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- [00:02]
WhatsApp Representative
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Campsite Media
Campsite Media.
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Natalie Robomed
From Sony Music Entertainment and Campsite Media. This is infamous. I'm Natalie Robomed.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
And I'm Vanessa Gregoriadis.
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Natalie Robomed
So one of the most famous and infamous actors in Hollywood is probably Alec Baldwin.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
Yes.
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Natalie Robomed
A lot of people might know him from his role on 30 Rock.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
I'm Jack Donaghy, new VP of Development for NBC. GE Universal. Kmart.
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Jonathan Van Ness
We own Kmart now.
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Natalie Robomed
No.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
So why are you dressed like we do?
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Natalie Robomed
Or for his impression of Trump on SNL January 20th. I, Donald J. Trump, would become the.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
45Th president of the United States and then two months later, Mike Pence will become the 46th.
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Natalie Robomed
But other people might also remember him from some of the several controversies he's been involved with, including where he called his 11 year old daughter a thoughtless little pig. This is somebody who has not been afraid of confrontations with the press. I've actually met Alec Baldwin. You have as well, right?
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
Yes. I've been in his presence several times, just being at random restaurants and places locally where he happens to live sort of near me. And he's always around and chatting like to everybody. Everybody, everybody, right.
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Natalie Robomed
He's, he's very much in New York, a guy about town probably, I don't know, this was probably 2013, maybe 2014 or so. I was at a charity auction of some sort and Alec Balban was the auctioneer and my editor at the time, you know, walked me up to him and said, you know, Natalie, this is Alec. Alec, this is Natalie. You know, be, be careful. He doesn't like journalists in a sort of joking way. This was not too long after Alec had gotten in trouble for shouting a slur at a paparazzi, something to that extent. And Alec was, was very nice and cordial, but that's the reputation that he has.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
And so where do you see him in his career? I mean, he obviously has had a, you know, had a tremendous career. He was once a pretty big sex symb. Now, you know, he's got the wife and the seven kids and he has a big public Persona.
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Natalie Robomed
He's probably best known at this point for his relationship with Hilary Baldwin. She's this yoga instructor that he met at this kind of raw vegan restaurant that was the subject of the Bad Vegan documentary. She's much younger than him. She's small, brunette, petite. She very famously came under fire for accusations that she was kind of faking this accent. Uh, there's this infamous clip of her on a morning show saying.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
Saying.
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Natalie Robomed
How do you say cucumber?
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Campsite Media
We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
We have.
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Campsite Media
How do you say anything?
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Natalie Robomed
Cucumber.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
Cucumbers.
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Natalie Robomed
This is a woman who is from Boston and not this multicultural Spanish person that Hilaria claims to be.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
But he's still a beloved person in Hollywood. He's got this complicated and dark past, it's true. And he has, like, a bit of an influencer wife and he has some darkness. But there's really been nothing in his life that has been more sort of prominent, and I would say, I'm sure, meaningful than what happened on the set of an indie movie that he made named Rust. So today we are going to talk about that movie, talk about the tragedy that happened on it. The cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was shot by Alec Baldwin. No, not on purpose. It was part of a scene and it was a horrible thing that happened and it never should have happened. So we are going to discuss the documentary. We're going to talk to Rachel Mason, a wonderful documentarian who made it, and we'll be talking about the meaning of what happened there, the court case that ensued, and the takeaways for Hollywood. So let's listen as we talk to Rachel. So I loved this documentary that you made. I thought it was incredibly special, just so sensitive and poignant, and is, of course, in some ways about the tragedy that happened on Rust, which we'll get into, but really a love letter in some ways to your friend Halyna, who was the cinematographer who was killed on that set. And I just was hoping you could talk a bit about why you chose to make this and your relationship with her.
