Halyna Hutchins is a Ukrainian cinematographer and journalist who was reported to be fatally wounded in a shooting incident during production on the set of the film Rust but she claims she is alive and well and the accident was staged.
Hutchins spoke out Sunday about her exaggerated death from an airstream trailer in an undisclosed location in New Mexico.
Under advice from her lawyers she declined to elaborate about her experience the day of the shooting, but provided a written statement describing the plan: Producer and star Alec Baldwin would be the shooter since he had the theatrical experience to be a convincing crisis actor. Writer and producer Joel Souzato pulled the short straw and had to “take one in the shoulder” to lend an air of realness to the production while Hutchins would wear a bulletproof vest and be whisked away by actors playing paramedics who were in on the hoax.
Hutchins says she’s been taking a much needed break and missed a lot of the media surrounding the event. “I’ve been out here for a while now doing a digital detox,” the very-much-alive woman said. “The plan was for me to lay low while Joel was in the hospital to let the publicity snowball for the movie, but it’s gotten out of hand,” she continued. “I went back online two days ago and while I’m blown away by the support, it feels like going back is going to do a lot of damage.”
Mrs. Hutchins looked genuinely stricken as she talked with us about the events that led to the fiasco, explaining that the film was having serious creative, technical and morale issues. She said the main reason for the desperate move to fake her death was the film’s lackluster script and uninspired acting. “It didn’t feel special, you know? We were all out here in the desert doing the 17th imitation of The Wild Bunch or Stagecoach without the kind of talented writers and actors that made those films great. The humor was like Blazing Saddles without Mel Brooks. There wasn’t a single rape joke. We had the Bad and the Ugly out there, but we were missing the Good, “Hutchins ranted. “Alec said this was supposed to be his Unforgiven, but let’s be real, Alec’s not Clint Eastwood. Now it looks like we aren’t going to be forgiven.”
Hutchins said the conspiracy was born during a night of heavy drinking with the producers, Alec Baldwin and Joel Souza. “Joel made a joke about mass shootings. I think it was the one about COVID that’s like ‘How can you tell the US is getting back to normal after Covid19?’ and you respond ‘There’s been two mass shootings in the past week.’” Hutchins said that after the joke Alec immediately perked up and raised his voice saying that they could save the movie if they manufactured viral news of a terrible accident. “Alec kept making puns like ‘This’ll ‘Sandy Hook’ em!’ and saying his goal was to ‘Columbine’ two good things: publicity for the movie and giving America another reason to enact common sense gun laws. I felt that the last one was kind of bad but Alec is one of those people that constantly forces puns into conversations. He used those puns to wear us down over the next two days until we agreed.”
“Maybe I’ll just move to Bali and become a dog groomer,” Hutchins said, sounding defeated. “I’ve secretly always wanted to train and groom dogs professionally but felt like I was too deep into cinematography to change careers. Maybe it’s time for a fresh start.”
American Standard News wishes Mrs. Hutchins luck in her next endeavor.