In a series of Instagram posts, Alec Baldwin offered a counter-narrative to allegations that the working conditions on the Rust film set were unsafe, leading crew members to quit the day of the shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin, who has been fairly quiet on social media since the fatal incident on October 21st, reposted a lengthy diatribe penned by Rust costume designer Terese Magpale Davis. The actor captioned the images “Read this,” suggesting agreement with the opinions expressed by Davis.
“I am so sick of this narrative,” Davis wrote in her post, which originally appeared on Facebook. “I worked on this movie. The story being spun of us being overworked and surrounded by unsafe, chaotic conditions is bullshit.”
Davis went on to refute many of the claims that have been made by crew members following the shooting, including that crew members weren’t given hotel rooms and that the production hours were too long. We never worked more than a 12.5 hour shoot day,” she wrote. “That was once. Most days were under 12. The day Halyna died we had come off of a 12 hour turnaround after an 11 hour shoot day. We had (including camera) gotten off by 6:30pm. We had just had a 56 hour weekend right before that. No one was too tired to do their jobs. This is all provable by daily time sheets.”
Later, Davis addressed the hiring of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, noting that she had the proper qualifications for the job. “But how do you suppose anyone will get that experience?” Davis said. “We all had a first and second job at one point.”
Davis confessed anger at Dave Hall, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun, but said he didn’t skip over safety measures, as has been reported.
“I am heartbroken and furious,” Davis wrote. “I will never get the sound of that gunshot or my director’s screams out of my head as a result. My friend is dead. Am I angry at him? Yes. But I won’t jump on the bandwagon and pretend that he was uncaring about our safety the whole way through.”
Baldwin publicly addressed Hutchins’ death last week, calling it “one-in-a-trillion.” He confirmed that he’s not allowed to speak about the incident, which raises a few questions about his Instagram posts. “I’m not allowed to make any statements because it’s an active investigation,” Baldwin told reporters. “I’ve been ordered by the Sheriff’s department in Santa Fe, I can’t answer any questions about the investigation.”
“She was my friend. The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel the director,” Baldwin added of Hutchins. “We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together, and then this horrible event happened.”
Director Joel Souza was also injured in the on-set incident where Baldwin was handed a prop gun he believed was “cold” but actually contained live rounds. Assistant director Dave Halls “grabbed” the gun from among three set up on a gray rolling table by armorer Reed and yelled “cold gun” as he handed it off to Baldwin moments before the deadly tragedy, a search warrant revealed.
Previously, Reed blamed producers and “unsafe” set conditions for the tragedy.