In the Alec Baldwin police interview transcript, the shocked actor gives a moment-by-moment recollection of his day on the Rust movie set, actions of the prop/armor department, and how the fatal shooting of director Halyna Hutchins occurred.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office has released the full video interrogation of actor Alec Baldwin, conducted minutes after the tragic shooting on set of the movie ‘Rust’. While filming a scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico that called for Baldwin’s character to aim a revolver in the direction of a camera, a live bullet was mysteriously placed into the prop gun, fatally striking cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Currently, an extensive investigation is underway to determine how real ammo was mixed with theatrical rounds, and who precisely loaded the gun that was handed to Baldwin.
The October 21, 2021 interview lasts one hour and thirteen minutes. Below is part one of the Alec Baldwin police interview transcript.
[BEGIN PART 1 – ALEC BALDWIN POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT]
ALEC BALDWIN: [Walking into police interrogation room] Where would you like me to sit?
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Um, either of those chairs. I thought he was coming with you, so…
ALEC BALDWIN: [unintelligible]
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: I’m Alex. I’m one of the detectives on the case. And, can I get you a coffee or anything?
ALEC BALDWIN: No [pointing to bottle of water he brought with him] I have a water, I’m fine.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Water… you’re good. We’ll be in here in just a minute, okay? [Exits the room]
ALEC BALDWIN: [Picks up cell phone and uses Facetime to call his wife, Hilaria Baldwin] Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
[After no audible response, Facetime is ended & Alec dials a number, placing call on speakerphone. After 1 ring, & Hiliaria Baldwin answers phone.]
HILARIA BALDWIN: Hey.
ALEC BALDWIN: I’m at the police station with the Sheriffs, and they’re about to interview me.
HILARIA BALDWIN: Okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: How’s everyone at home? How are the kids?
HILARIA BALDWIN: The kids are great, the kids are great, umm…
ALEC BALDWIN: Did you tell, did you— hold on one second, please. Did you tell Carmen [Alec’s daughter] what’s going on?
HILARIA BALDWIN: No, I didn’t.
ALEC BALDWIN: Okay. Are you convinced you don’t want to come tomorrow?
HILARIA BALDWIN: I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Look, look… call me after you talk with the Sheriff, but like, I don’t think it’s a great idea. I think, I think… I think this is, you know…
ALEC BALDWIN: —right but, let me just say this to you, just to be clear: they’re gonna make me stay here tomorrow anyway, to talk to insurance investigators. This is really… I mean, I’ll talk to you more but I’m just saying…
HILARIA BALDWIN: —I’m so sorry, you must have such like, you must be so— [Alec removes call from speakerphone]
ALEC BALDWIN: No, no. What I am is someone who… I don’t want to do this film thing anymore, I don’t. I don’t want to be a public person. And you know, I’m the one holding the gun in my hand that everybody was supposed to have taken care of. They always hand me a cold gun. Where are you now?
HILARIA BALDWIN: I’m meeting with Michelle right now. [Note: despite removal from speakerphone, conversation is still slightly audible]
ALEC BALDWIN: Michelle who? And where are you? Okay, all right. I’ll call you back when I’m done, okay?
[Phone call with Hilaria ends. Alec uses Facetime to contact unknown female who appears to be a caretaker or nanny]
UNKNOWN FEMALE: [answers Facetime] Hi, Alec!
ALEC BALDWIN: Hey! Where are the kids?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: They’re sleeping. Carmen is awake.
ALEC BALDWIN: The boys are sleeping?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Yeah. Carmen is still up.
ALEC BALDWIN: Did she tell you what’s going on?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Yeah. I’m sorry—
ALEC BALDWIN: I’m trying to convince her to come! I think we should come. They could spend the time here and they’re going to do what they’ve got to do, and deal with what they’ve got to deal with, and we shouldn’t let [unintelligible]. I will work and then we’ll go enjoy ourselves. It’s all paid for and they’re not going to give us the money back.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: And we should be staying away from the vultures* here.
[*Note: “vultures” likely refers to paparazzi]
ALEC BALDWIN: Are they outside?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: No, but I imagine they will be, at some point they’re going to find out.
ALEC BALDWIN: I think that’s a great idea. You should come for that reason also. All right, I’ll call Carmen on her iPad, okay?
