Alec Baldwin is attempting to put the tragedy that occurred on the set of “Rust” in context by comparing the death rate in Hollywood to other industries, including aviation, auto, and the opioid industry. These comments were made during a conversation at the Boulder International Film Festival on Saturday night.
The “30 Rock” actor also suggested that several filing lawsuits now are targeting “deep pockets litigants” because they’re “financially motivated” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“From the beginning, from the moment this happened, everybody has put out — besides all the anguish and the suffering, horrible feelings we have and, of course, there are two victims and nobody else is a victim, so to speak — we have dealt with a situation where specific people are not as interested in finding out what really happened,” the 63-year-old said during the interview, according to the outlet.
“What you have is a certain group of litigants on whatever side, who their attitude is, well, the people who likely seem negligent have enough money. And the people who have money are not negligent, but we’re not gonna let that stop us from doing what we need to do in terms of litigation. Why sue people if you’re not going to get money? That’s what you’re doing,” Baldwin added.
That’s when Baldwin made the comparison between tragic accidents in the film industry compared to other places that see more death on average.
He asked the audience to “think of all the billions of rounds of ammunition that were fired on movie and TV sets in the last 75 years, and four people have died” and “compare that record to the opioid industry, the airline industry, the automobile industry, the gun industry itself,” THR reported.
The actor discussed “the safety record of the film and television industry” and recounted how his own Hollywood career had previously “been without incidents” and he’d “never had a problem” relying on “the safety experts.”
“When someone whose job it is to ensure the safety of the weapon hands someone else whose job was to be the secondary layer of protection for safety, and they hand it over to and you declare that that weapon is safe — that’s how I’ve lived my whole life,” he said. “I’ve relied on the safety experts there to declare the gun is safe and hand me the gun. Never had a problem.”
Next, Baldwin predicted that movies in the near future would rely on computer-generated imagery rather than giving real guns to actors.
“The thing to remember is that guns are fired in films because that’s what audiences want. Maybe not this crowd,” he continued. “Maybe not a festival crowd where you want to watch something that’s a little more complicated. There’s a place to modify the safety regulations we have to deal with and I’m very much looking forward to our decisions.”
Finally, the “Malice” star discussed how his life had changed.
“I’m very hopeful when the facts come out we will not be held criminally responsible, but it has changed my life. And I don’t mean this in the ordinary sense that I was involved in something or somebody passed,” he said. “I mean, I was involved in a situation with somebody was killed. It’s changed my life just in terms of the function of weapons in films and television.”
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