The shooting on the Western “Rust” film set which killed a cinematographer saddens Alec Baldwin, but the actor did not feel any guilt, AP News reported.
Talking with George Stephanopoulos in an ABC interview on Thursday, Baldwin said: “Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but it’s not me.”
“Honest to god, if I felt I was responsible, I might have killed myself,” he said.
The actor emphasized the importance for the investigators to identify who was behind the loading of the gun he used. The firearm was supposed to be unloaded, but it left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead and director Joel Souza injured.
“There’s only one question to be resolved, and that’s where did the live round come from?” Baldwin asked.
In an interview clip published earlier, the actor said: “I didn’t pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never.”
Before the firing, Baldwin said it was Hutchins herself who instructed him to have the gun pointed off the camera and toward her armpit.
He pulled the hammer back according to the cinematographer’s direction.
“I let go of the hammer and ‘bang’ the gun goes off,” he said.
Several people said an actor should not point a firearm directly at a person on the set. This was raised by Stephanopoulos during the interview, to which the actor responded: “unless the person is the cinematographer who was directing me where to point the gun for her camera angle.”
The actor said it took him about an hour to realize that the gun was loaded. He confirmed it to himself when he was facing interviews after the incident.
At first, he just thought Hutchins suffered a heart attack or was just hurt by a blank at a nearby range.
“The idea that somebody put a live bullet in the gun was not even in reality.”
The actor emotionally described Hutchins as “somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her.”
He welcomed interviews about the incident to correct the mistaken belief of others and to clarify that
“I would go to any lengths to undo what happened.”
“I want to make sure that I don’t come across like I’m the victim because we have two victims here,” he said.
