#Alec Baldwin Sheds Light on Rust Shooting: ‘Someone Is ​Responsible … But I Know It’s Not Me’

Alec Baldwin was interviewed by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for a special that aired Thursday night.

It marked the first time the actor went in-depth about what happened on the set of the Rust movie, where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins lost her life after a gun held by Baldwin went off.

The actor broke down several times throughout the emotionally-charged interview as he recounted events on the movie set.

Baldwin shared that Hutchins was working with him during the rehearsal on the set on October 21.

Hutchins was marking a scene for shooting angles, and Alec said that he told her he would “cock the gun” in the scene.

“So I take the gun, and I start to cock the gun. I’m not going to pull the trigger. I said, ‘Did you see that?’ [She said] ‘Well, just cheat it down and tilt it down a little bit like that.’”

Baldwin shared that the gun “ended up being aimed right below her armpit.”

“And I cocked the gun and go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? And I let go of the hammer on the gun, and the gun goes off.”

Baldwin said that there was panic in the aftermath because it was not immediately clear what happened.

“Everyone is horrified. They’re shocked. It’s loud,” he said.

“They don’t have their earplugs in. The gun was supposed to be empty. I was told I was handed an empty gun if there were cosmetic rounds, nothing with a charge at all.”

The star added that he wondered whether Halyna had fainted because it didn’t immediately him that a live round was in the gun.

“The notion that there was a live round in that gun did not dawn on me for probably 45 minutes to an hour later.”

He said that he thought the cinematographer had been hit by the contents of a blank cartridge.

“No one could understand. Did she have a heart attack? The idea that someone put a live bullet in the gun was not even in reality,” Baldwin added, alleging that Halyna was still conscious and “laid there kind of in shock.”

Director, Joel Souza, was also injured in the incident.

Baldwin added that he had no idea how live ammunition got in the gun or even on the set.

“Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,” he said.

Stephanopoulos quizzed Baldwin about whether he checked the gun ahead of the incident.

“What I was taught years ago by someone was, if I took a gun, and I popped a clip out of a gun or manipulated the chamber, they would take the gun away from me and redo it,” Baldwin said.

“The prop master said, ‘Don’t do that.’ When I was young, one thing that they said was, ‘We don’t want to be the actor to be the last line of defense against a catastrophic breach safety with the gun.”

Stephanopoulos asked Baldwin at one point during the interview if he felt guilt.

“No. No. I feel that someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me,” the star responded. 

“Honest to God, if I felt that I was responsible, I might have killed myself if I felt that I was responsible. And I don’t say that lightly.”

Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.