Things That Came Out After The Rust Shooting Incident

In 2021, filming began on "Rust." Written and directed by Joel Souza, the film was set to feature Frances Fisher, Josh Hopkins, and Alec Baldwin (also a producer) in a gritty story of life in 1880s Kansas about the accidental manslaughter of an innocent person. In a deeply sad and shocking case of life imitating art, the "Rust" production was thrown into chaos, legal fallout, and unspeakable tragedy when the film's cinematographer was accidentally killed on the set. Through a series of admitted failings, a lack of several crucial resources both technical and human, and a series of still-unexplained errors, Halyna Hutchins suffered the impact of an unintended projectile and would die from her injuries. Holding the deadly firearm initially just used as a prop: Alec Baldwin, in one of the biggest tragedies to which he'd ever be linked.

As thoroughly depicted in the 2025 Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," the tragedy that occurred during filming of one indie Western profoundly affected the movie's cast and crew, not to mention the family of Hutchins. Authorities charged those involved with the incident with a number of offenses, and it would change how film sets, particularly productions using weaponry, operate. There are more fatal accidents on sets than you think, and Hutchins' death was a particularly egregious and horrible example. Here's everything there is to know about the lead-up, the act itself, and the ramifications of the on-set death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Firearms can be one of the most dangerous things on a set. Because they're outfitted with materials to make gunfire look realistic on screen, there's a certain protocol surrounding movie weaponry, and it's the job of an armorer to maintain and ensure the safety of those items. Responsible for guns on the movie set of "Rust:" Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who served as armorer. With very few credits to her name, Gutierrez-Reed landed the job because the "Rust" production was desperate, as implied by the Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna." The movie was being produced on location outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the filmmakers' two previous hires for the position quit just before filming could begin. Gutierrez-Reed got the gig because she was local, available, and would work for a lower salary than her colleagues in addition to serving on the "Rust" prop team. Besides her lack of valuable experience as an armorer, Gutierrez-Reed had never received any sort of formal training in firearm management. She was the daughter of Thell Reed, a respected armorer and gun coach who'd worked on dozens of films.

Gutierrez-Reed's neophyte status didn't go unnoticed on the "Rust" set. Actor Frances Fisher discussed her first meeting with the armorer in "Last Take," recalling how the crew member would carry around piles of guns in a haphazard manner. Other witnesses remember Gutierrez-Reed leaving firearms laying around on the set unattended for significant periods of time.

Gabrielle Pickle served as a line producer on "Rust," and per the Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," she took issue with the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. In the weeks before the deadly shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins from a gun that Gutierrez-Reed was supposed to maintain, clean, load, and oversee, the armorer received a reprimand from Pickle. The offense: She was spending too much time on firearm preparation, which came at the expense of her duties as an assistant in the "Rust" props department. That was troubling to producers primarily because it cost too much money — Gutierrez-Reed earned a higher rate for her time as an armorer than she did working props.

Confusingly, Gutierrez-Reed also got in trouble with Pickle and other high-ranking members of the "Rust" team for not spending enough time and effort on her armorer duties. She received criticism over leaving firearms unsafely unattended. Still, she reportedly pushed for more firearm training time with star and main on-screen gun handler Alec Baldwin, but Pickle, closely watching the "Rust" budget and schedule, eliminated planned gun training sessions. The only practice and training Baldwin got were Hutchins' in-the-moment directions about where to hold and fire the weapon, just before the fatal accident.

According to the documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," the fatal, accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins occurred on the 12th day of filming. Production in earnest had only barely begun, but in the days leading up to the October 21, 2021, tragedy, the set had already been beset by three similar firearm failures. Just one day before the death, "Rust" first camera assistant Lane Luper quit, citing various safety issues and workplace grievances. "What I put in my resignation letter was: lax COVID policies, the housing situation — driving to and from Albuquerque — and specifically gun safety, a lack of rehearsals, a lack of preparing the crew for what we were doing that day," Luper told ABC's "Good Morning America." Luper asserted that crew and cast were barely informed about safety issues, staged gunfights were sloppily choreographed, and safety bulletins were ignored.

