Alec Baldwin has returned to work for the first time since the Rust shooting.
The 63-year-old actor shared a video after his first day on the set of the undisclosed project, which is currently filming in Hampshire, England.
“It’s strange to go back to work,” he admitted. “I haven’t worked since Oct. 21st of last year when this horrible thing happened on the set of this film and we had the accidental death of our cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, adding, “I still find that hard to say.”
Baldwin said that getting back to work was “tricky” for him. While he’s been making films most of his life, he admitted he was rusty on the set. “I was just like, ‘Oh, god — what do you do?'”
He noted, “everybody’s young compared to me,” he said, but called them “hardworking people.” He suggested the project is another independent film, as Rust was, and talked about how they were trickier because “the amount of work you have and the time you have are definitely not in sync.”
Plus, “The building” they worked in that day “had no heat,” he noted with a cough.
Baldwin said he would be there working for a few more days and then “who knows what the future will bring.” He then added, “I hope good things.”
Baldwin said he looked forward to finishing up and getting home to wife Hilaria and their six young children.
“I miss my kids,” he said. “I miss them all.”
Previous videos Baldwin shared on social media showed him walking around the town of Alton, Hampshire. In another, he shared that when he arrived in the U.K., the driver sent to pick him up had his car stolen.
Baldwin was on the New Mexico set of Rust in October and rehearsing with an antique gun when the fatal shot was fired. The prop gun wasn’t thought to be loaded but actually contained a live round. The gun went off, while in Baldwin’s hand, and Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza injured. Production on the film — for which Baldwin also serves as a producer — was halted indefinitely.
Investigators have since said that 200 to 300 live rounds were recovered on the set. They are working to determine who brought them there and how they were loaded into the prop gun. There’s been a lot of finger-pointing.
Baldwin has publicly denied any wrongdoing in the shooting of Hutchins. In an interview with ABC News in December, he insisted he “didn’t pull the trigger.” He said he cocked the hammer and went he let go it went off. He also said he doesn’t have guilt over Hutchins’s death.
“No, no,” he said. “I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible, and I don’t say that lightly.” However, he said he was shaken up over it, saying, “I make it through the day. Then I collapse at the end of the day. Emotionally, I collapse.”
A third lawsuit has now been filed over the Rust shooting. Medic Cherlyn Schaefer filed suit against the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed; assistant director, Dave Halls, prop master, Sarah Zachry; the production company and others claiming the defendants’ alleged negligence caused her severe emotional distress and have left her unable to work.
Schaefer said in the filing she provided medical assistance to Hutchins after the shooting and called for the medical helicopter to have her airlifted to the hospital, where she died. Schaefer has since suffered “shock, trauma and severe emotional distress.” She claimed the Rust production was to blame for set safety issues leading to the shooting.
Baldwin was not directly named as a defendant in that lawsuit but he is in others filed by gaffer Serge Svetnoy and script supervisor Mamie Mitchell. Baldwin’s legal team is trying to have Mitchell’s lawsuit dismissed.
Meanwhile, armorer Gutierrez-Reed is suing the ammunition supplier Seth Kenney. And Hutchins’s husband, Matthew, is exploring a lawsuit.
