Fewer than three weeks before actor Alec Baldwin is due to go on trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutors have said that he “engaged in horseplay with the revolver”, including firing a blank round at a crew member on the set of Rust before the tragic accident occurred.
Baldwin is facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
In new court documents, prosecutors said they plan to bring new evidence to support their case that the 66-year-old actor and producer was reckless with firearms while filming on the set and displayed “erratic and aggressive behavior during the filming” that created potential safety concerns.
Prosecutors in the case, which is due to go to trial on 10 July, have previously alleged that to watch Baldwin’s conduct on the set of Rust “is to witness a man who has absolutely no control of his own emotions and absolutely no concern for how his conduct affects those around him”.
In the latest filing, special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Erlinda Johnson allege that Baldwin pointed his gun and fired “a blank round at a crew member while using that crew member as a line of site as his perceived target”.
Remember that this occured during a strike, and Baldwin brought in scabs to fill the positions, and then pushed one of those scabs to be the fallguy, despite baldwin being both the one in the position of power, and the one who fired the gun without checking it was loaded.
It’s not the actor’s job to check if a prop is a functional weapon. They have other things to be focusing on.
But since he hired the people and set the policies, he’s still responsible.
It is the job of anyone handling a dangerous object to handle it safely. If they can’t, they shouldn’t.
The point of an armorer on set is that they ensure that the guns aren’t dangerous. The typical rules about “don’t aim at something you don’t want to destroy” doesn’t apply in a movie because otherwise all the action sequences would look dumb with people firing wildly at the ground. How stupid would it look if John Wick shoots at the floor and blood spurts out of the guys face.
That said, anyone who hires a scab armorer gets what they pay for and deserve to be prosecuted.
The rules about don’t aim at something you don’t want to destroy absolutely apply because it was a real gun. That rule applies even when you know the gun is unloaded because you checked it yourself. Been shooting 45 years (I’m 50) and no problems ever because I was taught and follow the safety rules.
Guns used on film sets are real guns. They’re simply loaded with blanks. Basically every movie and television show you’ve ever seen involved people breaking the “safety rules” of firearms. Every time you see a gun pointed at “you,” i.e. the camera, an actor is pointing a real gun at a cameraperson who is holding the camera, which is precisely what happened here.
When you see people “shooting” at each other, they’re firing real guns loaded with blanks at each other. You can certainly remove all realistic gunplay from movies and TV, and I’m fine with that, but it’s absurd to think that the same rules of firearm safety apply equally in the context of filmmaking.
an actor is pointing a real gun at a cameraperson who is holding the camera, which is precisely what happened here.
which proves it I not safe? yes that’s the point, something dangerous was done, maybe normalized in the industry but still dangerous. a boom or tripod can always be used to not have someone behind the camera on the other end of a gun
Yes, and instead of shooting at each other people can shoot at the ground and then just make really mean facial expressions at each other. Or we can just take guns out of tv and movies altogether. Or they can use squirt guns and people can use their imagination.
There’s very obviously all sorts of ways to make Hollywood safer, but the use of guns isn’t where I would start since injury or death from guns is extremely rare in Hollywood. If you’re interested in making the industry less dangerous, I would suggest reviewing how “acceptable risk” is determined when it comes to stunts.
