Joel Souza, Director of Alec Baldwin’s Rust, Shares How the Shooting “Destroyed” Him
Joel Souza is recalling a traumatic memory.
Three years after the Rust shooting incident, where a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin accidentally went off, resulting in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the film’s director, Souza, who was also injured, shared his experience of the moment.
“Things get a little fuzzy for me,” Souza recounted in an interview with Vanity Fair published Aug. 15, explaining that he was trying to view Hutchins’ camera monitor just before the gun discharged. “All hell broke loose.”
Despite feeling disoriented after being shot in the shoulder, the 52-year-old filmmaker was able to describe the immediate aftermath of the accidental discharge of the gun.
“The noise was much louder,” he recalled. “It felt like a horse kicked me in the shoulder or someone hit me with a bat. The entire right side of my body went numb, completely numb, but it was also excruciatingly painful.”
As horrible as he felt physically, the chaos on the set was also memorable for Souza, who recounted his memories as a series of “quick flashes.”