Quentin Tarantino shares his thoughts on the tragedy of the Rust movie set and says Alec Baldwin is partly responsible for the incident.
The filmmaker opened up about the 2021 shooting where Baldwin was holding a gun that had live rounds that injured director Joel Souza and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“It’s a situation I think I am being fair enough to say that the armorer, the guy who hands him the gun, is 90% responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun. But the actor is 10% responsible,” Tarantino told Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast. “The actor is 10% responsible. It’s a gun! You are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.”
Tarantino noted that when actors are going to handle guns firing during filming they are supposed to have a walkthrough so they are familiarized with them.
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“If he went through the steps that he was supposed to go through,” Tarantino said, adding, “like the barrel is clear, they show you the barrel is clear and that there is nothing … wedged in there. They actually show you the barrel. And then they show you some version of, ‘Here are the blanks and here is the gun.’ Now it’s ready to go.”
Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial was thrown out last month due to the mishandling of evidence. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
Maher ponders why directors couldn’t use fake guns on the set and later add them in post-production.
“I guess I can add digital erections to porno movies, but who wants to fucking watch that?” Tarantino said. “It’s exciting to shoot the blanks and to see the orange, the real orange fire, not add orange fire.”
The Kill Bill director argued that “for as many guns we’ve shot off in movies, we only have two examples of people being shot on the set by a gun mishap. That’s a pretty f***ing good record,” referring to the Rust shooting and The Crow film, where Brandon Lee lost his life.