‘Rust’ director describes being injured
Initially incredulous after told he was shot
SANTA FE, N.M. — “Rust” director Joel Souza, who was injured when Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun, said he couldn’t wrap his head around what had transpired on the New Mexico film set — even after being rushed to a hospital.
“I knew something got me,” Souza testified Friday in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, courtroom on the seventh day of testimony in the involuntary manslaughter trial of weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-reed. The 26-year-old Arizona woman could spend up to three years in prison if convicted of felony charges filed against her related to the on-set death of Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021.
Friday marked the first time Souza has publicly described details of the tragic accident that claimed the life of up-and-coming cinematographer Hutchins.
In disbelief that afternoon, Souza recalled arguing with medical personnel at the Santa Fe hospital where he was taken by ambulance. He said he insisted that his injury could not have been caused by an actual bullet.
Hollywood safety protocols forbid having actual ammunition on a movie set.
“I just kept saying: ‘You don’t understand,’” Souza testified. “This was a movie and that’s not possible. And they kept saying: ‘No, no, no. It is (an actual bullet).’ They eventually grew tired of my protesting because they showed me the X-ray of my back and there was a very large bullet in it.”
Moments before the shooting, Souza entered the wooden church on the movie set and moved in behind Hutchins, who had been discussing Baldwin’s next scene. Souza testified that he didn’t know who had brought the gun in the church or who handed it to Baldwin.
On Thursday, testimony provided new details that conflict with earlier accounts about a final safety check on a revolver and exactly who handed it to Baldwin.
Assistant director David Halls, the safety coordinator on set, told jurors that Gutierrez-reed twice handed the revolver to Baldwin. It was first emptied of bullets, Halls testified, and then loaded again with several dummy rounds and a live round.
Baldwin was separately indicted by a grand jury last month.
“I did not see Ms. Gutierrez take the gun from Mr. Baldwin,” Halls said during questioning by the prosecution, “but she appeared back on my left-hand side and she said that she had put dummy rounds into the revolver.”
The testimony of Halls, who pleaded no contest last year to negligent use of a firearm and completed six months of unsupervised parole, may weigh significantly as prosecutors reconstruct the chain of events and custody of ammunition that led to the shooting.
He described a rudimentary safety check in which Gutierrez-reed opened a latch on the revolver and he could see three or four dummy rounds inside that he recognized.
“She took a few steps to Mr. Baldwin and gave … Baldwin the gun,” Halls testified.