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Campsite Media
I really appreciate the question and the phrasing of your understanding of this film because it was supposed to be a love letter to Helena above and beyond everything else. And we were talking about, in some ways, the hardest thing for any film to do is to secure access when it's a doc. And the only reason people spoke to me, absolutely, hands down, only reason, was because they knew I was Helena's friend and they knew my intentions were totally that. So Helena herself was this larger than life person on many levels. And I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't said a almost exact same thing about her, which is she really felt like she could do it all. And you were like, oh, okay. Here's an example of a person who is ambitious, creative, amazing, a mom, gorgeous, like weirdly everything, and also like unabashedly driven for her own career in a way that I think as women, some sometimes could be like, oh, you're not exactly supposed to say, I want to get that job, Rachel, I want to get that job. But she would say to me, like, man, I really want to do a Blumhouse movie. You better get yourself into those rooms, Rachel. She would tell me that. And I had it in my head because I was like, oh, man, I still haven't met up with Blumhouse for Helena. But I guess Helena's not around to like, tell me I have to make a Blumhouse film and she's gotta be my GP for it. But I just love that about her. She would basically push you harder if you're in this game. You know, we met at a daycare, which is the coolest thing, because I really rarely met people or meet people to this day who I become that tethered to. But when you find like a cool mom person who's as talented and your. Your stars align like how Helena's are, it's just like, okay, we are going to be lifelong friends. This is the coolest thing ever. And that, that was Helena. Me, like, we wanted to work together and our kids were friends. Like, to this day, my son is friends with her son.
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Natalie Robomed
Can you describe a little bit, like what she looked like and where she was from?
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Campsite Media
Yeah. So Helena was a Ukrainian immigrant. And in fact, I. That's the whole reason I met her was because my son's dad is also from Ukraine. And I being the basic American person who was like, look, I need you to be more multicultural than I was raised. And you're going to have the ability bilingual, to be bilingual. And there's these great Russian daycares. Although now I realize Russia and Ukraine have been embroiled in this, like, incredibly tragic war, but the languages are very, very similar. So I wanted my son to go to a Russian daycare to really learn and absorb the language. And Halyna was there with probably the exact same motivation for her kid. And when I first met her, as far as her look, she had like, long brown hair, but her look kind of changed at one point pretty radically. She got this like, amazing, very stylish, like, bleach blonde, pixie cut. And she just really Exuded style. I mean, sometimes in a way, it was even distracting to be on a set with her because she was so above and beyond stylish. And most. If you meet most camera DPs, they roll out of bed and grab their gear. They're not looking amazing, but Helmina would look incredible. So people are like, wow. She' the director of photography, so I'd often get that.
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Natalie Robomed
And we should say, her husband actually asked you to make this movie. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
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Campsite Media
Yeah. I found myself in the unthinkable position the day after she died of. I mean, first and foremost, it was just a being wrecked by trauma. Your friend dies suddenly. My own grandmother had died a few months before Helena died. And actually, my son said it on the night that we heard about her death. Oh, my God. When Grandma died, that was sa. But this is so much more sad. And I was like, oh, that's the perfect way to put it. Like kids say, because none of us are expecting to suddenly, boom, you're dead instantly. Gone forever. And at the height of her prime of her youth, at this point where she was just getting her coolest, biggest job that was gonna launch her career as well, then you learn about how it happened, and you're like, oh, my God, is that for real? A gunshot. But then there's this other layer, like, a celebrity is involved. It's global news. You're on a set. And then as a mom, the next big thing, without even, like, missing a beat, when. When I heard the news of her death is I just thought about her son. Like, where is he? I was like, where's that? Where is he? Like, immediately, where's her son and where's Matt? And that was all I could think of instantly. And Matt was grappling with it. And I only realized that because I had some access to some of Helena's, you know, Gmail, her phone. And as soon as I saw it was October 21st. Looking at a year later, I'm looking at her phone, I'm like, oh, my God. Media just swarmed upon him, and it's like, whoa. Who would have ever imagined that? How do they even get the number? Like, hey, media are really great at finding people because, wow, Suddenly Matt, of all people, is just. His entire world is filled up with people he doesn't know, can't imagine talking to. So when Matt was calling me the next day, he was, like, planning the funeral, planning a way to protect your child, and then planning what to do with media that is coming down upon you. And so Matt was calling me to deal with all three of those things. And the third thing he said to me was, Rachel, I need to trust you to be the one to make a documentary about her. And immediately I was just like, what? That's not a thing we're going to deal with right now. But I realized almost like within a few days, I was like, oh, wow, he really needs to secure that because he's getting requests from people he doesn't know.
