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Who's to blame in 'Rust' shooting? 'Last Take' says there's plenty to go around

Who's to blame in 'Rust' shooting? 'Last Take' says there's plenty to go around

USA Today11-03-2025

Who's to blame in 'Rust' shooting? 'Last Take' says there's plenty to go around
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'Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna': See the trailer
The new Hulu documentary "Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna" examines the life and tragic death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
For the public, the tragic debacle of "Rust" − the Western movie set where a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin discharged during rehearsal in 2021 and killed promising cinematographer Halyna Hutchins − is over.
Baldwin, the film's star and producer, was acquitted of criminal charges on legal technicalities last summer. The movie's young armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, is serving 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. And "Rust" was finished and had a quiet debut at a Polish film festival last fall. As yet, there are no U.S. distribution rights.
But for many, "Rust" never sleeps. It haunts Hutchins' widower, Matt, and their son, Andros, who was 9 when his mother died, as well as Hutchins' family in Ukraine and her many friends in Hollywood. Which is why filmmaker Rachel Mason, who bonded with Hutchins when the two dropped off their then-3-year-olds at day care, has directed a documentary about her pal, "Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna" (streaming now on Hulu).
"I was here to bear witness as her friend, sent by Matt, who wanted this done," says Mason, whose goal with "Last Take" wasn't to reinvestigate the case, but rather to "show the overall human toll, from the crew to the people in the courtroom, everyone had their own unique angle on that pain."
Several questions addressed by Mason's documentary:
Why did 'Rust' resume filming two years after Halyna Hutchins died?
On Oct. 21, 2021, filming halted immediately on the New Mexico set of "Rust" after Baldwin's gun went off. With the criminal and civil lawsuits that followed, it seemed unlikely "Rust" would ever be completed. And yet that's what happened in 2023, as Baldwin, his production team and a new cinematographer, Bianca Cline, went to Montana to finish the Western.
But accusations of this decision being callous don't resonate with Mason. Hutchins, 42, would have wanted as much. "If Halyna chose a film to work on, it's because she was committed to it," Mason says. "Looking at it from the victim's perspective, she wanted to make it, and she died making it. If you knew Halyna, it's impossible not to think she would want it completed."
Mason's documentary shows Cline avidly studying the voluminous notes Hutchins kept while working on "Rust," details covering everything from lighting ideas to lens possibilities. "When you see her images from 'Rust' coupled with what people say about her vision for this movie, it hits home why it had to be made," Mason says.
Is Alec Baldwin in 'Last Take,' the new documentary about Halyna Hutchins?
Mason felt comfortable approaching Baldwin for an interview because she knew him from a prior encounter.
"I'd met Alec years before at a film festival and he was a big champion of my 2019 film 'Circus of Books' (about a gay bookshop in Los Angeles)," says Mason. When she spoke to him after the shooting, "he was in a state of utter trauma. It was a sad and horrible thing. I did ask him later to be in ('Last Take'), but he was working on other projects at the time." The star is currently seen in his family's TLC reality show 'The Baldwins.'
One of the most striking moments in Mason's film involves Baldwin. Footage shows the actor being interviewed by two Santa Fe law enforcement officials after the shooting. One tells Baldwin that Hutchins has died. He sits frozen for a long time, almost giving the impression that the video has glitched. "You see his total shock in that footage," Mason says.
Who else from 'Rust' is seen in the 'Last Take' documentary?
The "Rust" shoot was conducted on a budget and perhaps in a bit of a rush, as evidenced by some crew members quitting just before Hutchins' accidental shooting to protest working conditions. "Last Take" spotlights camera assistant Lane Luper, who explains the concerns he had about a few accidental firearm discharges, which he shared with producers at the time.
It might be easy to blame negligent producers who didn't heed such warnings, but Mason she wanted to show that the reality of a movie set is more complex. "Yes, there was a lot of tension on this set and people weren't listening to each other well, but I don't think that's unique to 'Rust,'" says Mason, adding that complaints about "Rust" set safety often were part of very lengthy emails that included issues related to COVID policies.
"OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) would argue there should always be a 'stop work order' option, where any person has the authority to say stop work now, but on a film set, the hierarchy is baked in," Mason says. "So you have Hannah who is feeling low on the totem pole, while Alec is on the high end, and in between people are saying this and that. Communication (on a set) sadly is not as simple as stop and let's all halt."
Who is to blame for the death of Halyna Hutchins, according to the 'Last Take' documentary?
Of all the players in the "Rust" tragedy, only Gutierrez-Reed is serving jail time. In "Last Take," she seems baffled when Santa Fe authorities tell her that multiple live rounds were found floating around the set.
And yet "Last Take" also features a telling text exchange in which Gutierrez-Reed asks for more time to secure the weapons and is told she needs to tackle her various chores with the time she has. "Where this all lands for me and for the film is where it lands for most people: We don't have more answers to truly how that gun came to be loaded with that live bullet," Mason says. "I really wish we did."
Regret seems to be the most common sentiment in "First Take." Veteran actress and "Rust" cast member Frances Fisher recounts how disorganized Guitierrez-Reed was upon their first meeting. It was an omen she ignored.
"I wish I had said something to her, and I wish I had said something to Alec," she says. "And would my alerting somebody, would that have changed anything? That's what gnaws at me."

