Alec Baldwin reflected on his “Rust” manslaughter trial in an interview on “The Adam Friedland Show” Wednesday, saying in part that the prosecution “decided to leapfrog” over inconvenient facts while building a case against him in the on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.
Host Adam Friedland suggested that the tragedy of the accidental shooting and ensuing trial would be a burden that the “30 Rock” actor carries for the rest of his life.
“I don’t really carry anything for the rest of my life,” Baldwin said. “Meaning, do I feel overwhelmed and pained by the suffering and the tragedy of what happened? Yes. But do I feel responsible? No. Because what happened was, remember, they decided to leapfrog over, or pole-vault over, the whole idea that in the previous several days we were doing the film, we did a protocol that we did the same thing, and nobody came up to me in my shooting the film.
“One, two, three, four, five days, no one came up to me and said, ‘Hey, let’s do it this way,’” he continued. “It was only after the fact that they said, ‘Oh, we were supposed to do it this way.’”
In 2021, Hutchins was killed when Baldwin, who co-wrote and produced the film along with starring in it, discharged a gun that was meant to only be loaded with blank rounds. The live round fatally struck Hutchins and also wounded director Joel Souza.
Baldwin was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, but those charges were dismissed in July 2024 after it was revealed that police and prosecutors withheld key evidence from defense attorneys. Prop armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was previously convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Four years after the on-set incident, “Rust” received a limited theatrical run. But the film largely went unnoticed in its opening weekend, grossing just $25,000 from 115 theaters.
Watch Baldwin’s full “The Adam Friedland Show” interview in the video above.
