Rust‘s assistant director is backing up Alec Baldwin’s shocking new statements on the accidental shooting.
By now, everyone most likely knows the horrific details and on-set negligence that led to the death of the director of photography Halyna Hutchins and the injury of director Joel Souza back in October. While filming at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the 63-year-old actor had been holding what he thought was a “cold” prop gun when it suddenly discharged and fatally shot the 42-year-old cinematographer. As more details emerged of what happened that day, a lawsuit filed by the key gaffer on Rust Serge Svetnoy later claimed the scene they were rehearsing at the time never even called for Baldwin to pull the trigger, but instead to just draw the gun and aim it near the camera.
Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell then corroborated the details in her own suit filed against the 30 Rock alum, the first assistant director Dave Halls, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, Rust’s production company, and more, asserting that the scene “did not call for the cocking and firing of the firearm.”
Related: George Clooney Seemingly Blames Alec Baldwin Over ‘Insane’ Rust Set Shooting
However, during his first interview about the fatal incident with George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin dropped the bombshell that he actually never pulled the trigger on the weapon! In a preview released by ABC News for Thursday’s special, he claimed:
“The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger on them, never.”
Additionally, the father of seven claimed he has “no idea” how a bullet ended up in the firearm in the first place. Now, Dave Halls’ lawyer Lisa Torraco is supporting Baldwin’s versions of events, telling Good Morning America on Thursday:
“The entire time, Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard, parallel to the barrel. [Halls] told me since day one he thought it was a misfire. And until Alec said that, it was just really hard to believe. But Dave has told me since the very first day I met him that Alec did not pull that trigger.”
But a ton of questions still remain then — most crucially how did the gun even end up with live ammunition? Elsewhere in the interview, Seth Kenney, the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop who supplied guns and ammo for the production, explained to Good Morning America that the live rounds on set did not come from him, saying:
“It’s not a possibility that they came from PDQ or from myself personally. When we send dummy rounds out they get individually rattle tested before they get sent out. So if you have a box of 50, you’ve got to do it 50 times and then at that point you know they’re safe to sound.”
He also noted that some of the dummy rounds on the film had actually come from other sources, and the ammunition investigators seized from his business did not match those found on set but “were close.”
Wow. It seems like we aren’t getting anywhere closer to finding out what happened that tragic day — but here is hoping Baldwin’s full interview on Thursday night (airing on ABC and then streaming on Hulu) will somehow shed some more light. Take a look at the entire exclusive from GMA (below):
EXCLUSIVE: The owner of a prop arsenal that provided guns and ammunition to the “Rust” movie set speaks out. @KayleeHartung reports. https://t.co/QRWfr3VCVd pic.twitter.com/w8F4MnH3xi
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 2, 2021
[Image via IMDb, ABC News/YouTube]
The post <i>Rust</i> AD Has Been Saying Alec Baldwin Didn't Pull The Trigger 'Since Day One'! appeared first on Perez Hilton.
