Husband of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins says he felt ‘so angry’ seeing Alec Baldwin describe killing her on set and then fail to ‘accept any responsibility’
- Matt Hutchins’s wife Halyna, 42, was shot and killed on the set of Alec Baldwin’s Western film Rust on October 21
- Baldwin, believing the antique Colt .45 revolver was not loaded, was rehearsing a scene and shot the cinematographer
- The 63-year-old actor said in a televised interview in December: ‘Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me’
- Hutchins told Today, in an interview to air in full on Thursday, that he was angered by Baldwin’s failure to take responsibility
- ‘I was just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly … and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described killing her,’ he said
- Hutchins filed a wrongful death law suit against Baldwin and others on February 15
The husband of the cinematographer shot and killed by Alec Baldwin on the set of his Western has told of his shock and anger at Baldwin’s failure to take responsibility for her death.
Halyna Hutchins 42, died on October 21 when a prop gun used in the film Rust fired, shooting Hutchins in the chest.
Baldwin, 63, was told the gun he brandished was ‘cold’ – not loaded – and on December 3 he told ABC News that he did not feel guilty for her death, because he did not believe he was responsible.
‘Watching him I just felt so angry,’ said Matt Hutchins, Halyna’s husband of 16 years.
‘I was just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly in such a detailed way and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described killing her.’
Matt Hutchins, husband of Halyna Hutchins and father of their nine-year-old son Aldous, spoke to Hoda Kotb for an interview to be aired on Thursday
Halyna Hutchins, 42, was shot and killed on set on October 21
Halyna Hutchins is seen on set with Alec Baldwin, who also executive produced the film Rust
Alec Baldwin is seen on Wednesday in New York City with two of his children
Baldwin, seen on Wednesday, angered Hutchins with his claim that he felt no guilt for his wife’s death
Hutchins, a Harvard-educated lawyer, told Today in an interview to be broadcast in full on Thursday that he felt the majority of the blame lay with Baldwin.
Baldwin, in the December interview, said: ‘Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me.’
Hutchins said: ‘The idea that the person holding the gun and causing it to discharge is not responsible is absurd to me.
‘But gun safety was not the only problem on that set. There were a number of industry standards that were not practiced and there’s multiple responsible parties,’ he added.
Hutchins, who has a nine-year-old son with his late wife, Aldous, filed a wrongful death suit against Baldwin on February 15.
Brian Panish, representing Baldwin, said the Oscar-nominated actor and others are named defendants ‘responsible for the safety on the set and whose reckless behavior in cost cutting led to the senseless and tragic death of Halyna Hutchins.’
The suit also names the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 24, who has said that she loaded the antique Colt .45 revolver with what she believed were dummy rounds.
Gutierrez-Reed named crew member Seth Kenney, who supplied ammunition to the set, in her own suit, filed in January.
Gutierrez-Reed gave the gun to Dave Halls, an assistant director on the movie, who is also named in the Hutchins family’s lawsuit.
The set of Rust, at the Bonanza Creek Ranch outside of Santa Fe
She was shot just moments after the crew entered a church set to rehearse a scene (above)
Halls told Baldwin the gun was ‘cold’.
Gutierrez-Reed, in her suit, described the set of Rust as a ‘rushed and chaotic atmosphere, (that) created a perfect storm for a safety incident.’
NBC News reported that ‘multiple previous misfires’ by the same prop gun that killed Hutchins caused multiple crew members to walk off the movie’s set hours before the incident.
Lane Luper, who served as the film’s A-camera first assistant, said he quit one day before the fatal shooting because employees were being overworked, COVID-safety was not being enforced properly, and gun safety was poor.
‘I think with Rust, it was the perfect storm of the armorer, the assistant director, the culture that was on set, the rushing. It was everything,’ he told Good Morning America about the events that led up to the fatal shooting.
‘It wasn’t just one individual. Everything had to fall into place for this one-in-a-trillion thing to happen.’
In his letter of resignation, Luper said there had been two accidental weapon discharges on set and one accidental sound-effects explosion that went off around the crew.
‘There have been NO explanations as to what to expect for these shots. When anyone from production is asked we are usually met with the same answers about not having enough time to complete the day if we rehearse or that “this is a 21 day shoot,”‘ Luper wrote in the letter.
He added that the crew grew exhausted of the long commutes from the set to their lodging, which for some more than two hours away.
‘In my 10 years as a camera assistant I’ve never worked on a show that cares so little for the safety of its crew,’ Luper said.
In a statement to Sky News, a spokesperson for the producers hit back at his claims, saying: ‘Mr Luper’s allegations around budget and safety are patently false, which is not surprising considering his job was to be a camera operator, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it or knowledge of safety protocols or budgets.
‘As we continue to cooperate with all investigations, we are limited in what we can say,’ the spokesperson continued.
‘However, safety is always the number one priority.’
Baldwin insisted that he was unaware of any problems on set.
He was rehearsing a scene in which he pulls out his gun and, in an interview with ABC on December 2, said that he never pulled the trigger, but the gun went off anyway.
