Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin has opened up three years after the accidental death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his film Rust.
The 42-year-old was fatally shot, and director Joel Souza was injured, after a prop gun used by the actor went off.
The Western film paid tribute to Hutchins when it premiered at the Camerimage Festival in Poland last week.
This week, Baldwin, 66, spoke to industry magazine Variety as he was honoured with a lifetime award at the 42nd Torino Film Festival in Turin, Italy.
He said the incident and its aftermath was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life”.
“Beyond the victims themselves, the thing that most pains me is what it did to my wife. My wife has been very, very traumatised from this. There has been a lot of pain.
“When you are married to somebody, and everything was going fairly well and we had seven kids … and the floor falls out.
“It’s very frightening and very disturbing. And we are trying to get the wind in our sails, to get away from this stuff. Because the film doesn’t stand by itself. It’s always going to be overshadowed by this.”
An involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin was thrown out earlier this year.
Hutchins’ mother Olga Solovey boycotted the film’s premiere, saying in a statement through her lawyer that the actor “continues to increase my pain with his refusal to apologise to me and his refusal to take responsibility for her death”.
“Instead, he seeks to unjustly profit from his killing of my daughter.”
However, Baldwin denied the notion anyone would profit from the film’s sale, calling it “blatantly untrue”.
He said he had ignored advice from his doctors, mental health practitioners, and cardiologists not to complete the film.
“I was very sick afterwards for a while, physically drained and ill. But I went,” he explained. “I said to Joel [Souza], ‘Are you going to do it? If you think it’s important to do this, I’ll do it. If it’s the only way we can settle the case with [Hutchins’] husband and the estate is to finish the film, let’s do it’.”
He added that he waived his fee and “gave everything” to Hutchins’ husband Matthew, who he said was the “sole owner” of the film.
“It’s been such a tragedy, which of course we would do anything to undo,” Baldwin said.
“But we arrived to the reshoot and it was a better film in a lot of ways. Other than Halyna. But for now, I want all things Rust to just leave my windshield, so I can go and do other things and be a father to my children.”
“The last two years of this situation have just hammered me, just drained me… We have an obligation to save some of our best for our kids. And that’s been the tough part for me.”
The 30 Rock star has seven young children with his wife, Hilaria Baldwin.
