The shooting happened during a rehearsal of a gunfight scene inside a church at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in October 2021. Alec Baldwin injured both cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and director Joel Souza.
Souza recently shared with Vanity Fair that he still had ‘quick flashes’ of the incident. “There’s panic, and I’m sitting there going, ‘What…?’” he explained. “My initial thought was that I was very angry. I was furious at that moment. I remember looking up, and they were lowering Halyna to sit in front of me, and there was blood coming through her white shirt. It felt like it just all happened so quickly.”
The director went on, “When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think. I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped.”
Souza received treatment from EMS and was taken to a medical center following the shooting. Hutchins lost her life at the hospital she was flown by helicopter.
The court dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin last month due to mishandled evidence while armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed got an 18-month prison sentence.
The tragedy led to a delay in production, but Baldwin returned in 2023 to finish his scenes amidst the legal battles. Souza decided to finish the project in honor of Hutchins despite his initial unwillingness.
The production team removed the original shooting scene from ‘Rust’ and made efforts to include all scenes the late cinematographer was involved in as a tribute.
