Frances Fisher says 'Rust' armorer was holding 'an armful of guns' the 1st time they met. 'I thought: It's very unsafe,' she says in new doc.

It was “complete chaos” on the Rust set the day Halyna Hutchins was accidentally shot and killed by a gun held by Alec Baldwin.

Director Rachel Mason, a friend and collaborator of the cinematographer, examines the Oct. 21, 2021, tragedy in the new docuseries Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna, now streaming on Hulu.

The project uses footage from that day — from police and the production — first-person accounts and Hutchins’s text messages to piece together how events unfolded on the Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe, N.M. There are new interviews with Rust director Joel Souza, who was shot by the same live round accidentally loaded into a prop gun; cast members, including Frances Fisher; the crew and New Mexico special prosecutor Kari Morrissey. Hutchins’s mother and friends also appear.

Mason said her motivation for making the film was so that her friend didn’t become a “footnote” in the story. She said Hutchins’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, asked her to take on the project. He serves as an executive producer and turned over the Ukrainian cinematographer’s personal archives, including videos, texts and journals she kept while making Rust.

??“So often her name felt like a footnote in a headline, an unthinkable diminishment of the person who to us was so much more than a victim,” Mason said in her director’s statement.

Rust was ultimately completed in 2023, preserving as much of Hutchins’s footage as possible, and there are clips in the documentary showing Souza bringing that to completion.

While the intention was to tell Hutchins’s story, the documentary’s focus is really on how the tragedy played out with missed gun checks and weapons mishandling, which resulted in criminal charges against Baldwin (whose involuntary manslaughter case was dismissed in 2024), armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2024) and first assistant director Dave Halls (who pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon). On the day of the shooting, most of the film’s camera crew walked off the set, citing issues with gun safety among the reasons.

Souza said at a screening last week that he was “surprised” by the final documentary, hoping it would have “been a little more about Halyna.”

This is what we learned from watching it.

Frances Fisher claimed the armorer mishandled guns from the start

The actress recalled her first interaction with Gutierrez-Reed, saying she was talking to Baldwin on the set when the then 24-year-old armorer interrupted them while holding “an armful of guns.”

She “just barreled her way in,” Fisher said. “I thought: It’s very unsafe to be walking around base camp with a whole bunch of guns in your hand. Have they been cleared? Why are you doing this? Alec … seemed a little, you know, ‘What’s she doing?’ [When] I found out she was the armorer. I thought: Wow.”

Gutierrez-Reed had little experience as an armorer, but she touted being personally trained by her stepfather, Thell Reed, a well-known weapons consultant and sharpshooter in the film world.

“The sloppiness that Hannah displayed that first day,” Fisher said. “I wish I had said something to her and I wish I had said something to Alec, but I don't want to make waves. … Would that have changed anything? That's what gnaws at me.”

There was ‘chaos’ on the set of the independent film

Jonas Huerta, from the camera department, said “things started feeling off” when Baldwin, also a producer, arrived on set in Santa Fe, N.M. While Baldwin “wasn’t doing anything wrong,” there was a “tonal change” with the pacing of the production getting quicker.

Actor Devon Werkheiser said there’s never enough time or money on an indie set, and this one was no different. He said, “You’re always working against the chaos.”

Souza agreed that the schedule “sucked,” with long days on set.

However, a big issue was that the camera crew Hutchins had assembled had walked off the job on the morning of Hutchins’s death. In his letter of resignation, cameraman Lane Luper called out issues with gun safety, including two negligent gun discharges on Oct. 16.

Souza said there was “disharmony” between production and the camera team. Huerta said they felt safety issues they flagged were ignored: “Nobody really gave a shit about us.”

Because the camera crew shrunk from 11 to two people — and it was the day of the film’s biggest shootout — they were left scrambling. There was no “video village,” an area away from the set with monitors where the director, cinematographer and others would watch the scene being filmed. Instead, the monitors had to be brought into the church set — and that’s why Hutchins and Souza were right there in the path of Baldwin’s gun when it went off.

Mason said the only thing between Hutchins and the gun were “her own hands” as Baldwin pulled out the gun while practicing his scene. The round that discharged went through Hutchins’s body and into Souza.

