How does a working actor see the Rust shooting and the criminal prosecution of Alec Baldwin? “It’s always been a slam-dunk case,” declares my friend Adam Baldwin (no relation), who has starred in numerous action pictures over his 40-year-plus career in Hollywood. “It’s never really been a doubt in my mind,” Adam says, that “it was a negligent homicide.” Hollywood has worked hard to prevent such tragedies, and the lack of basic attention to its protocols has Adam passionately angry about the outcome and Halyna Hutchins’ needless death.
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Welcome back to my VIP video series “The Amiable Skeptics,” featuring my friend Adam Baldwin! Adam is well-known for his long and storied Hollywood career, starting with My Bodyguard, and especially for his roles in Full Metal Jacket, Firefly, its film sequel Serenity, Chuck, and The Last Ship.
The Screen Actors Guild has developed a stringent set of requirements around the use of firearms on sets, both of us point out. And that has worked. The last fatal shooting accident took place decades ago on the set of The Crow, which prompted the union to create these safety rules and procedures. The most basic of these, Adam explains, is for the actor to check his firearm to ensure that its load is safe for set use. “He’s required to look in the weapon to check and see if it’s safe,” Adam points out. “You can easily check it by opening the loading gate, and click click click. In less than three seconds,” Adam continues, “you can see whether each of the primers on the dummy loads — which make the gun look loaded and not empty — you can see if those primers are intact.”
Adam goes into a lot more depth, and while he’s encouraged by the decision to charge Baldwin, he’s less supportive of charging armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Watch the interview to find out why, and be sure to join the conversation in the comments.
