UPDATED 11/16, 9:10 p.m. ET: A documentary exploring the life of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was fatally shot on the set of Rust last year, is in development. Rachel Mason (Circus of Books) will direct.
According to Variety, the doc is meant to serve as tribute and celebration of the life of Hutchins by looking back at her younger years “living on a remote Soviet naval base and then in Kyiv, Ukraine, to becoming one of independent film’s most in-demand cinematographers.” The project has received the full support of her husband Matt, and will have access to her personal and professional archives.
“Halyna was on the cusp of making a lasting mark on cinema,” Rachel Mason told Deadline. “As a filmmaker, I wanted to make movies with her. Never could I have imagined that I would be making a film about her. The world lost a great artist, but I lost a friend.”
She continued, “The fact that her brilliance as an artist was instantly overshadowed by the circumstances around her death, pains me deeply. This film allows us the opportunity to share her humanity and talent with the world, and to experience the journey of her collaborators working to complete her final creative work. Halyna was destined for greatness, and she still is.”
See original story below.
Nearly a year after the fatal shooting accident on the set of Rust, in which Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souz, the actor is seeking to clear his name.
The New York Timesreports Baldwin on Friday filed a lawsuit against the armorer and three other crew members in Los Angeles Superior Court. Baldwin’s attorneys claim Hutchins died due to the negligence of the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed; assistant director David Halls; props master Sarah Zachry; Seth Kenney, who supplied the guns and ammunition, and Kenney’s business, PDQ Arm and Prop.
“More than anyone else on that set, Baldwin has been wrongfully viewed as the perpetrator of this tragedy,” the lawsuit reads.
“This tragedy happened because live bullets were delivered to the set and loaded into the gun, Gutierrez-Reed failed to check the bullets or the gun carefully, Halls failed to check the gun carefully and yet announced the gun was safe before handing it to Baldwin, and Zachry failed to disclose that Gutierrez-Reed had been acting recklessly off set and was a safety risk to those around her,” Baldwin’s cross complaint said.
Baldwin is seeking unspecified damages for the “immense grief” he’s endured since the tragic incident.
Last December, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin said he “didn’t pull the trigger” on the firearm that killed Hutchins.
“Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled, I didn’t pull the trigger.” Asked for clarification, he replies, “No, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never. … Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
Pressed about if this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, the 63-year-old answers, “Yes. Yup. Because I think back, and I think of, ‘What could I have done?’”
Watch Baldwin’s interview with ABC below.
