Actor Alec Baldwin denies shooting that killed woman
American actor Alec Baldwin said he did not pull the trigger of the gun from which the shot that fatally wounded the cinematographer of the movie "Rust" was fired during a rehearsal, according to an excerpt from an interview released Wednesday.
"The trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger," Baldwin said in an exclusive interview with ABC News, set to air Thursday night.
"I would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger, ever," he stressed.
It is Baldwin's first official interview after the tragedy that occurred in New Mexico, on the set of "Rust," the low-budget western he starred in and produced.
Halyna Hutchins, the film's cinematographer, died on October 21 after being shot while rehearsing a scene.
Earlier, the production assistant handed Baldwin a gun saying it was "cold," movie slang for an unloaded gun. The 62-year-old actor was practicing his hand position, according to statements collected and released by the police, when the shot was fired.
In the ABC interview, a dejected Baldwin maintained that he had no idea what had happened: "Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn't even supposed to be in the compound," he added.
Winner of three Emmy awards, the actor remarked that the tragedy was the worst thing that happened in his life. "I think what could I have done," he said.
"[Hutchins] was loved by everyone," Baldwin said during the interview. "I still have a hard time believing [that she died]. It doesn't seem real to me."
Two members of the "Rust" crew filed civil lawsuits over the tragedy against Baldwin and others involved in the filming, including Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who is in charge of controlling weapons on set.
Gutierrez-Reed, 24, also said she had no idea what happened. Still, she acknowledged that prior to the tragedy she "didn't do too much checking" on the gun that came into Baldwin's possession, according to an affidavit released this week by police.
Police seized more than 500 bullets on the set, some fake and some suspected to be real.
The ammunition used for the production came from various sources, including Seth Kenney, who is a gun dealer in the state of Arizona.
Kenney told investigators that he may have delivered "reloaded ammunition" to production, a term that refers to bullets that were assembled from various components, and not manufactured as actual bullets.
