Actors feeling unsafe on set, an inexperienced armorer and a lack of communication with crew after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ fatal shooting are among the revelations in a documentary of the “Rust” tragedy.
Hulu’s “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna,” does a deep dive into the day that a gun held by Alec Baldwin went off in October 2021, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. The tragedy led to numerous lawsuits, some criminal charges and an 18-month prison sentence for armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who handed Baldwin a gun containing a live round of ammunition.
Actress Frances Fisher, who plays Evelyn Bassett in the indie Western, said that her first day on set she noticed armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed bustling around set with “an armful of guns,” which raised a lot of questions about safety in her mind and appeared sloppy and unprofessional. She said she regrets not saying anything to Gutierrez-Reed or to Baldwin, according to People, while wondering if it would have made a difference.
The set also felt unsafe to crew after most of the camera department walked off the job the day of the shooting to protest poor working conditions. It was the day they were filming “the biggest shootout of the whole show,” special effects coordinator Thomas Gandy said, according to People. That meant Hutchins and Souza were in front of the camera instead of watching on a video monitor 20 to 30 feet away, he said.
Assistant director David Halls knew Gutierrez-Reed, who was 23 at the time, was inexperienced, but felt that was canceled out by the reputation of her father, Thell Reed, a longtime armorer in Hollywood.
Alec Baldwin on the” Rust” film set in New Mexico. (Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office/TNS)
Gutierrez-Reed, for her part, was instructed to focus on props rather than firearms, according to the documentary. She was paid for eight days of armorer work and was to spend the rest of her time as a prop assistant. She was even chastised for spending too much time focusing on firearms rather than props.
The young armorer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March 2024.
The documentary, produced by a team led by close friends of the fallen cinematographer as well as her husband, will be released on Hulu on Tuesday.