Quentin Tarantino Says Alec Baldwin Is Partly to Blame on ‘Rust’ Set

Quentin Tarantino believes Alec Baldwin is partially responsible for the fatal 2021 shooting on the set of Rust.

During the Sunday, August 25, episode of “Club Random Podcast,” hosted by Bill Maher, the Pulp Fiction director, 61, was asked for his thoughts on the October 2021 incident which saw Baldwin, 66, fire a prop gun that killed Rust’s director of photography Halyna Hutchins. She was 42 years old.

“It’s a situation, I think I’m being fair enough to say, that the armorer — the guy who hands you the gun — is 90 percent responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun but … the actor is 10 percent responsible,” Tarantino told Maher, 68. “It’s a gun, you are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.”

Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial was dismissed in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, court on July 12. First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed with Baldwin’s lawyers that prosecutors hid evidence that may have been linked to the fatal shooting.

During the podcast, Maher asked Tarantino what he would have expected to see on a set if he were filming a scene that required a gun.

“If there’s steps to go through, you go through them and it’s done with due diligence and you know it’s f—king for real,” Tarantino said. “They show you that the barrel is clear. And then they show you some version of, ‘Here are our blanks’ and ‘Here’s the gun’ … and it’s ready for two or it’s ready for three [rounds]. And if an actor knows he has three … rounds in his gun and he knows that I’m going to do a scene … and he knows he’s got three hot rounds… if one of the rounds doesn’t go off … then he should cut the scene.”

In October 2021, Baldwin was rehearsing a scene for the Western film on its New Mexico set when a gun he was holding discharged. Although the weapon was not supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, a bullet was fired which killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.

Baldwin insisted he was innocent of any wrongdoing. “The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never,” he said in a December 2021 interview with George Stephanopoulos. “I have no idea [how a bullet got in there]. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”

Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in January 2023. In addition to Baldwin, two crew members were charged in the incident. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who was responsible for firearms on the set of Rust, pleaded not guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter and one count of tampering with evidence for allegedly handing off a bag of cocaine following her police interview after the shooting.

Gutierrez-Reed’s trial began in February and on March 6, the 27-year-old was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. In April, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

“My heart goes out to the film industry for the devastating pain that this tragedy caused,” Gutierrez-Reed said in a statement before her sentencing was announced. “When I took on Rust, I was young and I was naive, but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to do. Despite not having proper time, resources and staffing, when things got tough, I just did my best to handle it.”