Alec Baldwin Says 'Rust' Lawsuits Are Targeted Towards 'Deep-Pocket' Litigants

Alec Baldwin is addressing the lawsuits surrounding the tragic death cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust.

Last month, it was confirmed that the family of Halyna had filed a suit against the 63-year-old actor, alleging that reckless behavior and cost cutting on the set of the film contributed to the cinematographer’s death.

During an appearance at the Boulder International Film Festival on Saturday (March 5), Alec claimed that the lawsuits he’s been named in are targeting “deep-pocket litigants” and are not necessarily directed at those most responsible for the shooting.

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“What you have is a certain group of people, litigants and whatever, on whatever side, who their attitude is, ‘Well, the people who likely seem negligent have no money and the people who have money are not negligent,’” he said, per CNN.

“All my career, without incident, I’ve relied on the safety experts there to declare the gun safe and never had a problem, and this happened,” he added.

“Of course, this is to me sometimes it’s, it’s so surreal, I don’t even know what to say,” Alec continued. “When someone, whose job is to ensure the safety of a weapon, hands someone else, whose job is to be the secondary layer of protection for safety of a weapon, and they hand you that weapon, you declare that that weapon is safe.

The incident has been under investigation by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. Through search warrants, it was discovered that the armorer Hannah Reed Gutierrez, loaded the Colt .45 with what she believed were dummy rounds. The gun was then given to first assistant director Dave Halls, who said it was a “cold gun” when handing it to Alec.

Three other crew members have also filed suit already, including script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, key medic Cherlyn Scaefer and Reed Gutierrez. Alec has argued that Mamie‘s case should be dismissed because it involves a workplace accident, which should be handled by the state workers compensation system.

“That’s how I’ve done it my whole life because you’re not allowed as an actor to declare the weapon… I mean, the joke is, you don’t want the actors doing the safety check. They can’t even make coffee, they’re so stupid,” the actor noted. “This woman was a lovely woman, she was a lovely woman, and she was talented.”

Last month, Halyna Hutchins‘ husband Matt spoke out about her death.