“The guns were not modified,” he said in an interview on Friday. “They were brand-new and in perfect working order.”
Mr. Baldwin, 65, has maintained that he was not responsible for the fatal shooting, which took place on Oct. 21, 2021, on a church set on a ranch outside Santa Fe. He has sued several people associated with the film, including the movie’s original first assistant director and its armorer, accusing them of negligence for giving him a loaded gun on the set that fired. The original first assistant director, Dave Halls, reached a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to six months of probation.
The film’s original armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who loaded the gun that day and was responsible for weapons and ammunition on the set, still faces involuntary manslaughter charges. She had also originally faced a preliminary hearing on the charges in May, but on Friday Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed to delay it until Aug. 9, in part so that prosecutors could subpoena witnesses in their investigation.
Mr. Baldwin still faces several civil suits. Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing Mamie Mitchell, the former script supervisor for “Rust,” and Ms. Hutchins’s parents and sister, said in a statement on Friday that “we remain committed to fighting and winning for our clients and holding him accountable for pointing a loaded gun at Halyna Hutchins, pulling the trigger and killing her.”
“He can run to Montana and pretend that he is just an actor in a wild west movie,” she said in the statement, “but, in real life, he cannot escape from the fact that he had a major role in a tragedy which had real-life consequences for Halyna, her mother, father, sister and co-worker.” Mr. Baldwin has denied the claims in the civil suits against him.
The revived production of “Rust” is going ahead with the support of Ms. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, who was named an executive producer.