Actor Alec Baldwin has said that he did not pull the trigger of the gun that accidentally killed a cinematographer on the set of the movie Rust in October, an excerpt of his interview with ABC News released on Wednesday showed.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was injured when the gun Baldwin was holding went off during the shooting on October 22.
“I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them,” Baldwin said in his first major interview since the tragedy. “Never.”
His comments came after ABC television journalist George Stephanopoulos noted that it had not been part of the script for the trigger to be pulled in that scene.
The actor said he has “no idea” why a real bullet was loaded into the gun when the weapon was meant to contain dummy or fake rounds.
Baldwin also got emotional as he spoke about Hutchins, saying “she was someone who was loved by everyone who worked” with her. “I think back and I think of what could I have done?” Baldwin said.
The interview is due to be broadcast in the United States on Thursday evening. On Twitter, Stephanopoulos wrote, “I’ve done thousands of interviews over the last twenty years. This was the most intense.”
No criminal charges have been filed in the accident yet. In November, two crew members who were present in the room when the gun went off filed separate lawsuits, accusing Baldwin, the film’s producers and other crew members of negligence and lax safety protocols.
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