Alec Baldwin Gives First TV Interview About 'Rust' Shooting, Explains What Happened in Fatal Moment

Alec Baldwin is speaking out in his first TV interview about the fatal shooting on the set of his movie Rust, which left cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead and director Joel Souza injured.

The 63-year-old actor was holding the gun that misfired and killed Halyna, but he has said in the interview that he never pulled the trigger.

Now, the full interview has aired on ABC’s 20/20 and he explained everything that happened in that fatal moment.

Click inside to find out what Alec Baldwin said…

Alec says the shooting occurred during a rehearsal that was being supervised by Halyna.

“Everything is at her direction,” Alec said, saying that Halyna directed his every move.

“This was a marking rehearsal,” he said. “And [Hutchins] says to me, ‘Hold the gun lower. Go to your right. Okay, right there. All right, do that. Now show it a little bit lower.’ And she’s getting me to position the gun.”

He continued, “She’s guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle. I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it, which ended up being aimed right below her armpit.”

What happened next is what is being investigated. Alec said that he needed to cock the gun, but not fire it.

“The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” he said. “I cock the gun. I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ And then I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off. I let go of the hammer of the gun, the gun goes off.”

Interviewer George Stephanopoulos asked, “So, you never pulled the trigger?”

Alec responded, “No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them.”

Alec said that in the moments after the gun fired, “first of all, everyone is horrified, they’re shocked, it’s loud. [Hutchins] 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.”

After she was wounded, Alec said he stood over Halyna‘s body “kind of in chock” for 60 seconds before being told to leave. He found out that she died after being interviewed at the sheriff’s office.

“At the very end of my interview with the sheriff’s department … they said to me, ‘We regret to tell you that [Hutchins] didn’t make it,’” he said. “They told me right then and there.”

Someone who was on the set is confirming Alec‘s story about not pulling the trigger.