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Comments from George Clooney about the incident:
George Clooney calls the fatal shooting on the set of Rust "infuriating" and "insane."
On the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, the Oscar-winning actor weighed in on last month's movie set disaster in which a gun discharged by Alec Baldwin shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. Clooney said the deaths of actors Brandon Lee in 1993 and Jon-Erik Hexum in 1984 — who were both friends — made gun safety on the set of the utmost importance, so he's in disbelief over what transpired with Rust.
The 60-year-old actor, who said he doesn't know Baldwin very well, said he doesn't think there was "any intent by anybody to do anything wrong," describing it all as "a terrible accident."
However, he said there is a very specific protocol actors follow — similar to sentiments expressed by Matthew McConaughey.
"Every single time I'm handed a gun on the set — every time — they hand me a gun, I look at it, I open it, I show it to the person I'm pointing it too, I show it to the crew," Clooney said. "Every single take." Then, "You hand it back to the armor when you're done."
He said, "Part of it is because of what happened to Brandon. Everyone does it. Everyone knows" that is the protocol to follow. "Maybe Alec did that — hopefully he did do that. But the problem is dummies are tricky because they look like real [rounds]. They got a little tiny hole in the back [from which] somebody's [removed] the gunpowder."
Clooney said because of the likeness, he doesn't just inspect the gun visually.
"I mean every time I get handed a six-gun," or a gun that holds six cartridges, "you point it at the ground and you squeeze it six times," Clooney said, noting "It's just insane" not to.
Clooney discussed the finger-pointing, including at first assistant director David Halls allegedly being the one to declare the gun a "cold gun" and giving to Baldwin, who considered it safe to use.
"I've never heard the term 'cold gun,'" Clooney said of his years of movie-making. "I've never heard that term. Literally. They're just talking about stuff I've never heard of. It's just infuriating."
He said he's "been on sets for 40 years and the person that hands you the gun, the person who is responsible for the gun, is either the prop person or the armorer. Period."
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