"She was my friend": Alec Baldwin speaks on shooting of Halyna Hutchins for the first time 

According to a video posted by TMZ, Alec Baldwin spoke to the paparazzi on Saturday, October 30. This marks the first time the actor has spoken about the fatal and controversial incident on the set of his film Rust, which claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria, chose to stop and address the paparazzi near their Manchester, Vermont home, where the Baldwin family has been laying low.

Speaking about the incident, the 63-year-old Alec Baldwin said,

"She was my friend. She was my friend. The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel, the director."

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Alec Baldwin showed remorse on the tragic outcome

The Beetlejuice star said,

"We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened."

This insinuates that Alec Baldwin believes the crew was competent and Hutchins getting shot has shocked them. Meanwhile, several reports of negligence and mismanagement have plagued the Rust production crew since Halyna Hutchins was killed.

Alec Baldwin also spoke about Hutchins' family. He gave an update about the late cinematographer's husband and child by saying:

"He (Halyna's husband, Matthew) is in shock, he has a 9-year-old son. We are in constant contact with him because we are very worried about his family and his kid. As I said, we are eagerly awaiting for the sheriff's department to tell us what their investigation has yielded."

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Recent updates about Rust incident

Dave Halls, the assistant director of Rust, recently spoke to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department. Halls claimed that he "should have" checked the gun properly before handing it to Alec Baldwin. He had given the weapon to Baldwin, saying it was a 'cold gun.'

Meanwhile, 24-year-old armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed's lawyers claimed that she had "no idea" how a live round ended up being in the gun. In a new interview released by the sheriff's department on October 27, Reed was questioned by the police.

She claimed,

"After she had checked the prop gun, firearms were taken back and secured inside a safe on a prop truck."

She alleged that there wasn't any live ammunition in the gun when she checked it. Further adding, the safe in which the guns were kept had its combination known to only a few people. However, ammunition was reportedly stored on the cart during the lunch break.

While Gutierrez said no live rounds were on set, Sheriff Adan Mendoza revealed to media that,

"There was a total of 500 rounds of ammunition — that is a mix of blanks, dummy rounds and what we are suspecting [are] live rounds. [It is] too early right now to comment on charges at this point."

According to TMZ's report on October 23, the prop gun, which claimed the life of Hutchins, was used by crew members to target practice off the sets. The report also had a source claiming that live rounds were stored at the exact location as the blank ones.