Alec Baldwin somewhat broke his silence on the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins Saturday, nearly 10 days after Hutchins was killed by a prop gun Baldwin fired.
Accompanied by his wife Hilaria, Baldwin spoke to a group of paparazzi who had been trailing the couple in secluded Vermont. The nearly four-minute conversation on the side of a road was laced with tension, with Baldwin appearing frustrated as he answered the questions—and repeatedly snapping at Hilaria as she tried to interject.
Hilaria—who later told the New York Post she is worried her husband will develope PTSD—filmed the group of photographers and snapped at them when they couldn’t recall Hutchins’ name.
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Baldwin was an actor and producer for Rust which, as The Daily Beast has reported, was a penny-pinching production rife with safety issues prior to Hutchins’ death.
Baldwin said Saturday that he was instructed by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office not to comment on the active investigation, but he did not let that prevent him from speaking on Hutchins herself.
“A woman died. She was my friend,” he said. “The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner... We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened.”
When a paparazzo asked about Baldwin’s meeting with Hutchins’ husband but couldn’t remember Hutchins’ name, Hilaria said, “If you’re spending this much time waiting for us, you should know her name.”
Over the objections of his wife, Baldwin said he’d met with Hutchins’ son and husband, who he described as “overwhelmed with grief.”
“There are incidental accidents that happen on film sets from time to time,” Baldwin said. “But nothing like this. This is a one-in-a-trillion episode.”
Baldwin also voiced his support for efforts to restrict the use of real firearms on film and TV sets, though he noted that most of the real bullets fired on those sets throughout history happened without incident. He would not rule out working on a set with real weapons.
He admitted, however, that he wasn’t the best person to make those industry-wide calls.
“I’m not an expert in this field, so whatever other people decide is the best way to go in terms of protecting people’s safety on film sets, I’m all in favor of and I will cooperate with that in any way I can.”
The couple then asked the group to stop tailing them, saying their children were in the car crying.
Hilaria later told the Post that when she learned about the shooting, she drove to Vermont to get the family out of the spotlight.
“He needs space for me to take care of him and his mental health,” she said. “It’s an awful thing that happened. Alec feels awful.”
She said she was worried about PTSD.
“You look at what happens to soldiers and police officers when something like this happens, it’s traumatic. We just came up here for quiet,” she said.
