Mickey Rourke calls Alec Baldwin charges “terribly wrong”
When the news of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ death on the set of Rust first broke, the global film community was shaken by the incident. Following an investigation, Baldwin was recently charged with involuntary manslaughter, and many commentators have opined that the legal action was too excessive for an alleged accident. One of them is Mickey Rourke.
Baldwin is set to be charged alongside the production’s armourer for the incident – involving a Colt .45 – that led to Hutchins’ demise. Taking to Instagram, Rourke wrote that the discourse surrounding the Rust shooting is not very well informed and that Baldwin doesn’t deserve the charges that have been brought before him.
Rourke explained: “Most actors don’t know anything about guns, especially if they didn’t grow up around them. Alec didn’t bring the gun to the set from his house or his car. When weapons are involved on a movie set, the guns are supposed to he handled only by the ‘weapon armour.'”
While talking about the safety checks, the actor added: “In some cases, the 1st AD might pass a gun to an actor, but most of the time, the gun is handed to the actor directly by the ‘gun armour’. The actor then has an option of dry firing the gun him or himself to double check. No way in hell should Alec Baldwin be blamed for this unfortunate tragedy.”
Criticising the legal response of the authorities, Rourke insisted that Baldwin shouldn’t be charged at all: “Why the powers to be [are] charging Baldwin with this responsibility is terribly wrong. I am sure Alec is already suffering enough over what happened. But to lay a blame on him is terribly terribly wrong.” These sentiments have been echoed by Baldwin’s lawyer, who described the charges as a “miscarriage of justice”.
Check out Rourke’s post below.
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