Alec Baldwin says in an upcoming TV interview that he did not pull the trigger of the gun that fired a live bullet and killed a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust,” according to an excerpt released on Wednesday.
Baldwin, who was holding the gun during a rehearsal when it went off, was speaking in his first full interview about the Oct. 21 shooting in New Mexico.
“Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” the actor told ABC television journalist George Stephanopoulos, according to the excerpt of the interview due to be broadcast on Thursday.
“So you never pulled the trigger?” Stephanopoulos asked Baldwin.
“No, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never,” Baldwin replied.
He added that he had no idea how a live bullet got onto the set of the Western movie he was making near Santa Fe.
Authorities investigating the fatal shooting are looking into whether recycled live ammunition may have made its way into a stash of dummy bullets on the set, according to court documents released on Tuesday.
The documents include a search warrant for the premises of a local supplier of ammunition and movie props.
The supplier told police he suspected that the live bullets found on the set may have been “reloaded ammunition” that he got previously from a friend. Reloaded ammunition is made up of recycled components, including bullets.
The newly released documents said Santa Fe sheriff’s deputies had spoken with Seth Kenny, who supplied some of the ammunition for “Rust,” and who “advised he may know where the live rounds came from.”
“Seth described how a couple years back, he received ‘reloaded ammunition’ from a friend,” the document said.
Kenny’s office and storerooms in Albuquerque were the subjects of a search warrant. Kenny could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Sheriff’s deputies said they also had spoken with Thell Reed, the father of Hannah Gutierrez, the woman who was in charge of weapons on the movie set.
