Almost three years ago, on October 21, 2021, the film industry was shaken by reports of an accidental shooting on the New Mexico set of the Alec Baldwin western, “Rust.” As details emerged, it became clear that a gun held by Baldwin had gone off during a rehearsal, firing a live bullet that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and gravely injured director Joel Souza.
In the time since this horrific accident occurred, many stories have floated through the press surrounding how this could have happened, from the production cutting corners to Baldwin himself being responsible as a producer on the film. The justice system tried to answer these questions as well, forming a plea deal with assistant director Dave Hall, who would later go on to testify against the film’s young armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the crew member responsible for putting the live bullet in the gun that killed Hutchins.
Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in jail this past April. They also charged Baldwin with the same crime, but upon his trial commencing, it was revealed that evidence, including ammunition from the scene, was not revealed to the defense team, forcing the judge to dismiss the case and drop all charges.
While many hope this brings an end to this incredibly tragic saga, Souza, the director behind “Rust,” shared in his first press interview since the shooting that the experience has changed him forever, not just in terms of professional practice, but as a human being as well.
“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think,” Souza told Vanity Fair. “I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped.”
During the accident that killed his friend and colleague, Souza was shot in the shoulder, fracturing his scapula, but the bullet didn’t exit. Instead, it veered, missing his lungs and spine by mere inches. Not only was Souza traumatized by this, eliciting “wake-me-up-in-a-cold-sweat kind of nightmares” that he’d never experienced before, but he was also faced with picking up the pieces of a project that had fallen apart. Initially, he had no interest whatsoever in returning to production, but once Hutchins’ widower, Matt Hutchins, became involved, he realized he owed it to Halyna to see the film through.
“At a certain point it was conveyed to me that there was going to be some form of settlement and that Matt Hutchins was going to be involved as a producer,” Souza said. “This is what he wanted. I knew that the movie being finished would financially benefit Halyna’s family, which is very important to me. And I know this can sound trite for people who aren’t creative, but her last work matters. People seeing her last work matters. That was the tipping point for me in the decision.”
As far as picking up where he left off, Souza knew that such a task would be impossible and that the film would have to be changed considerably for him to want to take part in it. One such change involved completely removing the scene that led to Hutchins’ death, in which Baldwin, pinned down by authorities, is trapped in a showdown inside a church. Images and video from rehearsals were shown throughout the trial, but there was no footage of the moment of the shooting itself.
When asked about this scene, Souza said it “vanishes in its entirety” and won’t be seen by the public should the film ever be released.
“Gone. Not just that, but also a few things leading up to it,” he said. “Everything needed to be entirely re-conceived there. There were a few things that came before that now wouldn’t make story sense. So we just sort of eliminated it and came up with something entirely different. I’m not going back to that. I’m glad you asked. I don’t want anyone who ever does see this to be waiting for that. No one ever pushed to keep anything like that.”
Souza also gave an update on whether “Rust” will ever be released, and he clarified that though the producers sold some international territories at Cannes back in 2023, the film has not yet been actively shopped to distributors. He also pushed back on notions in the press that the film is of poor quality and is in turn facing difficulty in being sold.
“That’s not true. But they keep adding that as some sort of allusion to the quality of a movie they have never seen, because there’s an agenda that ‘Rust’ is bad,” Souza said. “It hasn’t been shopped. [Producers] were at Cannes last year in 2023; maybe they were selling foreign territories, but that’s what you do. And foreign territories have been sold on the movie. It’s up to sales and the producers. They’ll have to figure out what the best way is for it to get out and when.”
Read the full interview with Souza via Vanity Fair.