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Okay. Yeah, she’s on her, she’s on her phone. I’m very sorry, Alec—
ALEC BALDWIN: Oh you have no idea, you have no idea how unbelievable this is and how strange this is. And I’ll explain it to you later.
UNKNOWN FEMALE: Sorry you’re in this position…
ALEC BALDWIN: —no, no. It’s just that this…
UNKNOWN FEMALE: —I hope that everyone is okay and that you’re okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: [Sighs] I’ll call you back, thank you. Bye-bye.
[Door opens and Detective Alexadra Hancock returns with another detective]
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Hi, I’m Samantha.
ALEC BALDWIN: [shakes hands with Detective Samantha] Hi.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: So, you know why you’re here… for this incident that was unfortunate, earlier. I know you’ve already agreed to talk to us and everything and that’s great. We’re just going to go over the [Miranda] rights, she’s gonna read these to you. As you understand them, just sign and initial and then if you read the bottom and agree to talk to us, just sign.
ALEC BALDWIN: Initial each of them?
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: As you understand them, yes.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: So, first one: you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in court or other proceedings. You have the right to consult with an attorney before making any statement or answering any questions, and you may have him or her present with you during questioning. You may have an attorney appointed to represent you if you cannot afford one or otherwise obtain one. If you decide to answer any questions now with or without a lawyer, you have the right to stop questioning at any time, or stop questioning for the purpose of consulting a lawyer.
ALEC BALDWIN: So, my only question is am I being charged with something?
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: No, we’re just interviewing—
ALEC BALDWIN: I’m not worried because—
[crosstalk]
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: We have to do our job at advising you your rights because it is an investigation.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Just a formality. Have to do it. You’re here, we appreciate it.
ALEC BALDWIN: What is today?
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: It is the 21st of October.
ALEC BALDWIN: [Sighs]
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Long day?
ALEC BALDWIN: Well, what’s interesting – not to digress on some commentary here – is that we’ve done this for two weeks and we did it the right way every day, every day. You’re on a set to rehearse, they bring you what’s called a cold gun. The gun is either completely empty, the chambers, or there is a cosmetic piece. So for example, if you’re the camera… and this is gonna sound silly and specific, but if I’m pointing the gun close to the camera you want to see into the cylinder that there’s material in there, cosmetic material. So those rounds are cosmetic rounds.They put them in and you rehearse, or even in a shot when you don’t fire. They pull the gun up and you see there’s some material inside the cylinder. They’d hand me a cold gun, no charges. They always hand you a cold gun with nothing in it to rehearse. And then when you shoot, if you’re shooting loads that are flash loads, and they’re usually in three denominations: quarter, half, or full load so that the flash is bright and the sound is loud, louder, loudest. Full load is loudest. So if you’re outside, you want a full load. ‘Bang!’, you want a loud sound. But if you’re inside you put in a quarter load. Right before you shoot, everyone preps. Crew put the earplugs in, some put headphones on. The camera’s there. Very often there’s a lucite screen. But [motioning positions] you’re the camera operator and there’s the camera so, we shoot off camera, you never shoot into the lens. And you shoot and there’s a flash and a sound. Now, I went to lunch. She disarmed me. I sat down and…
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: —”she” being?
ALEC BALDWIN: Hannah, the armaments person. She was always handling the guns, for 99% of the time. So I would… if I had a cosmetic rifle with no rounds, I would hand it to one of her assistants. I’m sitting there, she disarms me. We go to lunch, we come back from lunch and they hand me the revolver, the Colt.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: And “they”? I’d just like some names.
ALEC BALDWIN: Hannah.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: It’s Hannah again.
