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<em>Rust</em> director Joel Souza has said the accidental killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the film’s shooting “ruined” him.
Souza was himself injured when a prop gun handled by actor Alec Baldwin went off during a rehearsal in New Mexico on 21 October 2021.
“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think,” the director told Vanity Fair, speaking publicly about the tragedy for the first time.
“I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped.”
Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired a live round of ammunition towards crew members standing behind the camera. The bullet hit Hutchins in the chest, killing her, and struck Souza in the shoulder, fracturing his scapula.
An American trial court later convicted prop armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to 18 months in prison for loading the live round into the gun.
Assistant director Dave Halls pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge of negligent use of a weapon and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation.
Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the case was dismissed in July after it was revealed that the prosecutors had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto the movie set.
After the dismissal of Baldwin’s case, Gutierrez-Reed asked a judge to dismiss her involuntary manslaughter conviction or convene a new trial.
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Baldwin and the film’s producers still face civil lawsuits from the parents and sister of Hutchins.
Asked if he felt justice was served, Souza said: “I don’t know what that even is anymore, I’ll be very honest with you about that. No one feels good about someone going to jail.”
“I think it would be disingenuous and lunacy to say people didn’t screw up things. I don’t think anyone would ever allege that anything was intentional,” he said when asked where he placed the blame for what happened.
“The live bullet got put in the gun. It was a horrible mistake to make, and [Gutierrez-Reed is] living with the consequences of that mistake. Everything that happened was born out of that sin, out of that moment. That single act is what put the rest of this into motion.”
Speaking about Baldwin, Souza said they have known each other since 2015.
“Getting through it was tough,” he said, referring to the incident. “We got through it. I got the performance I wanted. We’re not friends. We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship.”
As to whether he believed Baldwin was reckless and should have examined the gun himself before firing it, Souza said there were arguments both for and against the actor’s actions.
“Does it matter if I think it’s fair or not? There is an argument that says, if he checks it and starts fiddling around with it, he is creating a safety issue. And then there is another thing that says, it is common sense, Jesus Christ. Be careful with this goddamn thing,” he said.
“So I don’t know anymore, to be honest with you. The charges got filed. That’s what they decided to do. Was he overcharged? I don’t know.”
As for the film itself, Souza said he went back and finished it out of respect for Hutchins’s memory and to help her family financially, even though “there was a very long period of time where I thought I was just done ever doing this for a living”.
“I knew that the movie being finished would financially benefit Halyna’s family, which is very important to me,” he said.
“And I know this can sound trite for people who aren’t creative, but her last work matters. People seeing her last work matters. That was the tipping point for me in the decision.”
As for the fateful scene that was being filmed when the gun discharged, Souza confirmed it will not appear in the movie.
“I’m not going back to that,” he said. “I don’t want anyone who ever does see this to be waiting for that. No one ever pushed to keep anything like that.”