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Natalie Robomed
Yeah. I think what we're talking about is the fact that this incident really grabbed people's attention and became a global story. And there were, I would say, several parts of it that contributed to that. Like one, it's this person, Helena, your friend, who's very charismatic and as you said, like, rising in her career. Just the sheer tragedy of that, but also that there was a famous person involved, which is such kind of clickbait for any sort of news article. So Alec Baldwin was the person who had the gun in his hand that day. Also the added layer of this happening on a movie set, on a movie that was a western, where when we watch westerns, there's guns firing all the time and it's this period film, but you never think that there could actually be a real bullet in there. And so that meeting of theater and fiction with real life tragedy, I think really just kind of like captured people.
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Campsite Media
Yeah. You couldn't have written something more unbelievable.
- [12:39]
Jesse Weber
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- [13:42]
Natalie Robomed
For a long time, I thought it was enough to have good locks and maybe an alarm that would, you know, make a lot of noise if someone actually broke in. But after people close to me were broken into, I've realized that true security takes more a system that works to prevent that break in, that violation of your space from ever happening in the first place. That's why I trust SimpliSafe to protect my home and family. With SimpliSafe, they use AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents to detect suspicious activity around your property. If someone's lurking, agents can talk to them in real time or turn on spotlights. Even call law enforcement proactively deterring crime before it starts. Named best home security system of 2025 by CNET monitoring plans start around $1 a day with a 60 day money back guarantee. Visit simplisafe.com infamouspodcast to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's SimpliSafe.com infamouspodcast There's no safe like SimpliSafe, so I want to set the stage a little bit for the scale of the movie. So obviously Alec Baldwin is somebody who's very well known, who was a movie star and then on 30 Rock for many, many years. But this was a very small indie production. It was a small independent film with a tight budget. And so this movie, Rust was shooting in New Mexico outside of Santa Fe. It was kind of a 21 day shoot and a lot of productions shoot in New Mexico. And usually the crew is some kind of combination of folks, a core team that comes from LA and then kind of a lot of local crew. And I think that seems to have been the case on this set. So I just want to like really lay out kind of the key players for who was on set. So obviously we've already talked about Alec Baldwin. He was kind of the big name star of this movie. Helena Hutchins was the director of photography. So sort of the person in charge of making sure that shots in the movie look good. The director was Joel Sousa and the film's armorer was this young woman, Hannah Gutierrez Reid. And an armorer is the person who is responsible for the safety of all weapons on set, making sure that the guns are cleaned safe, filled with the right blanks that they're supposed to be filled with and that sort of thing.
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Campsite Media
Primarily, the armorer's position is gun related. So if you have guns on a set, you need to have an armorer. And the armorer manages every aspect of guns and weapons. To your point, it is weapons as well.
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Natalie Robomed
And so she actually is the daughter.
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Campsite Media
Of another armorer, Thel Reed, her father Was a very famous, legendary. Actually, everyone uses that word when they talk about Thel because he worked with, like, John Wayne. You go back to in his trajectory, basically, the history of Western cinema.
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Natalie Robomed
Okay. If she learned under him, then she's good to go. Even though, as other people pointed out and as the press made a lot of hay of, she was only 24 at the time that this happened. So she was very young and inexperienced. Was kind of the read.
