Joel Souza, the director who was shot on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust,” said in a recent interview that he was “ruined” by the incident, which he recounted publicly — and in emotionally raw terms — for the first time.
“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think,” Souza said in an interview with Vanity Fair published Thursday. “I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins.”
“I mean, internally, the person I was just went away,” Souza added. “That stopped.”
Baldwin was rehearsing a scene on the New Mexico set of the Western drama when the prop revolver he was holding went off, killing 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding Souza.
Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but a judge last month dismissed the case with prejudice, agreeing with the actor’s lawyers that prosecutors hid evidence that may have been linked to the fatal shooting on Oct. 21, 2021.
“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In the wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, conducted via Zoom a day after the Baldwin trial abruptly ended, Souza mourned Hutchins and explained that he decided to finish “Rust” partly to honor her memory.
“I knew that the movie being finished would financially benefit Halyna’s family, which is very important to me,” Souza said. “And I know this can sound trite for people who aren’t creative, but her last work matters. People seeing her last work matters.”
Souza said he believed Hutchins was destined for greatness in Hollywood.
“She should have been doing big studio movies. She should have outgrown a movie the size of ours. She should have been doing $100 million movies, not $7.5 million movies. Anybody who worked with her knew what she had and what she was,” Souza said.
Souza said that “all hell broke loose” on the set of “Rust” after the prop gun discharged.
“The noise was much louder. It sounded like a gunshot you hear in a movie. If you’ve heard quarter-and-a-half-load [blanks] fire, they’re a little loud, but they’re a poof and a pop. They sound more like a cap gun. They’re not going to blow your eardrum out,” he said.
“But this sounded like a magnum, like a ‘Dirty Harry’ gun going off,” Souza said, referring to the Clint Eastwood movie.
He recalled in vivid detail the sensation of being hit by the bullet.
“It felt like a horse kicked me in the shoulder or someone hit me with a bat,” Souza said, echoing language he used in testimony at Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. “The whole right side of my body went numb, completely numb, but it also hurt excruciatingly at the same time.”
“It’s just like everything went tingly and numb but hurt like hell all at once. And I staggered back and was either on my knees or on my ass—and just…yelling. I don’t even know what the hell I was yelling,” the director told the magazine.
He was disoriented, ears ringing. He said he felt like he was watching panicked crew members running around through the lens of a camera.
“My initial thought was that I was very angry. I was furious at that moment. I remember looking up and they were lowering Halyna to sit in front of me, and there was blood coming through her white shirt,” he said.
In the hours after the shooting, he said he did not feel especially grateful to be alive.
“I remember specifically going to sleep that night and hoping I didn’t wake up the next morning. I hoped I would just bleed out overnight because I didn’t want to be around anymore,” he said. “It was a very difficult moment. I remember just thinking, Maybe I’ll just sort of bleed to death—that would suit me just fine.”
“Rust” was completed in March, and the film’s team is working on securing U.S. distribution. The film stars Baldwin as an aging outlaw who goes on the run with his grandson after the boy is sentenced to death for an accidental killing.
When asked to describe his relationship with Baldwin, Souza said: “Getting through it was tough. We got through it. I got the performance I wanted. We’re not friends. We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship.”
Souza told Vanity Fair that the scene Baldwin was rehearsing when the gun went off will never see the light of day.
“It vanishes in its entirety,” he said.