Luper, along with other crew members who took the first camera assistant's lead and resigned from the production hours before the deadly accident, feared that it was merely a matter of time before something horrible happened — there had already been three unexplained accidents. Two prop weapons had accidentally and even randomly discharged without warning, while a dangerously loud sound effects-based explosive went off near crew members. Producers failed to investigate or follow up on Luper's complaints over those mishaps, while armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed incorrectly assumed she'd be terminated over the gun errors.

Per the Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," filming got underway on October 21, 2021, with a diminished company. Along with first camera assistant Lane Luper, 10 other crew members also left "Rust" because they felt so unsafe. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shocked by the news but soldiered on. Before the production broke for lunch, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed cleaned and loaded the prop gun to be used by actor Alec Baldwin for a gunplay-heavy sequence. Gutierrez-Reed claimed to have loaded the weapon with dummy cartridges, which resemble real bullets. It's the job of the first assistant director (A.D.) to oversee the armorer, to provide a secondary level of safety. "Rust" A.D. Dave Halls claimed to have glanced at the dummy rounds in the gun but didn't thoroughly investigate. At any rate, nobody re-checked the gun after lunch, when the sequence was set up to film.

On most sets, a cinematographer would instruct an actor on where to aim their firearm from a relative distance, ensconced in a bank of monitors and equipment called a "video village." Because "Rust" was a small-budget indie film dealing with a mass crew exodus, Hutchins showed Baldwin what to do with his gun by standing just a few feet away from the actor as well as the camera and director Joel Souza. During this informal rehearsal session, the gun discharged in Baldwin's hand and fired a projectile, none of which was supposed to happen in that moment.

According to the Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," immediately after Hutchins was shot in the chest by an accidentally discharged firearm used as a prop, she remained conscious and alert. Following the mishap, Hutchins remarked, "I can't feel my legs." Shortly thereafter, Hutchins lost consciousness and was transported via helicopter to a hospital in Albuquerque. The cinematographer may have died in the helicopter en route to receive treatment, according to "Last Take." Other media sources place Hutchins' death at age 42 at University of New Mexico Hospital.

The news of the tragedy reached "Rust" personnel in various ways. Baldwin was shocked into silence when an officer informed him that Hutchins had died while he was undergoing questioning with police at a station in Santa Fe. Most of the rest of "Rust" personnel had been rounded up into a tent and told by a senior member of production to not speak to the media about the shooting — news helicopters had already begun to hover over the set, and paparazzi had blocked both exits. Cast member Josh Hopkins said in "Last Take" that a set medic had announced that Hutchins' injuries were not life threatening. That only added to the shock and sadness when Hutchins died — which the cast and crew learned when online news outlets broke the story. They weren't told by anyone associated with the production.

While the production-related shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins rightfully received the vast majority of press coverage, scrutiny, and legal fallout for the crew members deemed allegedly responsible, there were two victims of unintended gunfire on the set of "Rust" in October 2021. One cartridge, assumed to be a harmless dummy round, left the gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin while he rehearsed an action scene. After it discharged from the firearm, the projectile — later determined to be a real bullet — entered into the chest of Hutchins. It then exited the cinematographer and continued to travel, right into the shoulder of the person standing next to her: "Rust" director Joel Souza, who was overseeing Hutchins' brief instructions to Baldwin on how he should brandish the gun before filming could take place. The fired round came to rest inside Souza's shoulder.

The director's injuries were not life-threatening, but they were serious. He was rushed by ambulance from the set to a nearby hospital in Santa Fe, where he underwent emergency surgery to treat his shoulder and remove what was discovered to be an actual, full-fledged sample of live ammunition, not a dummy. Souza made a full physical recovery, but after the death of Hutchins, he experienced depression and suicidal ideation, as revealed in the documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna."

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What's not in dispute about the accidental death of Halyna Hutchins: An object discharged from a gun used in the filming of the movie "Rust" penetrated the chest of the cinematographer, and it killed her. What remains a mystery, or at least has not been conclusively explained: how a real bullet found its way into a gun used as a prop, and how it exited that firearm. Alec Baldwin held the weapon in his hand while he rehearsed a shootout sequence as Hutchins stood close by and explained where he should fire when the camera rolled. What was thought to be a dummy cartridge left the gun at that point; Baldwin claimed in interviews and to authorities that he did not take action to pull the trigger during that warm-up. 