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Campsite Media
You can think back and say, wow, that's the ultimate Nepo baby cautionary tale story. It's more complicated than that because Hannah really also was doing multiple jobs, and even within that, she was clearly overwhelmed, and people saw that. There's also a real specific way that armorers tend to do their job, and Hannah was not doing things in that normal way. Armors are usually very, very in control and disciplined about their gun stash. You don't get to have a set where there's guns and an armorer where it's not controlled. Typically. I was talking to a guy who worked on John Wick. There's a team of armorers. They're managed really, really, really, really well. There's no room for error. And that's how the armoring profession has. Has run. And truthfully, it has had a very solid safety record.
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Natalie Robomed
My husband is an actor and comedian, and when this story came out, we were immediately talking about it because it made me really scared of being like, wait, like, I know that you've dealt with guns on. On set. And he was sort of saying, like, this is so out of the ordinary. Typically, when you have a gun on set, it's incredibly locked down. The armorer is there. They're sort of no bullshit, no nonsense. They're like, there's a safety meeting. This is how you're handling it? Look, the barrel's empty. This is what we're gonna do. Okay. Beat by beat. It's incredibly secure. I think one of the only other instances that I can think of of anything happening with somebody being wounded by a gun on set was Brandon Lee, like, way back in 1993. Yeah. He was shooting the Crow and essentially was injured with a prop bullet. And that's randomly the son of Bruce Lee. Right.
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Campsite Media
And it's not like that is not the most awful thing in the world that that happened, but it. There's 35. How many years between that and this and knowing how many guns have been used on sets?
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
I mean, I would say that just like, as a civilian who has nothing to do with the film business, I didn't even realize that these were real guns on set. I just assumed they were like plastic guns. I don't even know what I assumed. I just never, never crossed my mind to think about, well, this prop, this thing that moves the action forward. Does it? Is it an actual gun? And if it's a real gun, how on earth do they make sure that the bullets that they're getting for that gun are all blanks? And so that's what's so shocking. In addition to, as you say, the safety protocols were definitely not really followed that like, where does the ammunition come from? How do you make sure that they're all blanks? Like a bullet that looks different than another bullet. That would also seem to be something that you don't want to just leave up to human error.
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Campsite Media
Absolutely.
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Natalie Robomed
So let's talk a little bit about, like, what exactly happened on set that day. So they're out in the desert in New Mexico. They're on day 12 of the shoot. So just over halfway through and your documentary gets a little bit into like some of the camera people had walked off on this day. So there were far fewer camera people than normal. And so what happened in this, they were shooting in this kind of like old abandoned church.
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Campsite Media
This was a non planned scene that was about to happen in the church. The day changed because the camera crew walked off and the camera crew walked off citing a bunch of different safety concerns. You're looking at this email and there's lots and lots of stuff that's on there. Guns was listed, but amongst other stuff, hotels and driving conditions and on set conditions. So that it was an unplanned rehearsal because of this unexpected walk off by the crew. And when you're on a film shoot, schedule is everything. So your day is really, really locked in and very specific. One person's absence by a minute can lead to a cascade of different things happening. So everyone takes it very seriously. So for the crew to walk off meant it upended that day. And truly a lot of people have thought, well, why didn't they just call it? Why didn't they just like shut the whole set down that day? And that's also one of those things that can happen when you're juggling that budget schedule, like indie production. You're like, well, if we, if we cut this day off, we might lose the whole film.
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Natalie Robomed
So essentially, at the time of the shooting, Hutchins was doing a lineup of a shootout scene in this kind of set of an old church. And the kind of purpose of this lineup was to confirm Kind of the positioning and the frame and the focus of a camera for a close up shot on Alec Baldwin's hand and the revolver he was holding. So what actually happened that day?