ALEC BALDWIN: They arm me. And you’re assuming, as we’ve done every time, that it’s a cold gun for the rehearsal. And I [describing the movie scene/set-up] put the gag in the shot, you’re the camera, because I have a coat and I have a holster and I pull the coat over and I kind of cup my hands, like I folded my hands. And then I’m going to slowly sneak the revolver, the Colt, out and turn and shoot these other guys, or try to shoot them. I take the coat over the thing, the camera is there. I believe… my recollection is she was there turned a bit, like talking to him. So her… I think she was hit in the right armpit. But this is all I know, and that is that I take the gun out, in the rehearsal. He wanted it very dramatic, a very sudden kind of sneak up on them. I take the gun out and as I take it, I guess it clears… the barrel clears, turn and cock the gun over here. I turn to cock to the gun, the gun goes off. It’s supposed to be a cold gun. Nothing. No flash charges, nothing. Now, this is a puzzle to me. This is making me very emotional now. In my time, and I’m older now, but when I was younger and I was shooting guns in films, I’ve never seen a theatrical flash round where the material went through someone’s armpit, came out their body, and hit somebody else in the shoulder. I’m wondering if your department is prepared to go find out what comes out of his shoulder, surgically. Is that live round?
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: That’s what we are actually looking at.
ALEC BALDWIN: Is that a live round?! Because it doesn’t make any sense otherwise! It hits her in the armpit, comes out of her shoulder, goes into his shoulder. And he just told me on the phone, I talked to Joel. He said “they showed me the Xray, and the shape of the thing in my shoulder is the shape of a bullet.” Now, all of the rounds, I was told – you need to verify that, this is important – they take the gun and all the rounds that are in there were either dummy rounds, no flash cold rounds, or rounds with a flash. In the rehearsal, there should have been nothing. It should have been a cold gun with no rounds inside or dummy rounds, cosmetic rounds. No flash. I take the gun out slowly, I turn, I cock the pistol, ‘bang!’, it goes off. She hits the ground. She goes down. He goes down, screaming. He says “Jesus Christ!”, and I’m going… and I thought that maybe, sometimes the wadding can come out of you’re closer and you get a burn. Two actors who have killed themselves with guns, the theatrical guns, Jon-Erik Hexum and Brandon Lee. They put the live round in it and I’m told even with the flash powder, you can cause contusions and you can do a brain bleed and die, which both of them died. I think with Brandon Lee there was a piece of material lodged in the thing that shot from the… something. I don’t remember vividly but my point is, I’ve been doing this… I’ve shot enough guns in my day in movies. I’ve never seen this before, where a flash round was, from what my understanding is… may I borrow your pen for a minute?
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Of course, you can even borrow my paper.
ALEC BALDWIN: [Begins to draw on pad of paper] Thank you. My understanding is that in a bullet, you know, here’s the thing with the tin, and here’s the bullet itself. And now here, when you have a cosmetic round, no flash, no nothing, they drill a hole in the side of the brass to show, to signify, a cosmetic round. There’s nothing in there. There’s no power. But when you have a flash round and there’s stuff in there… wadding and powder to make the charge. This material here, that is the bullet, is made of a clay or some material that just disintegrates. So what you’d have is ‘bang!’ and you see the flash go ‘bang!’ and you’d hear the sound… but nothing, there is no projectile. And what I’m curious about is, what came out of that bullet that went through her body and into his shoulder?!
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: That’s pretty powerful, for that to do that.
ALEC BALDWIN: I’ve never heard of that— now, some people say you can lodge material in the barrel accidentally… a rock, something. That happens. Which is why she, every time we’ve done this – I’m here to tell you, to testify – that every time we’ve done this, she’s done it right. She cleaned the barrel, made sure nothing was lodged in there. We went “hot” when they were ready, always announced “Going hot!” Crew gets ready. And then all of a sudden, you’re the camera and I shoot away from you. And they sound like “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Flashes are coming out, and we shoot the rounds. She cleans the barrel, every time. And she checks that the rounds are all cosmetic rounds, or nothing in the chamber for the rehearsal. She hands me the gun. I’m assuming she’s done it the right way, she’s done it the last two weeks. I put it in the holster. I pull it out slow, we’re rehearsing. We’re not filming anything. I pull it out slow, turn, cock the pistol… “Bang!”. It goes off and she hits the ground. And then he starts screaming and I’m thinking… in a flash round, I could see maybe if it was some wadding or there’s some stuff that gets hot, and maybe it hits you and burns you? They say sometimes that happens? But remember, we’re rehearsing so no one’s protected.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: [Points to paper] So it’s all supposed to be this one, cosmetic one?
