Baldwin film armourer: I wasn’t ready
Expert questioned own lack of experience
A ROOKIE armourer on the film set where Alec Baldwin accidentally shot dead a woman said she “wasn’t sure” she was ready for the job.
Hannah Gutierrez-reed, 24, admitted she was “still learning”, telling a podcast last month: “I was really nervous about it at first, and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready.”
Gutierrez-reed, a former model and actress and the daughter of well-known Hollywood armourer Thell Reed, added: “Dad’s been teaching me a little bit since I was 16, we really got more into the stuff in the last couple of years.
“You know, I think loading blanks was the scariest thing because I was like: ‘Oh I don’t know anything about it.’
“But you know, he taught me that and eventually, by the time I was trying to figure out how to make a specific blank go when you want it to rather than it hitting the empty cylinders and everything, I figured that out on my own.
“He took me from being completely green and taught me everything I know so far and, by all means, I am still learning.”
Baldwin unwittingly shot dead cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, 48, firing a vintage-style Colt revolver prop gun on the set of Rust on Thursday.
The Western, being filmed in Sante Fe, New Mexico, features a plotline about an accidental killing.
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According to an affidavit, Gutierrezreed laid out three prop guns on a cart.
The film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, grabbed one and shouted “cold gun”, code for declaring it safe, before handing it to Baldwin. The affidavit added that Halls “did not know live rounds were in the prop gun”.
As police continued their probe, it was reported Baldwin, 63, was among mourners who attended a private memorial to pay tribute to Hutchins.
The distraught star stood side-by-side with 42-year-old Halyna’s husband Matt and their nine-year-old son Andros during the moving service held in Santa Fe on Friday night.
Grief counsellors also reportedly attended the event, held ahead of a public memorial scheduled to go ahead in the city last night. Matt, married to Ukrainian-born Halyna for 16 years, said: “Our loss is enormous. Halyna inspired us all with her passion and vision, and her legacy is too meaningful to encapsulate in words.”
In the moments after the tragedy Baldwin was seen asking crew members: “Why was I handed a hot gun?”
He was later pictured doubled over and sobbing outside a police station.
Reports have since emerged that Hutchins had been calling for safer working conditions for her team, amid claims “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on the set” and that the prop gun misfired twice in the previous week.
Camera crew on the low-budget film reportedly went on strike on Thursday to protest about the incidents and their working conditions, leading to non-union workers being called in to replace them.
An unnamed crew member claimed: “Corners were being cut – and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting.”
A Gofundme appeal to raise money in memory of Hutchins, who had worked on British documentaries, had last night reached $93,786.