Alec Baldwin Blames Others In ‘Rust’ Shooting, Questions Motives Of Lawsuits

Alec Baldwin has claimed that people filing lawsuits against him in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the indie western film Rust are targeting him for financial gain because they consider him a “deep pocket litigant.”

Baldwin was a star and producer of the film and shot the gun that discharged a live round during rehearsal, killing Hutchins and injuring the film’s director Joel Souza. He and the film’s other producers are facing several lawsuits, including one from Hutchins’ widower, Matthew Hutchins.

The actor did not mention the suits by name but attempted to cast those suing him as just going after his money in a conversation at the Boulder International Film Festival. “Their attitude is, ‘Well the people who likely seem negligent have no money. And the people who have money are not negligent. But we’re not gonna let that stop us from doing what we need to do,'” Baldwin said. He added, “Why sue people if you’re not going to get money? That’s what you’re doing it for.”

“But all my career, without incident, I’ve relied on the safety experts there to declare the gun safe and never had a problem. And this happened. And of course, this is to me sometimes it’s, it’s so surreal, I don’t even know what to say,” Baldwin added.

Baldwin seems to be taking issue with the fact that he is taking the heat when there were other crew members, including the set armorer Hannah Guitierrez-Reed and Assistant Director David Halls, who were responsible for set safety and checking the gun before takes. However, as Hutchins’ suit points out, Baldwin was part of a leadership team allegedly carrying out “major breaches of industry protocols,” leading up to the shooting. Safety standards start from the very top, even if “Safety” isn’t in your job description, and it seems clear that Rust producers were cutting corners in unsafe ways through shooting.

While it’s obvious that Baldwin isn’t the sole party responsible for Hutchins’ death, it’s still rather flummoxing to see the actor bald-facedly continue to act like he couldn’t have done anything at all differently in his role in the tragedy.