The American actor, Alec Baldwin, shot and killed yesterday, Thursday, apparently by accident, the director of photography and injured the director of the new western movie returning to the state of New Mexico, police said.
Η Halina Hutchins and Joel Sousa «were wounded by bullets when Alec Baldwin fired the pistol he was using to shoot» the film Rust, which is being produced for Netflix, the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office explained in a press release sent to the French Agency.
Halina Hutchins, 42, was evacuated by helicopter to a nearby hospital, where she was simply pronounced dead. Joel Souza, the film's director, 48, was admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU).
According to a sheriff's spokesperson quoted by the specialist website The Hollywood Reporter, the director is in «critical condition». According to the same source, who cited a production spokesperson, it was an «accident» as well, instead of blanks, the pistol used by the protagonist had real bullets in it.
An investigation is underway, in the context of which eyewitnesses have been called to testify. At this stage, no prosecutions have been brought, according to the announcement.
Rust, written and directed by Mr. Sousa, has Alec Baldwin co-producing and starring as outlaw Harland Rust, who goes to help his 13-year-old grandson who has been sentenced to death by hanging for murder.
Mr Baldwin, 63, has been hugely popular in recent years in the US, most notably for his impersonation of Donald Trump on the satirical show Saturday Night Live.
In March 1993, 27-year-old actor Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts film star Bruce Lee, was shot and killed during the filming of The Crow. The gun was loaded with blanks, but the autopsy showed that the actor was hit by a .44 bullet jammed in the barrel that was fired when a co-star pulled the trigger, hitting him in the abdomen. The investigation conducted concluded that it was a case of manslaughter by «negligence».