ALEC BALDWIN: Or nothing. For the rehearsal, the gun is normally empty. But my point is, is that they were standing in positions they wouldn’t ordinarily be in because they assumed it was an empty cold gun. So we’re shooting, we were rehearsing, that’s the vital difference. So if she’s here, if the camera’s here. And she’s standing here talking, and I’m on a bench here and Joel is behind her. And he’s… this is not proportionate because obviously the camera’s about as big as her body. But I draw the gun slowly and aim off camera. And there’s supposed to be nothing in there! So she’s not protecting herself and standing off. I’m shooting in the direction and everybody’s supposed to be to that side of the camera. There’s nobody in my line. Nobody! And so when I shoot the gun… so in the rehearsal I’m assuming I have an empty gun. And the gun goes off. She’s right in front of me, she’s as far from me as I am from… the difference between maybe you and the door.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay, so pretty close proximity.
ALEC BALDWIN: It was a very tight shot.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: [Demonstrating where the camera was aiming] The shot was here. Not of me, it’s of me pulling the gun slowly, slowly, turn, cock. And she’s right there, vulnerable, in a position she wouldn’t ordinarily be if we were shooting. And this thing, ‘boom!’ She hits the ground.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Alright. I’m gonna back you up just a little bit, okay? How long have you been on set?
ALEC BALDWIN: I arrived Monday the 11th? I started my fittings and they were already shooting the week before.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And the 11th of October?
ALEC BALDWIN: Monday the 11th I flew in from New York. I flew from New York to Denver, Denver to Albuquerque because there were no direct flights. And then drove from Albuquerque to here. Rehearsed and fitted and did all my preparatory stuff.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: But that was in October, correct?
ALEC BALDWIN: That was Tuesday the 12th, yeah. I flew on the 11th, rehearsed on the 12th, started shooting the 13th… Wednesday the 13th I started shooting.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: We shoot a Wednesday through Sunday schedule. We’re off Monday, Tuesday.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: So the entire time you’ve been on set, have you seen the same or armorer?
ALEC BALDWIN: And her crew, everybody.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: How many people are on her crew?
ALEC BALDWIN: My guess is… what I’ve witnessed is three.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: All young women. Hannah, and two other women.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: All right.
ALEC BALDWIN: And very often their task with me, because we’re not shooting every day, guns… there’s no armaments every day, they dress me with my holster, my knife. The film is set in 1888, so I’m armed with the classic weaponry of the cowboy era. So they would make sure I was dressed properly. You know 80, 85% of their task was to make sure I’m dressed with everything properly.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: The armorers?
ALEC BALDWIN: Well, the armorers… wardrobe doesn’t necessarily… they sometimes trade back and forth. But wardrobe doesn’t necessarily deal with my holster and the knife because that’s a prop. The armorer Hannah and her team, they dealt with me being knifed and that being lashed properly so it looks proper, and the holster. It was wardrobe as much as it was props as much as it was armaments.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. Do you know Hannah’s last name?
ALEC BALDWIN: No.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Do you know what she looks like, or can you describe her…
ALEC BALDWIN: Yeah, ah, multi-colored hair, glasses. Ah, you know… not too tall. Everyone knows her pretty well because her father is a very famous armaments guy. He’s a guy that did guns in movies for decades. He’s very well known. She’s the daughter of this famous gun guy… movie gun guy.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And what about the other girls in her crew?
ALEC BALDWIN: I don’t remember their names.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. Do you know what they look like?
ALEC BALDWIN: A blonde, thin. Not too short, you know, kind of medium height. And brunette, somewhat on the shorter side, maybe the same height as Hannah, brunette. And also there’s… well, you go back and forth between, they’re wearing a mask most of the time on set in order to do that, but I’ve seen them with their masks off.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: All right, what time do you guys start today?
ALEC BALDWIN: I don’t know what time they started. I came in slightly later but they had a couple of shots without me in the morning. So I came in at, I guess I arrived there at like about quarter to eight? Normally I’m there at like 6:30.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: All right. And then… anything abnormal in the day? Who handed… or should they… who handed you your weapon in the day?
ALEC BALDWIN: Hannah.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Hannah did, okay. And physically handed or put it in the holster?
ALEC BALDWIN: Handed it to me. She would show me the gun.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay.
