Alec Baldwin on the 'Rust' shooting
In his first televised interview since the Rust shooting, Alec Baldwin shared what really happened on that tragic day on set.
He walked ABC News' George Stephanopoulos through the whole thing, step by step.
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Halyna Hutchins, the film's cinematographer, was killed on set after the prop gun Alec was holding went off.
Alec revealed the incident happened during a marking rehearsal, where Hutchins was directing him on how to hold the weapon.
"[Hutchins] says to me, 'Hold the gun lower. Go to your right. Okay, right there. All right, do that. Now show it a little bit lower.'"
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"And she's getting me to position the gun," he recalled.
"She's guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle..."
"I'm holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit."
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Alec continued, "This was a completely incidental shot. An angle that may not have ended up in the film at all."
"I didn't pull the trigger"
The actor insisted he never pulled the trigger: "The trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger."
He explained, "I cock the gun. I go, 'Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?'"
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"And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off."
Alec said, "I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. That was the training that I had."
"You don't point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger."
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What happened immediately after
The 63-year-old recalled what happened immediately after the gun went off.
"Everyone is horrified. They're shocked. It's loud..." He remembered.
"[Hutchins] goes down. I thought to myself, 'Did she faint?'"
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Alec admitted, "The notion that there was a live round in that gun did not dawn on me until probably 45 minutes to an hour later."
He thought she had perhaps been hit by wadding that may have come out of the gun.
"No one could understand... Did she have a heart attack?"
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"The idea that someone put a live bullet in the gun was not even in reality."
Alec said they were all forced out of the building as the medics arrived.
"I stood over her for 60 seconds, and she just laid there kind of in shock."
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He was asked if she was conscious, and Alec believes she was.
Joel Souza was also shot
Director Joel Souza was also shot in the shoulder when the bullet travelled through Halyna.
"When she went down, he went down, and he was screaming really loudly and I thought, 'What happened?'" Alec said.
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He also revealed he didn't find out what had happened until he was in the police station, "hours later."
"It was like seeing aliens," Alec said, "It was, it was utter disbelief over the idea. It was unacceptable that it was a live round."
During his chat with police, he was shown a picture of the bullet they removed from Joel's shoulder.
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"At the very end of my interview with the Sheriff's department, they said, 'We regret to tell you that she didn't make it, she died.'"
"They told me right then and there, and that's when I went to the parking lot and called my wife."
Watch part 1 of the interview here:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Alec added, "I'm all for doing anything that will take us to a place where this is less likely to happen again."
