Alec Baldwin interview – live: Sheriff hits back at star as he is pictured ahead of ‘intense’ ABC tell-all

Alec Baldwin said he assumed that Hannah Gutierrez Read, the armourer for Rust, was “up to the job” when it came to handling firearms on set.

“I assumed that because she was there and she was hired that she was up to the job,” Mr Baldwin said, even though Ms Read had only worked on a few films.

In his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin described a session where he spent an hour-and-a-half practicing with the pistol, going over safety protocols. Eventually, there were multiple accidental discharges of prop pistols on set ahead of the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins.

Rust actor Alec Baldwin said he would “go to any lengths” to take back the accidental shooting that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October.

“I would go to any lengths to undo what happened,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in the interview aired on Thursday.

“She was someone who was beloved by everyone we worked with, loved by everyone we worked with, someone who was admired by everyone who worked with her,” Mr Baldwin continued, breaking into tears.

Alec Baldwin’s interview with ABC about the shooting on the set of Rust has begun.

The conversation can be watched live at 5pm ET on ABC, at 8pm PT on the West Coast of the US, or streamed online.

Ahead of Alec Baldwin’s hotly anticipated interview on ABC about the shooting on the set of the upcoming film Rust, it’s worth revisiting the “many levels of failures” that lead to Halyna Hutchins’s tragic death, including reportedly poor safety conditions.

Mary Carmack-Altwies, a district attorney in New Mexico investigating the shooting, said she hasn’t found any evidence of intentional “sabotage” behind the gun going off, but that police have recovered other live rounds from the set of the film.

Police have also said that they were concerned about “complacency” on set around safety, creating conditions that led multiple staff members to walk off in protest the day of the shooting.

Ahead of the interview on ABC this evening, you can read a retrospective of Alec Baldwin’s career here:

In a clip ahead of tonight’s interview, ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos asks Baldwin if this incident “is the worst thing that’s happened to you,” to which Baldwin replies “yes”.

Cinematographer Hutchins, 42, was airlifted to hospital where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel, authorities said, while director Joel Souza, 48, was taken by ambulance and treated for his injuries before later being discharged.

His interview tonight will explore what happened on set more, according to Stephanopoulos.

You can see a clip of the upcoming interview here:

The assistant director who handed Alec Baldwin a prop gun that went off has backed up Baldwin’s assertion in an interview that he didn’t pull the trigger of the gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Lisa Torraco, a lawyer for assistant director David Halls told ABC news that Halls always maintained that Baldwin did not pull the trigger.

“He told me since day one he thought it was a misfire,” Torraco said (via AP news)

“Until Alec said that, it was just really hard to believe, but Dave has told me since the very first day I met him, that Alec did not pull that trigger.” Torraco added.

It comes after ABC released a clip yesterday (2 December) in which Baldwin said he did not pull the trigger before the gun fired, killing Hutchins and wounding the film’s director.

In a clip shared from ABC ahead of the interview this evening, long-time news anchor George Stephanopoulos can be seen asking Baldwin some tough questions.

At one point, he is seen asking Baldwin: “How do you respond to actors like George Clooney who say that every time they were handed a gun they checked it themselves?”

His response to that will air latter today on ABC news at 8pm.

It comes as many in the industry are questioning the use of live guns on film sets in the wake of the tragedy.

Last month, Dwayne Johnson said he will no longer use real guns on the set of his productions following the Rust shooting.

Johnson told Variety that the incident has left him “heartbroken”, adding: “We lost a life. My heart goes out to her family and everybody on set. I’ve known Alec, too, for a very long time.”

The actor then pledged “without an absence of clarity” that “any movie that we have moving forward with [the production company he co-founded] Seven Bucks Productions — any movie, any television show, or anything we do or produce — we won’t use real guns at all”.

He added: “We’re going to switch over to rubber guns, and we’re going to take care of it in post [production],” he said. “We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs.”

Johnson’s decision echoes calls across the industry to improve safety on film and TV sets, particularly when guns are involved.

You can read the full report about that here:

Alec Baldwin has said very little publicly since the death of Halyna Hutchins aside from an official statement after the incident on 21 October.

The actor did however share a tweet where he called for police officers to be present on film and television sets to monitor gun usage during filming.

He wrote: “Every film/TV set that uses guns, fake or otherwise, should have a police officer on set, hired by the production, to specifically monitor weapons safely.”

You can read more about this ahead of his tell-all ABC interview here:

Meanwhile, viewers on social media are struggling to decide whether or not to watch the interview.

One Twitter user said it would be “too emotional” while another said it was “too soon” to be doing an interview.

You can see some of their thoughts here: