How the Rust disaster unfolded

In October 2021, the director Joel Souza was in rehearsals for his western Rust when a gun being held by its star, Alec Baldwin, accidentally went off.

It should have been loaded with blanks, but a live round had found its way into the chamber. The film's cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was killed, and Souza was hit in the shoulder.

He had hired Hutchins, he told Ryan Gilbey in The Guardian, having specifically sought out a woman for the film. "Somebody told me, 'Women can't shoot westerns.' And I thought, 'F**k you. I'm going to stick that up your ass and only look at women.'"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

And he had been impressed by Hutchins: after setting up a shot, she'd always ask: "How can we make it better?"

After her death, Baldwin paid a settlement to her family, and the film's prop armourer was jailed; but Souza doesn't think the industry has learnt any lessons.

Last year, a cinematographer told him that live ammo had recently been found on a set in Los Angeles. "They only caught it at the absolute last second. He said this was a major studio shoot. He told me, 'People aren't changing. They all feel like you guys were just unlucky.'"