'Rust' director says filming on the set of the Alec Baldwin movie 'ruined' him

Joel Souza, the director who was shot on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust,” said in a recent interview that he was “ruined” by the incident, which he recounted publicly for the first time – and in emotionally raw terms.

“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don't mean it in the way that people might think,” Souza said in an interview with Vanity Fair published Thursday. “I don't mean it ruined my career.”

“I mean, inside, the person I was just disappeared,” Souza added. “It stopped.”

Baldwin was rehearsing a scene on the set of the western drama in New Mexico when a shot went off from the prop revolver he was holding, killing 42-year-old camerawoman Halyna Hutchins and injuring Souza.

Baldwin was charged with manslaughter, but a judge dismissed the case with reservations last month, agreeing with the actor's lawyers that prosecutors had suppressed evidence potentially related to the fatal shooting on October 21, 2021.

Rust’s gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter.

In the wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, conducted via Zoom a day after the Baldwin trial abruptly ended, Souza mourned Hutchins and explained that he decided to end “Rust” in part to honor her memory.

“I knew that Halyna's family would benefit financially if the film was completed, and that's very important to me,” Souza said. “And I know that can sound trite to people who aren't creative, but her final work is important. It's important that people see her final work.”

Souza said he believes Hutchins is destined for greatness in Hollywood.

“She should have been working in big studio movies. She should have risen above a movie the size of ours. She should have been making $100 million movies, not $7.5 million. Everyone who worked with her knew what she had and what she was,” Souza said.

Souza said that “all hell broke loose” on the set of “Rust” after a shot went off from the prop gun.

“The sound was much louder. It sounded like a gunshot you hear in a movie. If you've ever heard a quarter-and-a-half load, [blanks] “When they fire, they're a little loud, but it's a bang and a pop. They sound more like a toy gun. They're not going to blow your eardrums,” he said.

“But that sounded like a Magnum, like a 'Dirty Harry' gun going off,” Souza said, referring to the Clint Eastwood film.

He remembered the feeling of being hit by the bullet in every detail.

“It felt like a horse had kicked me in the shoulder or someone had hit me with a baseball bat,” Souza said, repeating words he used in his testimony at Gutierrez-Reed's trial. “The whole right side of my body went numb, completely numb, but at the same time it was also unbearably painful.”

“It was like everything was tingling and going numb, but hurting like hell at the same time. And I staggered back and was either on my knees or on my butt – and just… screaming. I don't even know what the hell I was screaming,” the director told the magazine.

He was disoriented and had a ringing in his ears. He said it felt like he was watching panicked crew members running around through the lens of a camera.

“My first thought was that I was very angry. I was beside myself with rage at that moment. I remember looking up and seeing them lower Halyna in front of me. Blood was seeping through her white shirt,” he said.

In the hours after the shooting, he said he wasn't particularly grateful to be alive.

“I remember going to sleep that night hoping I wouldn't wake up the next morning. I hoped I would just bleed to death overnight because I didn't want to be here anymore,” he said. “It was a very difficult moment. I remember thinking: Maybe I'll just bleed to death – that would be just the thing for me.”

Rust was completed in March and the film's team is currently working on securing U.S. distribution. In the film, Baldwin plays an aging outlaw who goes on the run with his grandson after the boy is sentenced to death for an accidental killing.

When asked to describe his relationship with Baldwin, Souza said, “It was tough to get through that. We got through it. I performed the way I wanted to. We're not friends. We're not enemies. There's no relationship.”

Souza told Vanity Fair that the scene Baldwin was rehearsing when the gunshot rang out would never see the light of day.

“It disappears completely,” he said.