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Campsite Media
So Halyna was in the church doing a lineup, meaning she was going to just use her hands to visually see the shot. So you look between your own hands to see what is going to be in the camera frame. And a lot of people have asked, well, like, why was she standing right there? And then why was a gun in front of her? Like, those are two things that do not happen. They should not happen. But part of it is because the crew had walked off, she didn't have a monitor. Normally there would be a monitor positioned where she herself was physically positioned. And yet again, well, why was Alec using a real gun? Well, because on this set they used real guns. And there's some question about like, well, did he ask for the gun or did she say, I want to see it with a real gun? Nobody would ever imagine, ever in a million billion years that that gun wouldn't be perfectly safe. Granted, even with that expectation, you're still not really supposed to stand where she was standing. And both people, her and Alec would have been aware of that, should have known it. But even then, they're the creatives. Someone else should have stepped in and been like, whoa, do not stand right here. Okay, this, and let me check this again.
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Natalie Robomed
So essentially, you know, Helena was standing right in kind of the line of fire where if all the, if all the safety procedures were in place and the checks and balances that should have been checks and balancing had happened, she wouldn't have been in that position. Yeah. And likewise, Alec should have been stopped from pointing the gun at her, probably on an ideal set. And I should say that Alec says he didn't pull the trigger on the gun, but, but also the gun couldn't have been fired without him pulling the trigger.
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Campsite Media
Yeah, exactly. And I would say that, you know, all of the different points now where people have contested various parts of it. Alec has also said, well, Helena told me to point the gun at her and Alex said I didn't pull the trigger. Which is very controversial thing to say because people who know about guns and this very basic logic, I mean, he might have not realized he pulled the trigger is a big part of it, is that, you know, there was an analysis of where his finger was and you could look at, I looked at a chunk of photos and videos where his hand is fully on a trigger in every single one of those shots.
- [24:34]
Natalie Robomed
And so essentially what happened was a bullet was discharged from the gun and essentially shot Helena Impost through her body and into Joel's, the director who was standing behind her. And they ended up both being shot because there was live ammunition in the firearm. It wasn't a blank.
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Campsite Media
Yeah, she was shot and killed like anyone else who would have been shot by like an assassin at point blank range would have been killed. And I am very desensitized to it at this point, as horrific as it is. She was killed by a gun in a point blank range situation. It was unsurvivable. You with the, one of the largest caliber bullets that you could possibly. It was a.45 caliber bullet, which has also been called a horse killer or a man stopper like they used in World War II to make sure a person was completely destroyed by this gun. So she basically was killed in the most horrific way. And she did not die immediately either. And it was a horrible ordeal for all of the, the people trying to save her life. And you know, there was a trauma scene. She was medevaced out on a, in a helicopter and she flatlined in transit in the air and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the University New Mexico Albuquerque Hospital.
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Natalie Robomed
And from there it kind of became the media circus that we already alluded to. I mean, in your mind and after you've poured through this case and seen all the evidence and all of that, whose fault was it?
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Campsite Media
You know, I have started to feel like the fault, if there is one, is a very large systemic failure that is bigger than just the production of Rust because there's going to be another set death as awful as is to say that it's just not going to.
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Vanessa Gregoriadis
Be from a gun.
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Campsite Media
It's definitely. This industry is really overridden with safety failures. Since Helena died, there have been at least five people that have been killed on other sets. Yeah, you didn't think about that because it wasn't widely covered. But there was a guy who was killed on a Marvel film and it's not a salacious death with a celebrity shooting someone at a point blank range distance. So it's not that interesting for the world to know that there was a wooden beam that wasn't properly installed 60ft high and a gaffer was just carrying some cable up and fell to his death.
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Natalie Robomed
But why, like, why, why is this happening especially on something like, like a Marvel movie? You know, that's $180 million, $200 million, whatever the budget is movie. I think of these industries as like very unionized and very sort of like Rigorous. Is it the fact that the industry is being squeezed and people are being asked to do more with less? Is that what it is?
