Hollywood star Alec Baldwin held the prop that killed film photographer Halyna Hutchins. Now he claims that he is not responsible for what happened.
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On October 21, superstar Alec Baldwin ended up in an unreal drama when he fired a props weapon that should not have been loaded.
The shot took the life of film photographer Halyna Hutchins (42) and injured the director of the western film «Rust». In a emergency call said a man on the set to police that they had “one lying down” before Hutchins was transported away by helicopter.
In an interview with news anchor George Stephanopolous on ABC News, which is broadcast on Friday night, Baldwin now says that he assumed that the weapon was not loaded.
– Do you feel guilty? asks Stephanopolous.
– No. No. I might have killed myself even if I thought I was responsible, and I do not say that easily, Baldwin answers, who still takes the accident seriously:
– I have dreams about this constantly. I get through the day, I also collapse at the end of the day. Emotionally, I collapse.
–– Someone loaded a weapon with a sharp bullet, which should not even have been in the area. Someone is responsible for what happened, and I have no idea who who. But I know it’s not me, says Baldwin.
And that is the question of how the bullet ended up in the weapon he thinks must be answered now:
– I have no idea what happened on the set. I have no idea how the bullet ended up in that weapon. I do not know.
Furthermore, he describes it as painful to think that someone loaded his weapon with sharp ammunition, but that it was “far from reality” that it could have happened. He also says that it is not an actor’s responsibility to check and secure the weapons on the set.
Had “revelation” that morning
In the interview, which ABC has given the title “Alec Baldwin Unscripted” (ie without a script), the actor star also tells about the hours before the shot went off.
He was sitting on the pew, in the church that was part of the set on “Rust”, when it dawned on him:
– I said: “This film has made me love making films again”. “I really thought we were on the trail of something,” Baldwin told Stephanopolous.
– This weapon also goes off, he adds.
Baldwin has once before spoken in front of the camera about what happened on the set. Then he stood on the side of the road, pursued by paparazzi:
– The trigger was not pulled off
In a taster from the interview, it was previously known that Baldwin claims he never withdrew the trigger on the weapon.
– The trigger was not pulled off. I did not pull out the weapon, he said in a taste of the interview, which the channel published on Wednesday Twitter.
In the one-hour interview that is broadcast on ABC on Thursday night, he elaborates on this. He explains that the weapon was fired when he lifted the cock on the revolver, when they were rehearsing on a stage in the western film.
During the emergency call to the emergency services, one could hear the operations manager ask if the weapon was loaded:
The cock is the hammer that sits on the back of the revolver. It is triggered by the trigger when firing.
– I would never point to anyone with a weapon and pulled off, never, Baldwin says in the interview. He explains that the reason he aimed at Hutchins in the first place was because she instructed him to do so – so she could get the pictures she needed.
Baldwin: Was not familiar with security issues
Previously, among other things LA Times interviewed trade unionized, anonymised sources, who are said to have been part of the film team that worked on the film «Rust».
The conflicts must have simmered in the days before the accident, due to poor working conditions. This is said to have involved long working days and complaints about wages.
The source claimed that the production took shortcuts to be able to continue filming.
– There was a problem during the firing of the weapon twice on Saturday and once last week, the source told the newspaper and added that there was a lack of safety meetings on the set.
–Investigators have also described the safety of the set as “somewhat loose”, without concluding that any charges will be brought for this. But both Baldwin and others in the production have been sued by two colleagues from the “Rust” team.
In the interview with ABC, Alec Baldwin says that he was never aware of any such concerns. He says he was only aware of dissatisfaction with the hotel rooms the employees had been allocated.
He has previously passed on defense of the safety of the set on Instagram, and even called for stricter security measures when using weapons on film sets – among other things he proposed demands to the police on film sets.
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