Four years after the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Alec Baldwin's movie Rust, the actor has started to feature in a new reality TV show - but it's not one that film director Joel Souza has any intention of watching.
The death of Hutchins prompted an investigation into Baldwin after it emerged that the bullet that killed the cinematographer had come from the prop gun that he had been holding while on the set on October 21, 2021.
In December 2024, Baldwin was officially cleared of involuntary manslaughter, and two months later marked the debut of his new show, The Baldwins.
Now, Souza has spoken out about his experience working on Rust, and what he makes of Baldwin's new venture, in an interview with The Guardian.
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In spite of Hutchins' death on the set of Rust, Souza said 'the family wanted it completed', and he couldn't 'live with' the idea of someone else taking charge of the movie.
So the director went back and worked alongside Baldwin, whose gun had also injured him during the incident in October 2021.
Recalling his experience with filming after Hutchins' death, Souza said: "I was a mess going in and a mess coming out. The crew carried me through. My family carried me through. Emotionally, I was all over the map.”
The movie is now preparing for release, with the director having said last summer that he has 'no relationship' with Baldwin.
He said: “We’re not friends. We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship.”
Following the release of Baldwin's reality TV show, Souza threw shade at his former co-worker in the new interview as he made clear he had no interest in the programme, which follows Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, as they go about their daily lives raising their seven children.
Souza even explained why he didn't watch the show, as he said: “I think I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan that night."
Perhaps not the best review, but as they say, all publicity is good publicity.
The Baldwins has received a mixed response from viewers, with one branding it 'tone deaf' in the wake of Hutchins' death. The series has a score of just 3.5 stars out of 10 on IMDb.
As for Souza, he continues to think about the day Hutchins died, considering a 'chain of events' that began the morning of the fatal shooting.
"Bad decision after bad decision was made," he said. “Talk about the butterfly effect. I wish I never wrote the damn movie.”
Topics: Alec Baldwin, Celebrity, Film and TV, US News
Emily Brown