Actor Alec Baldwin has made the bombshell claim that he never pulled the trigger on the gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza on the set of the film 'Rust'.
Hutchins was killed in late October after a prop gun held by Baldwin misfired during a rehearsal on the New Mexico movie set. The crew were seemingly unaware the weapon contained a live round and those involved have since professed confusion about how it ended up on the set.
Apart from sending his thoughts to Hutchins' family and some brief media comments, Baldwin has stayed mostly quiet since the incident. No one has been arrested in connection to the killing.
The actor is now speaking out, sitting down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos to discuss the tragedy. In a trailer for that interview, set to air on Friday (NZT), an extremely emotional Baldwin claims he never pulled the weapon's trigger.
"The trigger wasn’t pulled, I didn’t pull the trigger… No, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never."
He says he has "no idea" how the live bullet got into the gun but says "someone" put it there.
Baldwin says the incident is the worst thing to ever happen to him and it "doesn't seem real".
"I think back and I think of what could I have done," he says.
Hutchins is described by the actor as "beloved by everyone who worked with her and liked by everyone who worked with her, and admired".
Promoting the interview, Stephanopoulos has described it as the most "intense" he has done in his 20 years working for ABC. He says Baldwin answered every question and is clearly "devastated" by the events.
"I have to tell you, I was surprised in many places over the course of that hour and twenty minutes we sat down," the journalist said.
Investigators have been trying to track down the source of the live bullet.
On Wednesday, a search warrant was issued for a prop house in Albuquerque, New Mexico which, according to the statement, supplied Rust with guns, dummy rounds and blanks. The owner, Seth Kenney, has previously worked with Thell Reed, the father of Rust's armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
The affidavit says that during production on another film in August and September, Kenney asked Reed to bring live ammunition to a training sesssion "in case they ran out of what was supplied". Reed told investigators he did so and that Kenney afterwards took the ammunition despite him trying to get it back. According to Reed, Kenney told him to "write it off".
The warrant says Reed told investigators ammunition he once possessed "may match the ammunition found on the set of Rust".
Kenney's lawyer, however, denies ever providing live ammunition to Rust and that parts of the search warrant affidavit "includes material misstatements of fact".
Gutierrez-Reed, the Rust armourer, has said she has no idea where the live rounds came from.