Hutchins, a 42-year-old cinematographer, was shot and killed. The director of the film, Joel Souza, was shot in the shoulder and survived.
It is unclear why it has taken so long for New Mexico police to seize Baldwin’s phone.
The actor has insisted that he has fully cooperated with the investigation.
Baldwin on December 2 gave an emotional interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, in which he said he did not pull the trigger, and felt no guilt because he believed he had done nothing wrong.
Alec Baldwin, 63, spoke to George Stephanopoulos for an interview which aired on December 2
‘I let go of the hammer, bang. The gun goes off. Everyone is horrified. They’re shocked. It’s loud,’ he said.
He told Stephanopoulos that he didn’t know she’d died until hours later, at the end of his police interview when he was photographed in the sheriff’s parking lot in Santa Fe.
He said that he has been told by people ‘in the know’ that it is ‘highly unlikely’ he’ll face criminal charges.
‘Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who it is, but it’s not me,’ Baldwin told Stephanopoulos.
‘Honest to God, if I thought I was responsible I might have killed myself. And I don’t say that lightly.’
He also took a swipe at former President Donald Trump, his media foe who he impersonated on Saturday Night Live, for suggesting that he ‘loaded the gun himself.’
‘He said that I did it deliberately. Just when you think things can’t get any more surreal, here’s the president of the United States making a comment on this tragic situation.’
Baldwin described in detail for the first time the immediate aftermath of the accident on October 21.
He was filming a scene inside a church on the set of the movie when the gun was handed to him.
‘She’s getting me to position the gun – everything is at her direction. I draw the gun, to her marker. I’m not shooting to the camera lens, I’m shooting just off. In her direction. This was a completely incidental shot, that may not have ended up in the film.’
Baldwin says he cocked the gun, and was discussing with Hutchins how it looked on camera.
‘I’m just showing. I go, ‘How ’bout that? Does that work? You see that? Do you see that?’ And then she goes, “Yeah, that’s good.”
‘I let go of the hammer, bang. The gun goes off. Everyone is horrified. They’re shocked. It’s loud. They don’t have their earplugs in.
Hutchins’ October 19, 2021 Instagram post showed cast members and staffers, including Baldwin alongside Hutchins herself and armorer Gutierrez-Reed (circled left to right) on the set of Rust in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Baldwin’s version of on-set tragedy
‘I’m just showing. I go, ‘How ’bout that? Does that work? You see that? Do you see that?’
‘And then she goes, ‘Yeah, that’s good.’
‘I let go of the hammer, bang. The gun goes off. Everyone is horrified. They’re shocked. It’s loud. They don’t have their earplugs in.
‘No one was – the gun was supposed to be empty. I was told I was handed an empty gun.
‘If they were cosmetic rounds, nothing with a charge at all, a flash round, nothing.
‘She goes down, I thought to myself, ‘Did she faint?’
‘The notion that there was a live round in that gun did not dawn on me ’till probably 45 minutes to an hour later.’
He added: ‘Well, she’s laying there and I go, ‘Did she hit by wadding? Was there a blank?’
‘I never pulled the trigger. No, no, no. You would never do that.
‘The gun was supposed to be empty. I was told I was handed an empty gun.
‘Nobody gave a f*** who you are any more until this. You see a lot of people with their phones now, in a coffee shop,’ he said, showing them filming him.
‘No one was – the gun was supposed to be empty. I was told I was handed an empty gun. If they were cosmetic rounds, nothing with a charge at all, a flash round, nothing.
‘She goes down, I thought to myself, “Did she faint?” The notion that there was a live round in that gun did not dawn on me ’till probably 45 minutes to an hour later.’
He added: ‘Well, she’s laying there and I go, “Did she hit by wadding? Was there a blank?” Sometimes those blank rounds have a wadding inside that packs, it’s like a cloth that packs the gunpowder in. Sometimes wadding comes out, it can hit people, and it could feel like a little bit of a poke.
‘But no one could understand. Did she have a heart attack? Because remember the idea that someone put a live bullet in the gun was not even in reality.”
‘I never pulled the trigger. No, no, no. You would never do that.’
Halls, the assistant director who was watching, confirmed Baldwin’s account, through his lawyer.
He said he stood over her for ‘about 60 seconds’ and was then ushered out.
‘Was she conscious?’ Stephanopoulos asked.
‘My recollection is yes,’ said Baldwin.
He said ‘no one had any idea’ there was live ammunition used until a police officer showed a photo of the shrapnel removed from Souza’s arm.
He said then began ‘the agony, insanity, that someone put a live bullet in the gun.
‘She was laying there and she was there for a while.
‘I was amazed at how long they didn’t get her in a car or get her out, but they waited until a helicopter came,’ he said.
‘And by the time the helicopter took off with her we were literally all glued to that process outside.
‘When she finally left, I don’t know how long she was there for.
‘She kept saying, she’s stable, just as you disbelieve there was a live round in the gun, you disbelieve its going to be a fatal accident.
‘At the end of my interview with the sheriff’s department, they told me ‘we regret to inform you she didn’t make it,’ they told me then and there.’
He added: ‘That’s when I went outside and called my wife.’
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