Alec Baldwin sat down with George Stephanopoulos for the one-hour primetime special, Alec Baldwin Unscripted, on Thursday, and gave his account of the shooting accident on the set of Rust that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” Baldwin said. “Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”
Baldwin claimed that he and Hutchins began blocking out the scene. She was directing his every move, and “Everything [was] at her direction.”
“She’s guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle,” he said. “I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit.”
To get the shot, Baldwin said he needed to cock the gun, but not fire it. “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin insisted.
“So, you never pulled the trigger?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Baldwin said. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.”
During rehearsal, Baldwin said the film’s first assistant director, Dave Halls, handed him a revolver, telling him, “This is a cold gun” — industry jargon for a weapon that is either literally empty or loaded with non-firing “dummy” rounds.
Lisa Torraco, Halls’ attorney, corroborated Baldwin’s account on Thursday, saying Halls told her “from day one” that he was watching from three or four feet away and “the entire time Baldwin had his finger outside the trigger guard parallel to the barrel…that Alec did not pull that trigger.”
Torraco would not confirm if Halls was the person who handed Baldwin the gun.
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