LOS ANGELES - Alec Baldwin says he doesn’t believe he or anyone else will face criminal charges in the fatal shooting last year on the “Rust” movie set -- a tragic episode he says “has taken years off” his life and has cost him professionally. Prosecutors awaiting the investigative report from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s office will weigh evidence in the October 21, 2021 shooting on the film’s Old West set outside Santa Fe, New Mexico to determine whether to pursue charges. Baldwin and crew members were rehearsing a scene in a rustic church when a prop gun in the actor’s hand discharged, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Investigations into the tragedy have focused on how a live round of ammunition ended up on a movie set. In his interview with CNN, Baldwin placed responsibility for the tragedy on Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who served as the armorer and props assistant on the film, and assistant director Dave Halls, who handed him the gun. Through their respective attorneys, both Gutierrez Reed and Halls accused Baldwin of deflecting blame onto others. “Someone put a live bullet in the gun who should have known better,” Baldwin said. “That was Gutierrez Reed’s job. Her job was to look at the ammunition and put in the dummy round or the blank round, and there wasn’t supposed to be any live rounds on the set. “There are two people who didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” he added. “I’m not sitting there saying I want them to, you know, go to prison, or I want their lives to be hell.
0I don’t want that, but I want everybody to know that those are the two people that are responsible for what happened.”