Tearful Alec Baldwin Says ‘I Didn’t Pull the Trigger’ In First Interview Since Fatal Shooting

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Alec Baldwin says he did not pull the trigger on the gun that accidently killed his colleague and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his latest film ‘Rust’ earlier this year in October 2021.

Hutchins (42), was killed, and director Joel Souza (48) was injured when the gun which Baldwin was holding discharged during rehearsals for the western film on a ranch outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The filming fatality has sent shockwaves throughout Hollywood and has forced an overall of the use of guns and weapons of weapons on set and cutting corners on production safety.

 

Alec Baldwin’s First Interview Since The Tragedy

In a promo released ahead of Baldwin’s first interview (with ABC News) since the tragedy, George Stephanopoulos is shown asking Baldwin to confirm that it wasn’t in the script for the trigger to be pulled. “Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin says. Stephanopoulos confirms:

“So you never pulled the trigger?” to which Baldwin answers, “No, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never.”

Stephanopoulos, appearing on Wednesday morning on Good Morning America, described the 80-minute interview as both “raw” and “intense”. He described Baldwin, 63, as being “devastated” yet “very candid” and “forthcoming”.

The actor “answered every question” and discussed Hutchins, meeting with her family, and his account of what happened on set that day. “I have to tell you, I was surprised in many places over the course of that hour and 20 minutes we sat down yesterday,” Stephanopoulos said.

 

“I’ve done thousands of interviews in the last 20 years at ABC,” he said. “This was the most intense I’ve ever experienced.”

The Latest Updates On The Case

The Sante Fe county police force is investigating the shooting, largely focusing on how live rounds, which were banned on set, came to be in the gun held by Baldwin.

According to reports, Baldwin believed the gun was empty. He had been handed the gun by assistant director Dave Halls, who allegedly shouted “cold gun” as he handed it over. Weapons on set, including the gun given to Hall, were handled by 24-year-old Hannah Gutierrez Reed, an armourer who was juggling her second ever position handling weapons with the job of key props assistant.

Asked how he thinks a live bullet found it’s way in the gun, which was supposed to be loaded with blanks or dummy rounds, Baldwin stated that he had “no idea”.

Baldwin also answered Stephanopoulos unequivocally that the accidental shooting was the worst thing that’s ever happened to him: “Yep … yeah, because I think back and I think of ‘what could I have done? Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”

In tears, Baldwin said of the cinematographer, “she was someone who was loved by everyone who worked with her, and liked by everyone who worked with her, and admired… I mean, even now I find it hard to believe. It doesn’t seem real to me.”

An attorney for Dave Hall stated on Thursday morning that her client has maintained that Baldwin did not pull the trigger, and thinks the accident was a “misfire”.

“The entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard, parallel to the barrel,” Halls’s attorney, Lisa Torraco, told Good Morning America’s new anchor Kaylee Hartung.

“Hall’s told me since day one he thought it was a misfire.” According to an affidavit for a search warrant which was filed by the sheriff’s office on the 22nd of October 2021, Halls told investigators that he did not that there were live rounds in the gun prior to him giving the gun to Baldwin.

Newly released court documents included a search warrant for the premises of a local supplier of ammunition and movie props in New Mexico. The supplier told police he suspected that the live bullets found on the set may have been “reloaded ammunition” that he got previously from a friend. “Reloaded ammunition” is made up of recycled components, including bullets.

An attorney for Gutierrez Reed stated that the week following the shooting, the armorer had “no idea” how live rounds found themselves on the set, and blamed producers of the film for an “unsafe” workplace.

Police investigating the tragedy are looking into whether recycled live ammunition may have made its way into a stash of dummy bullets used for the production on a film set in New Mexico.

Industry experts have said live rounds should never be on set.