Nearly three years ago, on October 21, 2021, the film industry was rocked by reports of an accidental shooting on the New Mexico set of the Alec Baldwin western “Rust.” As details emerged, it became clear that a gun held by Baldwin had gone off during a rehearsal, firing a live bullet that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and seriously injured director Joel Souza.

Since that horrific accident, many stories have appeared in the press about how it happened, from the production cutbacks to the fact that Baldwin himself was responsible as a producer of the film. The justice system also tried to answer these questions by making a deal with assistant director Dave Hall, who would later testify against the film’s young gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the crew member responsible for putting the live bullet in the gun that killed Hutchins.

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Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter in April. Baldwin was charged with the same crime, but when the trial began it emerged that the defense had withheld evidence, including ammunition from the crime scene. The judge was forced to dismiss the case and drop all charges.

While many hope this marks the end of this incredibly tragic saga, Souza, the director of “Rust,” shared in his first press interview since filming that the experience has changed him forever, not only in terms of his professional practice, but also as a person.

“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean it in the way that people might think,” Souza told Vanity Fair. “I don’t mean it ruined my career. I mean, inside, the person I was just disappeared. That stopped.”

In the accident that killed his friend and colleague, Souza was shot in the shoulder, breaking his shoulder blade, but the bullet didn’t miss its target. Instead, it veered off target, missing his lung and spine by inches. Not only was Souza traumatized by the accident, suffering “nightmares that made me wake up in a sweat” like he’d never experienced before, but he was also left with the task of picking up the pieces of a project that had fallen apart. At first, he had no interest in restarting production, but when Hutchins’ widower Matt Hutchins became involved, he realized he owed it to Halyna to see the film through.

“At some point I was informed that there would be some sort of agreement and that Matt Hutchins would be involved as a producer,” Souza said. “That’s what He I knew that completing the film would benefit Halyna’s family financially, which is very important to me. And I know that this can sound trite to people who aren’t creative, but her final work is important. It’s important that people see her final work. That was the deciding factor for me in the decision.”

Souza knew he could pick up where he left off and that he would have to make significant changes to the film to make it a part of the cast. One of those changes was the complete removal of the scene leading up to Hutchins’ death, in which Baldwin, restrained by authorities, is caught in an altercation in a church. Images and videos from rehearsals were shown throughout the process, but there was no footage of the moment of the shooting itself.

When asked about this scene, Souza said it “disappears completely” and will never be seen publicly if the film is ever released.

“Gone. Not only that, but some of the things that led up to it,” he said. “Everything had to be completely reimagined. There were a few things that came before that wouldn’t make sense to the story now. So we just eliminated them and came up with something completely different. I’m not going back there. I’m glad you asked. I don’t want anyone who ever sees this to be waiting for it. No one ever pushed to keep something like that.”

Souza also gave an update on whether Rust will ever be released, clarifying that while the producers have already sold some international territories at Cannes in 2023, the film has not yet been actively marketed to distributors. He also dismissed views expressed in the press that the film is of poor quality and therefore has difficulty selling.

“That’s not true. But they keep adding that as a kind of nod to the quality of a film they’ve never seen, because there’s an agenda that ‘Rust’ is bad,” Souza said. “It wasn’t marketed. (The producers) were in Cannes last year in 2023; maybe they sold foreign territories, but that’s what you do. And foreign territories have was convinced by the film. It’s up to sales and producers. They have to figure out how and when the film is best released.”

Read the full interview with Souza at Vanity Fair.

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