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Call Her Daddy's Alex Cooper Reveals Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Soccer Coach
Call Her Daddy's Alex Cooper Reveals Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Soccer Coach

Elle

time34 minutes ago

  • Elle

Call Her Daddy's Alex Cooper Reveals Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Soccer Coach

Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper opened her Unwell Tour in 2023 as only she could: with male strippers. The lights dimmed and the song 'WAP' filled the auditorium ('There's some whores in this house/There's some whores in this house'), as the 'security guards' revealed themselves to be erotic dancers and delivered a performance worthy of Magic Mike, grinding and gyrating their way onto the stage and ripping open their shirts to the shrieking delight of the Daddy Gang. Then Cooper emerged in a tomato-red sweatsuit, marveling over getting to perform before a 5,000-person crowd in Boston, where she attended college—or as she put it in her characteristic style on stage—the city where she 'fucked,' 'obviously sucked,' and got her first STD. 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Alex Cooper Accuses Her College Soccer Coach of Sexual Harassment
Alex Cooper Accuses Her College Soccer Coach of Sexual Harassment

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Alex Cooper Accuses Her College Soccer Coach of Sexual Harassment

Originally appeared on E! Online is coming forward about her difficult past. The Call Her Daddy host, who played soccer for Boston University from 2013 to 2015, accused her former coach Nancy Feldman of sexual harassment in her shocking new Hulu docuseries Call Her Alex. In the documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival June 8, the 30-year-old alleged, per The Hollywood Reporter, that Feldman "really starting to fixate on me, way more than any other teammate of mine, and it was confusing.' But Cooper's talents on the field weren't often the topic of discussion. "It was all based in her wanting to know who I was dating,' she continued, 'her making comments about my body and her always wanting to be alone with me." As the patterns of behavior continued throughout her sophomore year of college, Cooper alleged that Feldman would go as far as putting a hand on her thigh and asking if she'd had sex the previous night. More from E! Online Basketball Wives' Brittany Renner Says She and Kevin Gates Are Divorced After 52 Days of Marriage Tony Awards 2025: George Clooney Gives Rare Update on His, Amal's Kids Ella and Alexander Billie Eilish and Nat Wolff Confirm Romance With Steamy Makeout Session 'It was this psychotic game of, 'You wanna play? Tell me about your sex life, I have to drive you to your night class, get in the car with me alone,'' she recalled. 'I started trying to spend as little time as possible with her, taking different routes to practice where I knew I wouldn't run into her. During meetings, I would try to sit as far away from her as possible, literally anything to not be alone with this woman.' And while Cooper shared that she "felt so deeply uncomfortable" at the time, she felt ] she couldn't speak out about the alleged abuse because she didn't want to jeopardize her full-tuition scholarship. 'If I didn't follow this woman's rules,' she noted, 'I was gone." And when she did attempt to provide university officials with written documentation of Feldman's inappropriate actions, she alleged that they 'dismissed' her allegations and did not investigate the matter. E! News reached out to Feldman and Boston University but has not heard back. Neither Feldman nor the BU have publicly responded to Cooper's allegations. While Feldman has since retired in 2022, Cooper emphasized during a Q&A after the documentary's premiere, per Deadline, that the officials who brushed off her allegations were still there. 'During the filming of this documentary, I found out that the harassment and abuse of power is still happening on the campus of Boston University,' Cooper alleged. 'I knew in that moment, if I don't speak about this. It's going to continue happening.' 'I'm thinking about the amount of women who've probably experienced this, not just on that campus, but on a larger scale in the workplace,' she continued. 'This isn't just happening on college campuses for soccer. This is everywhere. This is systemic.' For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App

How to watch 'The Snake' with Jim Jefferies online and from anywhere for FREE
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Tom's Guide

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How to watch 'The Snake' with Jim Jefferies online and from anywhere for FREE

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