Alec Baldwin has ducked blame for the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins ever since he was found on set with the smoking gun, while Hutchins lay dying only steps away.
Now he’s been charged with involuntary manslaughter in her death after more than a year of investigation. If convicted, he could face five years in prison.
No one thought anyone other than Baldwin pulled the trigger that shot the bullet killing Hutchins, who left behind a husband and young son. Baldwin even settled a civil suit brought by Hutchins’ husband over safety violations on set.
Even so, in the months since the 2021 shooting Baldwin has given numerous self-serving interviews, and in none of them does he begin to suspect that perhaps as the man who pulled the trigger, he is the one who is to blame for her death.
Despite the charges, and the fact that he pulled the trigger, he has continued to toss culpability on anyone but himself.
Baldwin has blamed the armorer, other producers, literally anyone he could think of other than himself. He told George Stephanopoulos that he was loving the process of making the film, of which he was not only the star but the producer, “and then this gun goes off,” ruining everything. But guns don’t go off by themselves.
“Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me,” Baldwin declared. He said he was committed to “doing anything that will take us to a place where this is less likely to happen again.”
When he spoke to CNN in August he blamed Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the “Rust” armorer who also faces involuntary manslaughter charges from the Santa Fe district attorney: “Someone put a live bullet in the gun who should have known better.” That wasn’t his job, he said, but Gutierrez-Reed’s.
“There are two people who didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” he told CNN, but neither of them was him. “I’m not sitting there saying I want them to, you know, go to prison, or I want their lives to be hell. I don’t want that, but I want everybody to know that those are two people that are responsible for what happened.”
As producer, Baldwin was responsible for the labor issues on set and the late payments that caused disgruntled crew members to walk off the “Rust” set the day Hutchins was killed. He has barely addressed that in any of the interviews he’s given on the subject.
Baldwin holds the final responsibility for Hutchins’ death. In his role as producer he should have ensured that industry safety standards were being followed; he should have made sure that the people he hired to do their jobs were capable of doing them.
“Rust” is set to continue production, without Baldwin in the role of executive producer. Instead, Matthew Hutchins, Halyna’s husband, will be executive producing. It’s clear that Baldwin, whether he is found to be criminally liable or not, is simply not the man for the job.