- [27:39]
Campsite Media
I mean, I think it actually is almost like a historical question. You look at Hollywood, in fact, there's a movie that I'm really glad it exists. It's very new. It's called Safe Sets. And it actually digests the sort of historical legacy Hollywood has always attracted. People that are daredevils. And Helena herself, on her Instagram page, she says, I'm an adrenaline junkie. And a lot of people in the stunt department, a lot of people in special effects, a lot of people in armoring. Like, it attracts people that like to do things that are, you know, a little on the edge, you could say. And that is why we have a history of filmmaking that has all kinds of crazy stuff happening. Because directors, they're having fun, they're doing things. And a lot of it is edgy and. And really wild. Like, even when I was talking to Alan Graff, who is this. This amazing old timer who's a. He was the head of the stunts on Rust, he worked with John Wayne. And he was just telling me about, like rolling a bus under a bridge under the 405 as LA's biggest freeway. And I had to sit with that first time, I was like, wait a minute, you rolled a bus over under the 405, blocking all lanes of traffic? Like, what the hell? On what planet? But the film industry does this. Like, there's just. Just a lot of crazy stuff happening on film sets. That being said, then you go back and look at how different people, not just been killed, but injured. Oh, my God. The injuries are like horrific, life threatening. Or if they're not life threatening, they're just in the debilitating. People have become permanently disabled, like brain damaged, like lost limbs, all of it. And it is because films themselves, you know, offer this visual of like some crazy stuff happening. Right?
- [29:25]
Natalie Robomed
Part of it is our appetite for this as well.
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Campsite Media
Yeah, a huge part of it is that. But then the next layer to it is that when I interviewed the guy from osha, he deals with factories and construction sites and there's sort of a protocol, it's like. But films are. He even said it's a very hard industry to regulate because it's almost like a startup, okay? These people are here, they don't know each other, they're coming in and where do we even find these guys? He was telling me and he was like, you know, it's just really hard because this is a slightly unmanageable and unregulated industry on the. In the indie space. So it's a little more regulatable, perhaps in the non indie space. But even then, there's another great documentary called the Boy who Lived, all about the guy who was paralyzed, David Holmes, from being Harry Potter's stunt double. And again, you go back and like, how on earth could that stunt team, who's probably the best in the world, have a failure like that?
- [30:28]
Natalie Robomed
So, I mean, what is your takeaway from this story? I mean, what do you think it says about our culture and our appetite for these kind of stories that it took on such a life of its own, you know?
- [30:42]
Campsite Media
Yeah, I guess on some level, when I think on the biggest picture of it all, I feel like, what. What would Helena want her own legacy and her life and death to mean in this? And because that's what I think about, I go back to her. Like, the only reason I'm here is not because I have any expertise. I'm not a person that studies sets. I'm just a person who knew Halina and her tragic death is just never gonna go away in my. It's like a hole in my life. That being said, when I think of, like, what should change or what could. What could be affected, that would at least make her death, like, not in vain, you kind of go in that space. And I do believe it's these types of conversations. This is a problem that our industry needs to have a lot more conversations about than just this one film. And that feels to me like some bigger element of justice for Helena, because I have often felt like that term feels very hollow. Justice. Well, there's no justice except her coming back to life and living her life. So feeling like this could hopefully lead to safer sets or to crew feeling like they can speak up when they see something that's really wrong, that, to me feels like a step in the right direction.
- [32:06]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Yeah, I mean, I really think that at this time, we hear a lot about, oh, Hollywood's in trouble. The streaming services don't want the same amount of content as they used to. Films are obviously, you know, it was being shot in New Mexico because there were good tax rebate situations. There's a lot of problems in la. A lot of people are losing their jobs in the Hollywood system. And this is a reminder that, like, Hollywood has real people working in it behind the camera. It's a whole industry. It's not just about glamour on one side and then entertainment and couch potato stuff on the other. Like, there's Actual people. And everybody's always amazed when you say, like, oh, well, this person makes, you know, $80,000 a year because they think anybody who touches film must be a millionaire. But like, that's not the situation. And people put themselves in harm's way to create. You know, yes, you can call it content, you can call it entertainment, you can call it art, whatever you want. But they're trying to make stories to share with other people and to move other people and make them feel something. And that's what really this woman Helena's life was dedicated to. So, Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It's a fascinating movie. Last take and you can watch it on Hulu. Thank you so much, Rachel, for coming on.
