Jensen Ackles discusses gun preparation on Rust set days before Alec Baldwin shooting
Randy Shropshire/Getty Images Jensen Ackles
Days before Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza while filming his upcoming western Rust, costar Jensen Ackles discussed his preparation to use firearms on the set of the film during an appearance at a convention tied to his long-running CW series Supernatural.
"I've got a 6 a.m. call tomorrow to have a big shootout. They had me pick my gun, they were like, 'Alright, what gun would you like?' and I was like, 'I don't know?' and the armorer was like, 'Do you have gun experience?'" he told the crowd in a fan-captured video (which has been taken down since this article was first published) from the Denver-based event, which took place between Oct. 15-17. "I was like, 'A little.' And she's like, 'Okay, well, this is how you load it, this is how we check it and make sure it's safe.'"
The 43-year-old actor said the armorer informed him that she was "going to put some blanks" into the gun, and instructed him to "fire off a couple rounds" at the landscape in the distance, which he said he did with ease.
Ackles' statements, in which he refers to Baldwin as being present at the Zoom meeting in which he was offered the role, give us a glimpse at how the production team introduced firearms to the cast.
A representative for Ackles didn't immediately return EW's request for comment.
At around 1:50 p.m. local time Thursday, Hutchins, 42, and Souza, 48, were shot by a gun discharged by producer-star Baldwin on the film's Santa Fe, N.M., set. According to a spokesperson for the Santa Fe County police department, Hutchins was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital after being shot, where she later died. Souza received emergency care at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
Baldwin released a statement Friday in which he expressed "shock and sadness" over the incident, offered his support to Hutchins' family, and confirmed he's fully cooperating with the investigation.
Amid a wave of reactions from inside Hollywood (including James Gunn, Paul Feig, Debra Messing, and Patricia Arquette), actor Brandon Lee's family released a statement on Hutchins' death 28 years after the son of movie legend Bruce Lee died in 1993 after sustaining wounds from a prop gun on the set of The Crow.
EW has reached out to reps for Baldwin and the Santa Fe County Sheriff's department for an update on the investigation into the incident, as well as the status of Souza's condition.
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