Director Joel Souza has spoken out in his first interview following the tragic shooting on the set of Rust.
In an interview published on Thursday, August 15, Souza, 51, revealed the depth of his emotional struggle. “I remember specifically going to sleep that night and hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next morning,” Souza shared.
“I hoped I would just bleed out overnight because I didn’t want to be around anymore. It was a very difficult moment. I remember just thinking, Maybe I’ll just sort of bleed to death — that would suit me just fine.”
The incident occurred in October 2021 when Rust star Alec Baldwin was holding a gun that misfired, fatally shooting cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was 42 at the time. Souza was also injured, with the bullet narrowly missing his lung.
“It’s bizarre to have been shot,” Souza reflected in the profile.
“And then, who was holding the gun? That’s bizarre. I had this weird thought, like, God, I remember watching The Hunt for Red October in the movie theater when I was a kid.
It’s like your older self whispers to your younger self, ‘Hey, that guy … someday.’ … Life can take you down some very bizarre roads.”
After the shooting, Souza chose to remain silent, particularly regarding the legal cases involving Baldwin, 66, and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
Gutierrez-Reed, 27, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March and sentenced to 18 months in prison the following month.
Baldwin was initially charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in January 2023, pleaded not guilty in February, and saw the charges dropped by April.
He was re-indicted in January of this year, but the case was dismissed by a New Mexico judge on July 12. (Gutierrez-Reed has since filed for a new trial or dismissal following the dismissal of Baldwin’s case.)
Souza, who was scheduled to testify in Baldwin’s trial, commented, “There’s a lot of people who know a lot of very specific things about all of it, but in a weird way, I feel like I’m the person who knows the most about all of it.”
The article revealed that the film has been completed with Souza as the director, though release details are still pending.
During the interview, Souza admitted that making Rust was “very hard” even before the shooting added further complications. He described how the events of the incident “get a little fuzzy” for him.
“I kept wanting to try to look over her right shoulder, to see that little monitor down below,” he recounted. “To see what the angle looked like. But I couldn’t see over her. I got in behind her. When I tried to get a look, that’s when the gun fired. And then … yeah, all hell broke loose.”
Souza described the sensation of being shot as feeling like “a horse kicked me in the shoulder or someone hit me with a bat. The whole right side of my body went numb, completely numb, but it also hurt excruciatingly at the same time, if that makes sense.”
He recalled “yelling” but said he has no clear memory of why. “My initial thought was that I was very angry,” Souza added.
“I was furious at that moment. I remember looking up and they were lowering Halyna to sit in front of me, and there was blood coming through her white shirt.”
Reflecting on the entire ordeal, Souza said it “ruined” him. “I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think. I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped,” he explained.
“It’s not like I was in love with the guy I was before, anyway. You look in the mirror the day after that happens, and now there’s somebody else there. I didn’t know things about the world one day, and now I do. And none of them are good.”
Regarding his relationship with Baldwin now, Souza stated, “There’s no relationship” between them. “Getting through it was tough. We got through it,” Souza said. “I got the performance I wanted. We’re not friends. We’re not enemies.”
