By Andrew Dalton, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Alec Baldwin said he feels incredible sadness and regret over the shooting that killed a cinematographer on a New Mexico film set, but not guilt.
"Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can't say who that is, but it's not me," Baldwin said in an ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos that aired Thursday night, the first time the actor has spoken in depth on screen about the Oct. 21 shooting on the set of the Western "Rust." "Honest to god, if I felt I was responsible, I might have killed myself."
Baldwin said it is essential for investigators to find out who put the bullet in the gun he fired, that was supposed to be empty, that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.
"There's only one question to be resolved, and that's where did the live round come from?" Baldwin said.
Baldwin said in a clip from the interview released a day earlier that "I didn't pull the trigger. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them. Never."
He said it was Hutchins herself who asked him to point the gun just off camera and toward her armpit before it went off.
Baldwin said at Hutchins' direction he pulled the hammer back.
"I let go of the hammer and 'bang' the gun goes off," he said.
When Stephanopoulos told Baldwin that many say you should never point a gun directly at someone on a set, he responded, "unless the person is the cinematographer who was directing me where to point the gun for her camera angle."
Baldwin said it was 45 minutes to an hour before he began to understand that a live round had been in the gun, and didn't know it for sure until he was being interviewed hours later. He thought Hutchins might have been hurt by a blank at close range or had a heart attack.
"The idea that somebody put a live bullet in the gun was not even in reality."
He had one of several tearful moments when he described Hutchins, saying she was "somebody who was loved by everybody and admired by everybody who worked with her."
Baldwin said he was doing the interview to counter public misconceptions about the shooting and to make it clear that "I would go to any lengths to undo what happened."
But Baldwin said "I want to make sure that I don't come across like I'm the victim because we have two victims here."
Investigators have described "some complacency" in how weapons were handled on the "Rust" set. They have said it is too soon to determine whether charges will be filed, amid independent civil lawsuits concerning liability in the fatal shooting.
Baldwin said he met with the film's armorer Hanna Gutierrez Reed for a gun training session before the shoot, and she appeared capable and responsible.
"I assumed because she was there and she was hired that she was up to the job," he said.
Gutierrez Reed has been the subject of much of the scrutiny in the case. Her attorney has said she did not put the round in the gun, and believes she was the victim of sabotage. Authorities say they've found no evidence of that.
Baldwin, who was also a producer on the film, said there was no indication to him that crew members were unhappy with safety conditions on the set, though some resigned over the issue.
"I never heard one word about that, none," Baldwin said.
Baldwin said complaints about cost-cutting on the film have been misguided.
"Everybody who makes movies has the responsibility not to be reckless and careless with the money that you're given," he said.
Asked by Stephanopoulos whether the cost-cutting compromised safety, Baldwin said "In my opinion no."
"I personally did not observe any safety or security issues at all in the time I was there," he said.
Baldwin said he does not believe he will be criminally charged in the shooting.
"I've spoken to the sheriff's department multiple times," he said. I don't have anything to hide."
He said the incident left him emotionally ravaged.
"I have dreams about this constantly," he said, " wake up constantly where guns are going off. These images have come into my mind and kept me awake at night and I haven't slept for weeks and I've really been struggling physically."
Asked by Stephanopoulos if his career is over, Baldwin said, "It could be."
He said his next production still wants him, "but I said to myself, 'do I want to work much more after this?'"
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More