Alec Baldwin‘s Rust film director, Joel Souza, is breaking his silence on the fatal shooting of late cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. During a new interview published on Thursday, August 15, the 51-year-old filmmaker noted the experience “ruined” him.
“I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins,” he clarified to Vanity Fair. “I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. … You look in the mirror the day after that happens, and now there’s somebody else there. I didn’t know things about the world one day, and now I do. And none of them are good.”
Souza is the director and screenwriter of the western production; Baldwin, 66, is the film’s star and a producer. In October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing a scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico with Souza and Hutchins standing behind the cameras. The scene involved Baldwin aiming a prop gun at the camera. Unbeknownst to the actor, the gun contained live rounds of ammunition. The gun went off after he held it up, and Hutchins was fatally struck in the chest while the bullet also hit Souza in the arm.
“Things get a little fuzzy for me,” Souza claimed during his latest interview. He added that “all hell broke loose,” the moment the gun went off. “The noise was much louder,” he explained. “It felt like a horse kicked me in the shoulder or someone hit me with a bat. The whole right side of my body went numb, completely numb, but it also hurt excruciatingly at the same time.”
In his first-ever interview about the incident, ‘Rust’ filmmaker Joel Souza mourns cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, unpacks his complicated relationship with Alec Baldwin, and discusses his reluctant return to finish the movie.
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Souza continued by remembering the “panic” that ensued, noting that his initial thought was feeling “very angry” and “furious at that moment.”
“I remember looking up and they were lowering Halyna to sit in front of me, and there was blood coming through her white shirt,” he added. “It felt like it just all happened so quickly.”
Hutchins was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead hours later. She was 42 years old. Since then, the crew was involved in back and forth legal battles. Baldwin was initially charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the charge was later dropped in mid-2023. However, the charge was reinstated earlier this year. In July, Baldwin’s case was dismissed after it was discovered that the state withheld evidence from the actor’s defense team.
Set armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. She is serving out an 18-month prison sentence.
Souza noted in his new interview that “nothing that happened in any of this was fair,” adding that “no one deserved this, any of it, but it happened.” When it came to Hutchins, Souza claimed that she was someone whom he felt a “really instant bond with” as a friend and colleague.
As for how he views Baldwin, Souza pointed out that they “got through” the ordeal and that they’re “not friends” but “not enemies” either.