The 24-year-old armorer who handed the gun to Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust where cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was tragically shot and killed has admitted that she was "nervous" and wasn't sure if she ready for the job. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed reportedly admitted this in a podcast interview before she started working on the movie 'Rust'.
The interview came to light just a couple of days after Alec Baldwin unknowingly fired a live bullet from a prop gun that killed Hutchins and seriously injured the film's director Joel Souza. Gutierrez-Reed reportedly was confident that the gun was safe to be used.
Admitting Her Fault
Gutierrez-Reed reportedly made these comments during a podcast interview last month. "I almost didn't take the job because I wasn't sure if I was ready, but doing it, it went really smoothly," Gutierrez-Reed said about leading the firearms department for 'The Old Way', starring Nicolas Cage.
This was also the first time she was working as the head armorer. She also admitted during the interview that she found loading blanks into a gun "the scariest" thing as she didn't know how to do it. In fact, she would always take help form her father, legendary gunsmith Thell Reed, to get over the fear.
Gutierrez hasn't said anything following the death of Hutchins but sources said that's she is a novice and doesn't have any idea about guns. A search warrant said Gutierrez-Reed laid out three prop guns on a cart outside the filming location. However, she was unaware that at least one of the guns had live rounds.
Costly Mistake
Gutierrez-Reed, on the other hand, was confident that the guns were safe for use and the film's first assistant director Dave Halls then allegedly grabbed the gun.
Before handing one of the guns to Baldwin, Halls shouted: "cold gun" which was the phrase to signal the weapon was safe to fire, the warrant said.
Moments later, Baldwin fired from the pistol during a scene being shot inside an Old West-style church. The shot was aimed at the camera and Baldwin pulled the trigger, accidentally shooting dead Hutchins as she filmed him.
Standing behind her was Souza, who was hit in the shoulder. The news comes as the film crew revealed that many were concerned about safety conditions on the set of the film. Also, a few crew members staged a protest and left the set on safety concerns.
However, the shoot continued and a few hours alter the fatal accident took place. In fact, hours before the fatal accident firearms were accidentally discharged three times on the set - including once by Baldwin's stunt double who had been told the gun was not loaded, and twice in a closed cabin.
In the interview with the Voices of the West last month, Gutierrez-Reed also told that her father only started teaching her about guns from age 16 and that most of her training had happened in the last couple of years.
According to her LinkedIn page, she most recently worked as a videographer at Synth Fire, a California-based news and media company, and as a documentary filmmaker for the City of Flagstaff in Arizona.
Gutierrez-Reed had only recently left Northern Arizona university, where she studied creative media and film between 2017 and 2020 which proves that she is quite a novice.