ALEC BALDWIN: Or she’d say “cold gun, cold gun”. She’d say “tested” or some language to indicate, as she handed me the gun, that it was fine. And she’d say “do you want to check?” And I always went [unintelligible] because we never had a problem and I said “I’m good.” So… and the first AD will ask periodically, he’ll say “let me check.” And they’ll have two people check for this very reason if we don’t have any – forget about live rounds of bullets – if we have any flash rounds in the gun while we’re rehearsing. Because if someone wants to indicate that they’re [unintelligible] thinking. They pull the trigger on the gun, you just hear the hammer, the dead sound of the hammer hitting and you have no flash rounds at all in there for the rehearsal. The rehearsal gun should be empty. And as I said, for the two weeks I’ve been shooting, it has been empty. We haven’t had one problem.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And you… have you physically checked that, or just by her telling you?
ALEC BALDWIN: She announces to me that it’s clean. She’ll say “cold gun”, we rehearse. Then when she’s done, she takes the gun, goes off to a corner. She has a kit, like a zipped fanny pack with her elements in there. She puts the flash rounds in there. She’ll say, you know, “quarter load!”, it’s a lower sound, or she’ll say “full load!”. If I’m shooting… if you’re the crew and you’re shooting me close, the full load is rather loud, it’s very loud. She’s always announcing what’s going to happen. And she’s been very good about that.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: So have you guys… backtracking a little bit on this you know, because she’s telling you what’s in these guns. Have you guys been practicing with those quarter loads, full loads, all that in the past couple weeks? Or have you shot with them?
ALEC BALDWIN: I came in on Tuesday. That’s what I did Tuesday the 12th. I came to the ranch, rode the horse. I just got used to that, they have a double who really rides in the distance up really fast with all the athleticism. You see me on the horse but they cut to a wide shot of another guy, a horseman. Quite a crew of them.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: So today was not the first day that…
ALEC BALDWIN: No, I shot on Tuesday the 12th with the, ah, the Henry the lever arm action lever of the lever action rifle. And the pistol, I test shot both. Because she was there.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: All right, moving back forward. What time did you guys break for lunch today?
ALEC BALDWIN: Usually, I think today it was probably 12:30.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. And who took the weapon at that time?
ALEC BALDWIN: Hannah.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Physically took it?
ALEC BALDWIN: Always. Rarely do the other ladies, the two other women, handle the pistol that were live shooting in the scene. As I said I have the Henry in my hand as a prop. I’d be running through the scene but no bullets, nothing. When they say “Cut!” I could hand it to the blonde girl. But whenever we were interacting with somebody where rounds were going to go in the gun – if you would have flash rounds in the scene, we shot flash on – it was only Hannah, only. With her fanny pack with the rounds in there, her equipment.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. Do you know what time you guys got back from lunch?
ALEC BALDWIN: My guess is 1:30 by the time we all get back to the set. There’s a base camp and there’s the set. So we go to the base camp for lunch, they always just drive back, get their wardrobe touched up, get their hair touched up and makeup, whatever they do, and then we’re on set. So about an hour before we go back on the set.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. And was Hannah the one to physically hand you the gun at this point?
ALEC BALDWIN: Yes.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. During the time that you had it, was it ever handed off to anybody else?
ALEC BALDWIN: No.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. Did you see where she got the gun from?
ALEC BALDWIN: No. She has a station somewhere with all her stuff. A couple different guns. Guns for other actors [unintelligible].
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Is anybody else allowed in that area?
ALEC BALDWIN: I don’t know, but I know that I’ve never seen anything that was out of the ordinary. She had like a… sometimes they have a cart. Like, almost like what you’d use in a hospital catering, you know one of those with like a big plastic tray, a dark plastic tray, two levels and wheels. I think that’s what she had but many of the departments have that. And on that tray would be her… or something like that. I don’t recall what exactly hers was like. But they have a station that they bring to the set for her to put all of her stuff. If the weather is cooperative. And sometimes they put it under a tent if it looks like it might rain and would damage the property. But she has a little place she would go to, and I think she has a trunk where she stores it when they wrap, everything goes into her trunk and she takes off with it. This is her responsibility to secure the prop weapons…
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: —everything’s there.
ALEC BALDWIN: Which are real guns, they’re real guns.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Can you actually describe the gun to me?
