During his first major interview since the tragic incident happened in October, Alec Baldwin claims that he has “no idea” how a live round of ammunition ended up on the set of his latest Western movie, Rust.
On Wednesday, ABC News released a snippet of the interview in which Baldwin can be seen saying, “The trigger wasn’t pulled – I didn’t pull the trigger”.
“No, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.”
“Even now, I find it hard to believe,” says a tearful Baldwin in the preview clip. “It just doesn’t seem real to me.”
“I think back, and I think of ‘what could I have done?'” he says.
Baldwin has “no idea” how real bullets got into the gun
In the interview, however, Baldwin did not elaborate on how the weapon had gone off in the first place.
All that is known about that day is that Baldwin was releasing a scene in which his character handles a Colt .45. And during this rehearsal, the film’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed. The director of the film was also wounded in the process.
Since the gun was only meant to contain dummy rounds, Baldwin was asked how a real bullet had ended up in the weapon.
“I have no idea. Someone put a live bullet in a gun — a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” said Baldwin.
Prosecutors are leaving no one out of the case
Thus far, prosecutors on the case have refused to rule out criminal charges against anyone involved with the film. This includes Baldwin and the film’s onset armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
Gutierrez-Reed also claims that she has “no idea” why live rounds were present on set.
However, on Tuesday, investigators found that Seth Kenney may have supplied “reloaded ammunition” that matched the cartridge that had the live rounds when Hutchins was killed. Kenney is a weapon rental supplier from Arizona.
“The Sheriff’s office has taken a huge step forward today to unearth the full truth of who put the live rounds on the ‘Rust’ set,” Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers said in a statement Tuesday.