over to them to see what’s going on.
Well, if his career wasn’t “over” before, well this interview, as far as I am concerned, helps seal the coffin.
From the news pieces I have read lately, which it should be said have come out since this interview was taped, show even more under-bus-throwing, more carelessness, more deflection making Halyna’s death fade even more into the background.
At this point, it looks like everyone has a part in this tragedy, and owning up to it off camera, privately is the only look I want to see. Alec does himself no favours acting like he’s some prop himself in the movie, like all he did was do what everyone around him was telling him to do, and that’s he’s some innocent object with no autonomy or say in what was happening.
I hope it comes out in the investigation that the problem on this set was: careless procurement and maintenance of weaponry and ammunition. No oversight and protocol that is standard for the industry was followed. The gun was loaded with “dummy” bullets for no reason, it wasn’t critical to the scene which was in rehearsal. The AD should have checked, seen bullets, ordered them removed. Or finally, Baldwin should have checked regardless of what the AD said, saw bullets asked them to be removed. If the gun was going to be cocked, even in rehearsal, or pointed in an area filled with people, it should have been empty.
To me, if any of those issues had been dealt with properly, Halyna would be alive.
But then again, this is armchair postulating. I don’t know anything about how movies with guns work. But I am learning more every day. If Brandon’s death didn’t teach the industry that zero ammo should be on set (live or not) than please for godssake let Halyna’s death not be in vain.
Is Hillaria in charge of his PR? This interview makes him look ignorant & amateurish.
At any other job, supervisors are required to give weekly meetings, paperwork, and videos about safety in the workplace(exits, emergency situations, behavior around equipment). Many workplaces even give bonuses when there are accident free periods. For him to keep insisting that it wasn’t his job to check the gun is wrong because in the end he was one of the producers of the movie and should have known better. He needs to stop trying to shift the blame. So they think that they can make this go away by putting the blame on those who work under him. He needs to shut up and take responsibility. These interviews are not helping the families of Souza and Hutchins.
This interview just keeps getting worse because these lines are going to come back to haunt him:
“No. no. I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible, and I don’t say that lightly. ”
” And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off.”
“My protocol was to trust the person that had the job. And it worked up until this point.”
1. What kind of narcissist do you have to be to tie up your lawyer and decide that *you* know best? That everyone would agree with you once they just heard it from *your* lips? Listen to your lawyer, jackass.
2. He’s done so many Trump imitations that, combined with the whole incessant deflection of responsibility in his interview, I kept having flashbacks and nausea.
Do ppl generally not know that releasing the hammer causes the gun to fire? The only way for it not to is if you gently, carefully, ease it forward. Just releasing the hammer will cause it to fire just like pulling the trigger.
ignorance about firearms is part of what makes them so gd dangerous.
I don’t know that. Hell, I don’t know what a hammer on a firearm even is. So you’re absolutely right–the ignorance and sheer lack of knowledge about firearms is so fatal.
It hasn’t been established that the gun went off without him pulling the trigger. Tests must be done on the gun. And in that trauma, would he clearly remember that he did NOT pull the trigger? How? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Wonder what gives him that very lucid period of memory in a chaotic situation. Also, not to be too cynical, the bags under his eyes could have been prosthetics put on by a professional make-up person. He can show he feels guilt by those sleepless nights indicated by the bags , but say on record he feels no guilt and is thus not guilty of anything. I’d NEVER point a gun at a person no matter who says it’s okay. That is a classic way in which people get killed, as this, once again, proves.
What I was always taught about guns (including toy guns) is never aim it at anyone unless you intend to shoot them. I still don’t understand why they need blanks on a film set when CGI can create entire characters, let alone a little smoke with a recoil. Baldwin didn’t act alone, but he bears some responsibility for the general negilence that we’re hearing about. He was a producer, getting a fat paycheck while people were on strike.