Movie tough guy Frank Grillo has fired his share of weapons on screen over the years, as he did as Frank Rumlow/Crossbones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in the recent COPSHOP.
Like many of his colleagues, he’s speaking out about the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally wounded last month on the set of the Western Rust, when Alec Baldwin fired a pistol he was reportedly told was empty.
“This shouldn’t have happened. It was easily avoidable,” Grillo says flatly.
“I don’t blame one person, I blame a lot of people.”
Safety issues on the Rust set reportedly caused some on Hutchins’ camera crew to walk off the project before the accident that left Hutchins dead and director Joel Souza injured.
The October 21 incident has led to an industry-wide discussion about gun safety on movie sets, and pushed stars like Dwayne Johnson and the producers of ABC’s The Rookie to ban real firearms on their sets.
“It should be happening a lot,” Grillo says of the conversations.
“And now it’s time to make sure that this is something that we talk about and we never see again. I mean, this is a beautiful woman who lost her life!” he says. (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)
Incidentally, Grillo’s new movie Ida Red made extensive use of the safer alternative to real firearms that many are now advocating: Airsoft replica guns, to which digital muzzle flashes were added in post-production. The replicas only shoot out compressed air, but operate convincingly onscreen.
The film contains a climactic, outdoor shootout sequence, for which no real firearms were used.
Ida Red, which also stars Oscar winner Melissa Leo and Josh Hartnett, is out today in limited release, and available On Demand.
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