- [33:39]
Jonathan Van Ness
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Rachel Mason
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- [36:09]
Natalie Robomed
So after the shooting on the set of Rust, there was a huge media maelstrom and a pretty dramatic court case. Vanessa and I are going to talk through that now. So immediately after the shooting, which happened on October 21, 2021, it was just a complete media nightmare for Alec Baldwin. The publicity for it very clearly was critical of Alec Baldwin. I would say he sort of went on the defensive. Early December, he did an interview with George Stephanopoulos, basically saying he had no idea how a live bullet got onto the set and that he didn't pull the trigger.
- [36:50]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Which was something that his lawyer would have told him to say. Right, because they just wanted to get around this, this problem.
- [36:55]
Natalie Robomed
Right. You know, he also said that he didn't think he was going to face.
- [36:59]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Criminal charges and there's a question of if he should have faced criminal charges. Because I think one of the things that Rachel, you know, is probably too nice to say, but I think is clear in her documentary, is that the armorer was really the first line of defense. There were a million problems here, but the way that the guns were being treated on the set was not as professional as it should have been. Hannah Guterres reed was a 24 year old armorer. She was just way too young to have this kind of responsibility. And they had also had her doing some duties for the props department because they were trying to make sure they were paying people as little as they could to stay within an indie film budget.
- [37:43]
Natalie Robomed
So Alec didn't believe he would face criminal charges. But in January 2023, prosecutors did bring charges against Alec Baldwin and the armorer Gutierrez Reed for involuntary manslaughter. I mean, Alec Baldwin immediately pled not guilty. He waived his first court appearance. There's a whole series of lawsuits and, and unbelievably, actually to me, around this time in the April 2023, Rust actually resumes filming. And this I found sort of like so shocking and moving. But Rachel's film gets into it where basically a lot of the people felt like they needed to complete this movie for the family because it's what the family would have wanted. And so the charges against Alec Baldwin at that point were dropped. And I think a lot of people thought, okay, all right, maybe this is over. And then January 2024, Alec Balboam is indicted for manslaughter.
- [38:42]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
For manslaughter, right. Yeah.
- [38:43]
Natalie Robomed
Yes. And, you know, this is kind of the backdrop that you see in his new reality show, the Baldwins, which you can watch on HBO Max, which I. I did actually watch the first episode of, but I dropped off of because I found it too dark. Because it's sort of in between them discussing the seating arrangements for how they're going to get all seven kids out to the Hamptons. It's also them talking about the fact that Alec's about to be on trial.
- [39:11]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Now we have to decide who's sitting.
- [39:14]
Campsite Media
Where, like on paper.
- [39:17]
Natalie Robomed
On paper for the car.
