The protagonists of the drama that occurred on the set of the film Rust each take their turn out of their silence. The assistant director who gave actor Alec Baldwin the loaded gun that killed a filmmaker spoke on Monday for the first time since the drama.
David Halls’ role in the October 21 crash in New Mexico is the subject of much speculation. In a press release to New York Post, he says he is “shocked and sad” after the death of the director of photography of the western, Halyna Hutchins, but he does not comment on the drama or its role. Live ammunition accidentally fired by Baldwin fatally wounded Halyna Hutchins and ended up in the shoulder of director Joel Souza.
“Halyna Hutchins was not only one of the most talented people I worked with, she was also a friend,” he writes. “I hope that this tragedy will encourage the (film) industry to review its values and practices” to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
Petition against guns
With the gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, David Halls was in charge of the weapons on the set of “Rust” and had to make sure that they were indeed harmless before putting them on the set. According to the first statements of the police officers, the assistant director told them that he “should have checked” that all the cartridges in the revolver used by Alec Baldwin to repeat a scene were fictitious but that he “did not have it. not done “.
An online petition calling for a definitive ban on live firearms on filming had collected nearly 100,000 signatures on Monday. Its promoters argue that it is easy to add visual and sound effects to dummy weapons during postproduction of films.
Last weekend, Alec Baldwin himself spoke about the accident for the first time, lamenting a tragedy that had a “one in a trillion” chance to occur. The American actor said he could not comment on the facts while the investigation is ongoing. No arrests were made, but the Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutor in charge of the investigation did not rule out possible criminal prosecution if responsibility is established.