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Actor Alec Baldwin says he speaks to police every day, but he hasn’t said much publicly about the tragic incident that killed Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rust.”
Baldwin told photographers that he has been asked not to speak about the incident as investigators are still trying to determine what happened and if any criminal charges will be filed.
With the few comments made thus far, Fox News reports that there are clear discrepancies emerging among crew members and producers like Alec Baldwin regarding the incident.
In comments on social media, Baldwin has seemingly denied culpability on behalf of the production for an allegedly rushed and corner-cutting set.
On the other hand, Baldwin also seems to agree with those who believe assistant director Dave Halls is responsible for the incident.
Halls and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed were two of the few people who handled the gun prior to Baldwin discharging a real bullet that killed Hutchines.
Baldwin even retweeted an article that was critical of Halls’ handling of the gun.
The article said Halls did not inspect the ammunition that was inside of it properly.
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Halls’ attorney, Lisa Torraco, joined Fox News’ Martha MacCallum for an interview on “The Story” where she addressed the inspection of the gun and couldn’t seem to lock down her client’s culpability.
“This idea my client grabbed the gun and handed it to Baldwin absolutely did not happen,” she said but later backtracked and dodged questions about whether Halls handed the gun to Baldwin, despite McCallum asking whether Halls “doesn’t know if he handed the gun to Alec Baldwin.”
While Halls was allegedly one of the last people to handle the gun before it went off and was indeed tasked with checking it prior to giving it to the actor, some believe that Gutierrez Reed may have dropped the ball as well. Her attorneys noted during an interview on the “Today” show Wednesday that she loaded the gun from a box of ammunition that was supposed to only contain dummy rounds. Somehow, neither she nor Halls realized live rounds had been mixed in.
“Rust” was only the second movie that Gutierrez Reed, 24, had worked on as the sole armorer, thus calling her abilities into question. Her attorneys noted that she was also brought onto the film as an assistant prop master, spreading her even thinner when it came to doing her due diligence on the allegedly rushed production. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, veteran armorer Neal W. Zoromski noted that he turned down the job of armorer on “Rust” because he was asked to do both jobs as well and decided it was not a good idea.
On Tuesday evening, Baldwin took to Instagram, where he shared a Facebook comment from costume professional Terese Davis, who worked on the set of “Rust” with him. In it, she defended Gutierrez Reed’s abilities but noted that she was indeed a novice.
Davis said the armorer “had apprenticed to a well-known armorer and had been in the same position on the same type of movie a few months before.”
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The crew member admitted that Gutierrez-Reed isn’t “the most experienced person” but insisted that her qualifications were “typical” for their production.
“We all had a first and second job at one point or another,” she said. “How do you suggest producers and UPMa sort out the people worth giving that show to from the people who just look good on their resume and have great references? Because Hannah had both.”
