"I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan" — ‘Rust’ director Joel Souza explains why he didn’t watch Alec Baldwin’s reality show

Director and screenwriter Joel Souza shared his thoughts about Alec Baldwin’s reality show The Baldwins. On April 28, 2025, Souza sat down for an interview with The Guardian, where he shared that he didn’t watch Baldwin’s reality show. However, he said:

“I think I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan that night.”

Joel Souza directed the drama Rust, which will be released soon. During the film’s shooting, Baldwin’s gun accidentally fired, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The mishap left Souza injured by the same bullet that took Hutchins’ life. The director told the news outlet that he didn’t grow up around guns and wasn’t comfortable with gun culture.

He found the idea of handling or even touching a gun unsettling. Recalling the incident from the set, he said:

“I don’t remember what was going through my head. One of the stranger aspects is that it felt like I was lying there for five minutes. Apparently, it was half an hour.”

He went on:

“I knew I could breathe but I didn’t know what to expect until I got to the hospital.”

roduction on the film resumed a year and a half after Halyna Hutchins’ death. According to Joel Souza, the decision came because Hutchins’ family wanted the movie finished. Although he initially didn’t want to return, the idea gradually became more appealing, and he couldn’t stand the thought of someone else directing it.

When Joel Souza agreed to come back, he made it clear that everyone on set had to respect his creative direction—not out of force, but because he needed to avoid conflicts to cope with the emotional weight of the project.

Joel Souza wished he hadn't written the movie

Joel Souza told The Guardian that he had made it a point to hire a female cinematographer for his film, despite pushback from agencies who mainly suggested male candidates. He was aware that many skilled women were graduating from places like the American Film Institute.

When someone claimed women couldn’t handle shooting a Western, he became even more determined to hire a woman and focused his search entirely on female talent. Regarding his physical recovery, Souza mentioned that his condition varied.

He was surprised when a physical therapist told him he would likely regain only about 70% of his range of motion. The therapist reminded him that at nearly 50 years old, he probably didn’t have perfect range. Looking back at the resumption of shooting, Joel Souza said:

“I was a mess going in and a mess coming out. The crew carried me through. My family carried me through. Emotionally, I was all over the map.”

Joel Souza reflected on the day of the incident, acknowledging that it was filled with one poor decision after another. As the writer and director of the film, he admitted that if he could go back and change anything, he wished he had never written the movie in the first place, comparing it to a chain reaction of unintended consequences.

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Halyna Hutchins' name appears in the film in English and Ukrainian as a tribute to her and also for her mother. The dedication also included a phrase Hutchins often repeated after setting up each shot—a reminder about how they could improve the work.

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