Director Quentin Tarantino speaks at the opening day of the Lumiere Festival in Lyon, France, October 8, 2016; Alec Baldwin emcees the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala at New York Hilton Midtown on Dec. 9, 2021, in New York
| Photo Credit: ROBERT PRATTA/REUTERS and Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has spoken out about the tragedy on the Rust film set and believes actor Alec Baldwin is partially to blame for the incident.
The filmmaker talked out about the 2021 shooting in which Baldwin wielding a pistol loaded with live ammunition 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 per cent responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun. But the actor is 10 per cent responsible,” Tarantino told Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast. “The actor is 10 per cent responsible. It’s a gun! You are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.”
Tarantino stated that when actors are going to handle guns firing during filming, they must go through a walkthrough to become accustomed to them.
“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, according to Deadline.
Maher wonders why directors can’t use fake guns on the sets and then add them in post-production.
“I guess I can add digital erections to porno movies, but who wants to fu***** 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 shared 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,” referring to the Rust shooting and The Crow film, where Brandon Lee lost his life, reported Deadline.