ALEC BALDWIN: It’s a Colt, a period Colt. In our emails back and forth when we were prepping the film, she showed me just a couple of different styles of guns. This is not a big budget movie so we didn’t have a lot of choices. She showed you three or four choices. I said “give me the biggest gun you’ve got” and she showed me different guns by email and different knives by email. Cruder knives that were made to look like someone fashioned the handle out of like elk horn. I took a traditional knife, a leather strap, a handle. We went back and forth about the holster and the material, and we just had a relatively brief conversation. Having made a lot of movies I know how not to stress them out about the budget. When she shows me something I try to make that work. And so she showed me, I said “just give me the big Colt”, we were done. And then on that Tuesday the 12th I came and shot that gun.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay. What color is that?
ALEC BALDWIN: Ah, I believe it’s a brown handle because she showed me two of the larger Colts. One had a cherry covered handle and one had a brown handle. I chose the brown handle.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: [Lightheartedly] You didn’t want the cherry?!
ALEC BALDWIN: I could show you my emails. I didn’t want the cherry, it was too shiny.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Ah, okay!
ALEC BALDWIN: My character’s a little bit of a retirement side of his career. He’s a retired bank robber.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Out in the Wild West, you need the gun to match.
ALEC BALDWIN: Well, you always have people in films I mean they go to an extensive… you wouldn’t believe some of the films, if they have the budget, the details you go into. Of all the things you wear… jewelry, hats, watches, guns, cars. People sit down… I mean, I’ve made a lot of films, and the films that have bigger budgets you could spend a whole week going to rehearsal, reading with the director. The writer goes and rewrites, they listen to how the dialogue sounds. And then once you’re done rehearsing the text with the director, the producers, and the writer… when you’re done reading they’ll go make amendments when they hear it come out of your mouth they’ll go “Let’s change that line. The way Bob says that.” And then they go, then you go right to wardrobe, props. You go do a lot of stuff.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay, all right. So you get back from lunch, get ready. She hands you the gun. Was it inside or outside?
ALEC BALDWIN: We’re inside the church, the church set.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And was it the first rehearsal that the incident happened?
ALEC BALDWIN: Yeah, I believe so because we talked about as we were going to lunch, we’re always talking about what’s next. So as we were rehearsing scenes, he said, “Now I want to do a scene where…” – we had done other shots before lunch. He said “when we come back from lunch, we’ll do this.” He said [unintelligible] show me, because I was showing him what I thought was the best angle to see the glint of the gun under my coat, because you want the scene to work… the shot to work. So [motioning costume layout] we have the holsters here, the gun is here, my coat comes around and I hold my hand like this, it looks like I was just cupping my hands. Like I was just resting. And I showed him in the rehearsals. So when we came back after lunch, we rehearsed for the camera. And I took the gun. I was showing him [pantomiming the blocking] ‘I’m gonna go like this, like this, like this’. Cock and turn… bang! It went off, the first time.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay, so it was…
ALEC BALDWIN: The very first time that we were shooting that shot that we were rehearsing for… that shot. That camera shot.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And you mean, If you don’t know this that’s fine… did you happen to see… so obviously you guys left from the upper, your upper shooting area, to go have lunch. Or did you eat lunch up there?
ALEC BALDWIN: No, we always go back to the base camp for lunch. From the stage.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Did you see armorers or did you see the armorers go down?
ALEC BALDWIN: No, nor would I. Once they’re gone, I’m gone.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Do people stay up on set, or does everybody go down?
ALEC BALDWIN: There are many people who will forgo lunch… I take that back, not ‘many’. There are some who will forgo lunch because they have work to do. Someone will hold them a plate, some will bring their own lunch. Many people they, um, they make sacrifices because of their pride for their department. They may sit there and say “I think I need to paint that wall and touch up that wall. I think I need to distress those boots.” They all have work to do. And very, often a small number of people will stay up top but we drive down from the set to the base camp. The caterer is there. There may be a modest number of people stay up there.
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Okay.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: All right. And then I just want to clarify really… I know you’re drawing something, all right. So when you had pulled out the gun, obviously you were not at the cameraman, but you had identified there were two people there. Can you tell me who those people were?