- [39:18]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
But I do have to tell you that I enjoyed that reality show. I think that I am maybe more of an Alec Baldwin fan than you are, because I find him, like, when he compares his kids to being the guys in the Lollipop Guild, and he's like, you know, that we represent the Lollipop Guild. Like, he's such a good mimic. And I don't mind her as much as many other people alive mind her because I know a lot of people like that who are sort of like fitness moms, you know, And I love that they have these little kids and they're trying to have this late in life family. Like, there's a sort of Charlie Chaplin esqueness to Alec Baldwin that I find to be quite unique and lovable. And I 100% recognize that he's been difficult through the years. But, you know, I also think that in Rachel's documentary, she also presents him in a pretty flattering light where she uses a lot of the police sort of like, you know, dash cam style stuff of After Helena was killed, where you see, now he's an actor, of course, but you see him being totally devastated by this. Not putting himself first, not saying, oh my God, what's gonna happen to me? Am I gonna get sued? He's going with the police to the police station. He is answering the questions. He is putting his hand in his head when he hears that she has died. Insofar as he's an actor, okay, fine. But in that moment, you feel that you're connected to him as a person. So I will just say that all in Alec Baldwin's defense. But look, I Mean, ultimately, what happens is Hannah Guterres Reid gets sentenced and she does go to prison. And it's not a very long sentence, but she does get sentenced. And when it comes to Alec Baldwin, I mean, the case is sort of mishandled in New Mexico, and a bunch of strange things go on with a prosecutor who seems quite intelligent, but there is just strangeness behind the scenes. And there end up being some bullets that were live rounds that were found on the set, and their existence was not disclosed to Alec Baldwin's defense team. Obviously, this is something he would have wanted to know because it sort of goes to the point that there was irresponsibility on the part of the armorer and other people who were supposed to be watching the bullets on this set. If they find six actual bullets that could have killed somebody, because it was around six of them, I mean, that's insane. Like, somebody was potentially going to die. I don't know how many bullets there were, but let's say there were 500 bullets, six of them. That's quite the Russian roulette if six of them could have killed you. So they don't disclose that to Alec Baldwin's defense team, and he essentially gets like, a mistrial. Right. Like, but for a civilian, you know, to understand this, the judge just says, this is too crazy. I'm throwing this whole case out.
- [42:27]
Natalie Robomed
Exactly. And so Basically, I mean, July 9, 2024, Alec Baldwin's trial begins. Three days later, the judge dismisses his manslaughter trial.
- [42:39]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Right.
- [42:39]
Natalie Robomed
With prejudice, which means that they can't bring the case against him again. And in Rachel's documentary, you sort of see Alec Baldwin just kind of like burst into tears in the courtroom and turn around and hug his wife, hug Hilaria. And it really is. There's no doubt that this has affected him emotionally. And I'm not meaning to come down too, too harshly on him. I'm sure it's like, ultimately the worst punishment anybody can ever have is the personal one where it's like, yeah, he has to live with the fact that this happened on set with him, you know, and that's far be it for me to lay into him on top of that. That's probably worse than anything else I could ever say. But ultimately, Alec does get off. And this, it's. Meanwhile, the armorer is, as we've already said, been sentenced to a maximum of 18 months in prison. And during that sentencing, the judge said to the armorer, you alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Ms. Hutchins, would be alive, A husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother, which is just, just devastating. And, you know, I think there are some. Some wider questions. It really seems like in the eyes of the law, fault has very clearly kind of been laid at the feet of the armorer who was responsible for the weapons on set. And so. But, you know, there's so many other parts to this, right? Like, the production company was trying to do this on a very tight budget. They were trying to maybe cut costs, and maybe that's why they hired an inexperienced armorer. Should production have stopped that day? And they should have just called it a day? Perhaps so. And obviously there's so many people involved and reasons why this happened, but I found myself wanting to think that someone had intentionally change the bullet. My mind would prefer that there had been some vindictive action here rather than to believe it was just an accident because it's just so tragic to think that this could have just been an accident or human error.
- [44:52]
Vanessa Gregoriadis
Yeah, I agree. Gives you just a sense of things are not fair in the universe.
- [45:08]
Natalie Robomed
That's it for Infamous. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review and tell your friends. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at Natrobe. That's N A T R O B E. And if you want to support Vanessa's work, you can buy her book, Blurred Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Canvas. See you next week. This is an ad by Regain Couples Therapy and features real testimonials. This was our first time trying therapy, and honestly, it was long overdue. Looking back, we just wish we had started sooner. Regain's qualified therapists help couples when they can't get there on their own. We thought it was intimacy issues, but Andrea helped us uncover a deeper root cause we hadn't even realized was there. Visit regain.com couplespod to get 10% off your first month. Regain powered by BetterHelp.