Alec Baldwin has spoken out about the accidental death of Halyna Hutchins.
Hutchins, a 42-year-old cinematographer, was accidentally killed on October 21 after Baldwin fired a prop Colt revolver that had been loaded with live ammunition.
The firearm — which was fired during a rehearsal for the movie Rust — also wounded 48-year-old director Joel Souza, on the New Mexico set.
In the first televised interview after October's tragic incident, the actor spoke about the incident in an ABC News interview.
"I feel that someone is responsible for what happened, and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me," Baldwin told journalist George Stephanopoulos. He added: "I mean, honest to God, if I felt that I was responsible, I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible. And I don’t say that lightly."
Recounting the aftermath of the shooting, which occurred as he and Hutchins were rehearsing their marks for a scene, Baldwin said: "She goes down. I thought to myself, ‘Did she faint?’ The notion that there was a live round in that gun did not dawn on me till probably 45 minutes to an hour later."
"She’s laying there and I go, ‘Did she hit by wadding? Was there a blank?…no one could understand," he continued, growing emotional.
Baldwin then defended his actions by saying that he had always trusted the prop experts throughout his career. "I probably handled weapons as much as any other actor in films with an average career, never shooting or being shot by someone. And in that time, I had a protocol. And it never let me down," he said.
"When that person who was charged with that job handed me the weapon, I trusted them. And I never had a problem, ever."
On October 26, a district attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, announced that she had not ruled out criminal charges over the death of Hutchins.
"We haven’t ruled out anything," Mary Carmack-Altwies, said, as reported by The New York Times. "Everything at this point, including criminal charges, is on the table."