ALEC BALDWIN: My recollection is that the operator was there. He’s a steadicam operator. He’s a man who there’s either a camera on sticks that’s stationary, there’s a man who operates a steadicam but moves. The camera operator was there behind the camera and she was to his right.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And who is ‘she’? [unintelligible]
ALEC BALDWIN: Halyna, the cinematographer. The camera director.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And she was right next to the cameraman?
ALEC BALDWIN: She was to his right, to my left.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And who is behind her?
ALEC BALDWIN: Joel.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: And he is…?
ALEC BALDWIN: The director of the movie.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Can you recall who exactly was inside at the time of the incident?
ALEC BALDWIN: No. Dave Halls, the first A.D. He’s in charge of the crew. The first assistant director is like the foreman on the set. He’s in charge of all the grips, all the crew. Electric, cable…
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Do you know his name?
ALEC BALDWIN: Dave Wall… Dave Halls. Dave Halls is always there. Halyna, Joel, me, the operator and assistant camera person, the script supervisor, the woman who sits in the corner in some strategic position to take notes on all the action of the take so you can match. If one day you’re doing a scene, you sit there and go…. [to the detective] what is your first name?
DETECTIVE SAMANTHA: Samantha.
ALEC BALDWIN: [Mimics example of scene to demonstrate note-taker’s job] They’re like “Samantha, it’s really important that you and I [lifts water bottle & pretends to drink] drink-drink-drink, get together and talk about that case.” You drank, she makes notes so we match every take, that’s called continuity. That woman who does continuity, she’s always there watching. She was in the room. She’s an older woman like in her 60’s, maybe. The color, blonde hair maybe? Or brown hair? But she, I forget her name now, but she’s… so there’s a group of people that are always there for every shot, even if you’re in kind of a cramped interior. This set of this church is not large. So then the rest of the crew’s outside. On that side was a limited number of people… maybe 8, 9? I don’t remember. But I know every time we shot, those people were always on the set. Camera, assistant camera, cinematographer, director, first A.D., script.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Okay, so not too many.
ALEC BALDWIN: Very few.
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: Do you think that any part of this incident that occurred was intentional?
ALEC BALDWIN: I can only say this, which is… to me, to place a bullet and position a bullet that is a live round to make sure that that bullet is in the chamber, if I were to squeeze the trigger in a rehearsal that that bullet came out. Someone has to have extraordinary access to that weaponry to do that. I can’t imagine somebody walked around with a round that was a 45 caliber round. See, other people on the set were speculating that if it was a 45 caliber round, she’d be dead. It would have blown a big hole in her. And so, we’re wondering was the projectile that went in her some foreign materials stuck and it was an accident, it was a flash round and something came out of the barrel? They didn’t check. They always check, but—
DETECTIVE ALEX HANCOCK: But so your experience with these armorers…
ALEC BALDWIN: I’ve never heard of anything like this in my life, ever. I’ve never heard of a projectile coming out of a prop gun that went through a person’s body – regardless of her being a smaller woman – that the bullet went in here, I’m told, went in here [points to right armpit] went in here, came out here, her shoulder or whatever, and went into his body. I’ve never heard that in my life. I don’t know of any projectile in a gun, in a flash prop gun, that could accomplish that. Now, if somebody put a live round in there accidentally, see a very important question for Hannah is have you ever co-mingled live rounds with theatrical rounds in your kit? Because they’re forbidden to do that according to, I think, the union rules and the safety rules for all the unions, you’re not allowed to do that, because of the fear of what would happen if you co-mingled. So, whether someone accidentally, and I can’t even imagine this, deliberately placed a live round in that gun, I’ve… I’ve never heard of that in my life. And I don’t know anything about what happened, but all I know is that… see, the other thing about this is in a live round you’d have a recoil, usually. When I shot that gun and it went off, I didn’t shoot it when it went off, I didn’t intend for what happened to happen. When that happened is… I’m always told by people – because I’m not a gun person, I don’t have a gun – they’ve always told me, they asked me to simulate the recoil. When I shoot the Colt which is a big gun, a 45 caliber bullet, they always teach me when they go “Action!” I go “Get back here!” Boom! And they made me take my hand and go ‘Boom!’ and have the kick, because there’s no kick in a flash round. And this time, I don’t recall there being any kick either, that’s important.
[END PART 1 – ALEC BALDWIN POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT]