‘Rust’ director Joel Souza wanted to ‘bleed to death’ after Alec Baldwin filmed on set

The director of “Rust” has spoken in detail for the first time about the filming on set that almost cost him his life and also killed camerawoman Halyna Hutchins.

Joel Souza and Hutchins were both shot when Alec Baldwin's prop gun went off during a rehearsal on the set of the western film in October 2021. In a new interview, the 51-year-old director revealed that immediately after the shooting, he wished he could “bleed to death” because he “didn't want to be there anymore.”

To this day he feels “ruined” by the tragedy.

“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don't mean it in the way that people might think. I don't mean it ruined my career,” Souza told Vanity Fair. “I mean, inside, the person I was just disappeared. That stopped.”

“The doctor in Santa Fe kept telling me, 'Do you know how lucky you are?'” the director recalled after the accident.

“And I thought to myself, 'I'm out of fucking luck.' It missed my lungs by a long shot. And luckily it stopped about that far from my spine.”

When asked if he was grateful to be alive while recovering in the hospital, Souza replied, “No, I wasn't. I remember deliberately going to sleep that night, hoping not to wake up the next morning.”

“I was hoping I would just bleed to death overnight because I didn't want to be here anymore,” he added.

“It was a very difficult moment. I remember thinking, 'Maybe I'll just bleed to death – that would be just the thing for me.'”

As weeks and months passed, Souza continued to fight.

“I'm not a person who has nightmares, and then I started having nightmares every night for over a year,” he said.

“They were just nightmares that would make me wake up in a sweat. Sometimes they were very shapeless and formless, and sometimes they were very specific.”

He continued: “I've done a lot of therapy. It never helped me. I believe it can help others, and I envy people the comfort it gives them.”

“I wish I had something like that to hold on to. But I never did. And so I went to six therapists. After that, you're left wandering around in the woods for a bit.”

Today, the feeling of “not wanting to be there anymore” seems to have at least partially subsided.

“You have responsibilities in life and the people you love love you and you want to be there for them,” he explained. “There were a lot of very hard times in the years that followed and there are very hard times now.”

Baldwin, who is also a producer on “Rust,” has claimed he never pulled the trigger on the prop gun. Investigators said the gun contained live ammunition, although it was supposed to contain only a “blank.”

The film's gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter.

Baldwin was also charged with manslaughter, but his trial was dismissed in July after the judge ruled that local law enforcement had mishandled evidence.

Although Souza was initially hesitant to complete the film, he changed his mind because he was “convinced” that Hutchins “would have wanted her final work to be seen.”

However, the scene from the film, which was rehearsed during filming, will not be included in the final version. “It disappears completely,” he said.