Souza said he felt like somebody ‘hit me in the shoulder with a bat’

The director took off his jacket and asked: “Am I bleeding?” He was positioned on the ground facing Hutchins, and they “locked eyes” in her final moments.

Halls said Hutchins told him, “I can’t feel my legs.”

Hutchins was taken by medevac helicopter to the hospital but died on the way. Souza was rushed by ambulance to a different hospital and survived.

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Tim Benavidez said the set was in “complete chaos” when he arrived on the scene. A lot of footage from that day is included in the film, including a stunned Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed in a state of near hysteria.

Actor Josh Hopkins said the cast found out Hutchins had died by reading it online

The cast and crew were told to gather in a tented area and not discuss the shooting with the press. A medic arrived and told everyone that Hutchins, who they knew was more severely injured, was “going to be fine,” Hopkins said.

Werkheiser said it was “so f****ed” that with both cops and production members present, they found out that Hutchins had died from an online news article.

“This can’t be right,” Hopkins recalled thinking when he saw the headline, but it was.

Hopkins said Baldwin appeared as if “his guts were ripped out.”

OSHA investigator said ‘there’s no way’ the criminal investigation should have been limited to 3 people

While Gutierrez-Reed said she loaded the gun with “dummies,” which look like real bullets but don’t fire, there was a live round in the weapon as well as five others that were found on the set. She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2024.

Halls, whose job included checking the gun as it was transferred from armorer to actor, said he “saw what appeared to be dummy rounds” as Gutierrez-Reed spun the chamber for him, but he acknowledged he didn’t do a thorough-enough check. He pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon in 2023.

Baldwin, who maintains that the gun went off without his pulling the trigger, was charged twice with involuntary manslaughter, but his case was dismissed with prejudice in July 2024.

Lorenzo Montoya of the New Mexico Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), who conducted a six-month investigation of the shooting resulting in the production being fined for willful safety failures, said in the film that he felt the criminal investigation into those three people was “too narrow” in scope.

“You can’t have a culture that stems from a low-level employee, one actor and one member of management when there [were] more hands at play.”

Montoya said the safety aspect was lacking and the first weapons misfire should have been an “immediate red flag” for producers to “stop the work. … You can’t just ignore it.”

Gutierrez-Reed was a part-time armorer and had a second job as an assistant props manager. She was sent an email from production saying she was spending too much time on her armorer duties while being admonished for leaving a prop gun unattended.

“Every accident is preceded by a series of failures, which is why we issued a willful citation,” Montoya said. “There was enough … knowledge, warning, complaints, all these red flags and management said: ‘Let’s just move on.’ We call that ‘plain indifference.’ Hannah is the symptom of an illness. She’s not the illness.”

The special prosecutor had ‘reservations’ about the criminal cases

Morrissey said she “expressed … reservations about whether or not a criminal prosecution in this case was appropriate,” but after hearing how live rounds were brought on the set, about the discharges in the days before and Baldwin’s alleged mishandling of weapons, she agreed.

While she successfully prosecuted Gutierrez-Reed, who is serving 18 months in prison, Baldwin’s trial was a disaster, with the judge determining that evidence was withheld from the defense. Baldwin was immediately cleared and can’t be tried again.

“Hannah Gutierrez had a job,” Morrissey said. “The primary purpose of her job is to make sure that there isn't a live round on that movie set, that it doesn't get mixed in with dummy rounds, that all of those rounds are tested before they're put in the gun. None of that happened.”

She continued: “With regard to Alec Baldwin, he wasn't required to cock the gun during that rehearsal, and he certainly wasn't required to pull the trigger of the gun. And there's evidence that he did those things.”

Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the trigger and it accidentally discharged.

Rust was ultimately finished, though outside of New Mexico. Only rubber guns were used along with fake ammunition. Bianca Cline took over as cinematographer, preserving as many of Hutchins’s scenes as possible. Andrew Wert, an experienced armorer, took over those duties. Hutchins’s husband came on as an executive producer after settling a civil lawsuit with Baldwin. Souza and the others — like Hutchins’s mother — talked about how it was important to finish the project for her. The completed film premiered in November, three years after the shooting.

Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna is now streaming on Hulu.