The actor was ultimately charged with involuntary manslaughter, as prosecutors in New Mexico argued he was responsible for firing a test shot, according to the documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna." Baldwin's rehearsal technique was needlessly too detailed and thus dangerous, prosecutors said. The actor, believing himself to be a celebrity accused of a crime he didn't commit, professed his innocence, insisting that he didn't think the gun was even capable of firing, were it actually and properly filled with dummies.

Per the documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," movie armorers use dummies in prop guns. They resemble real bullets, but the rounds are designed to not fire out of the chamber like actual ammunition. Somehow, the revolver used by Alec Baldwin in "Rust" was loaded with live ammunition. With the cast and crew traumatically perplexed as to how a dummy bullet could have shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set, doctors operating on director Joel Souza — the projectile that hit Hutchins lodged in his shoulder — extracted the live round.

Despite numerous investigations and court proceedings, it remains undetermined how, why, and when the bullet was placed in Baldwin's character's handgun. Authorities uncovered numerous, similar bullets around the set, including on the armorer's cart, one in a pocket on Baldwin's costume, and still more in boxes of dummy rounds brought to the set by armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed that were left over from a previous film production. Virtually indistinguishable from the dummies, one of those stray bullets was loaded into the gun. Gutierrez-Reed, who inspected the gun early on the day Hutchins died, admitted she should've checked the firearm once more before handing it off to Baldwin, as she may have discovered the dangerous discrepancy. The armorer's weapons supervisor, assistant director Dave Halls, similarly fessed up to not giving the weapon enough of an inspection, as he may also have uncovered the live ammunition.

Many movies were understandably doomed when one of their actors passed away while filming. After "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died on the set of that very project in 2021 after being shot by an improperly loaded film gun, production shut down indefinitely. In April 2023, a year and a half later, the cast and crew of "Rust" reassembled, this time in Montana instead of New Mexico, to finish filming the movie.

Because of the traumatic death the first time cameras rolled on "Rust," a number of caveats and changes were adopted for the second and final round of principal photography. "The production will continue to utilize union crew members and will bar any use of working weapons and any form of ammunition. Live ammunition is — and always was — prohibited on set," Rust Movie Productions lawyer Melina Spadone said in a statement to ABC News. Per the Hulu documentary "Last Take: 'Rust' and the Story of Halyna," "Rust" could only return to active production after a lawsuit brought on by Hutchins' husband was resolved. Matthew Hutchins joined the new "Rust" as its chief executive producer. He oversaw what became a tribute of sorts to his late wife. New cinematographer Bianca Cline promised to make the movie that Halyna Hutchins intended, making use of extensive notes and instructions left behind. Cline donated her salary to a charity.

Following lengthy investigations into the "Rust" shooting and the work environment on the set that led to the deadly tragedy, legal authorities censured and prosecuted the parties deemed responsible. In April 2022, the New Mexico Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined "Rust" producers $136,793 — the most it legally could — for its most severe charge: that the filmmakers willfully disregarded workplace safety laws and rules. Rust Movie Productions objected, and as part of a settlement, paid $100,000 and agreed to a "serious" disavowal of the rules rather than the "willful" charge.

The Santa Fe District Attorney's office filed charges of criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter against "Rust" actor Alec Baldwin in February 2023, alleging that his firing of the gun contributed to the death of Halyna Hutchins. The case was fully dismissed in July 2024, after the presiding judge ruled that the prosecution had unfairly failed to disclose evidence to Baldwin's defense team. First assistant director David Halls, who passed off the inadvertently live-loaded handgun to Baldwin before it was fired without checking it, was sentenced to six months of probation after a plea deal over a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. For her role, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, found guilty on a count of involuntary manslaughter, earned a prison term of 18 months.

While Hutchins died as a result of an on-set incident in New Mexico, the state of California passed a law requiring stricter and safer standards for gun handling on the sets of film and TV productions.