Quentin Tarantino, that guy who made us think dancing in diners with gangsters is normal, has stepped into the Rust set shooting drama to share his thoughts. And let me tell you, his hot takes are as spicy as his foot fetish scenes.
So, flashback to last month: Alec Baldwin, famous for his Trump impressions and now a little too famous for gun mishaps, was on trial for, well, accidentally turning the Rust set into a real-life version of Clue. Only this time, it wasn’t “Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick” but “Alec Baldwin in the desert with a prop gun.” Tragically, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins lost her life when the prop gun Alec was holding fired for real. Whoops, right?
Fast forward to the trial: in a surprise twist that would make any Tarantino script proud, the judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec. Why? Because of some “critical” bullet evidence. You know, the kind of evidence that suddenly shows up, like your high school crush who moved to another town but finds you on Facebook 15 years later.
Enter Quentin Tarantino, 61 years young and full of wisdom from decades of filming movies where pretty much every character carries a gun. He was chatting on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast (which sounds like the kind of place where you’d accidentally walk in and find Bill Maher drinking scotch with a random assortment of celebrities). Naturally, the topic of the Rust shooting came up because, you know, what else are you going to talk about on a casual podcast?
And what did Quentin say? Well, he’s not one for subtlety. He declared that Alec is “10 percent responsible” for the shooting. Just 10 percent. Kind of like when you say you’ll take “just a little slice” of cake but still eat the whole thing. It’s all about perception.
Bill Maher, in classic Maher fashion, was like, “Wait, how is this Alec’s fault? Did he mean to shoot her, or was it just a terrible accident? If it’s an accident, this whole thing is bulls–t, right?” (Yes, Bill, just like every argument about pineapple on pizza.)
Quentin, being the man who made us watch Uma Thurman get buried alive, calmly explained, “The armorer, the person who hands over the gun, is 90 percent responsible. But the actor? Eh, throw him 10 percent of the blame pie.”
Translation: If the set was a classroom, the armorer’s the kid who brought fireworks, and Alec’s the one who accidentally set them off in the middle of math class. But hey, fireworks are a group effort.
Then Tarantino added the most Tarantino-esque statement of all: “It’s a gun. You are a partner in responsibility to some degree.” Yes, in Tarantino-land, even if you’re the actor, you’ve still got to check if your toy gun is a little too… real.
And Bill, bless his curious soul, asked the million-dollar question: “So, what do you do? Like, test it? How?” Clearly, Bill’s the guy who tries to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions.
Quentin explained that if Alec had done what he was supposed to (which, in prop-gun-world means looking down the barrel and making sure nothing’s lurking in there), this whole disaster could’ve been avoided. Who knew acting came with a side hustle as an amateur gunsmith?
But Quentin wasn’t done. He said, if the gun’s got three live rounds, and the actor’s supposed to go “bam, bam, bam,” but instead it goes “bam, bam… wait, what the heck?,” that’s a sign. A sign that you maybe should stop the scene and tell everyone, “Uh, guys? I think I’m still holding a hot gun here, and I’d really like to keep all my coworkers alive today.”
Then, in true Tarantino form, when Bill asked why Hollywood can’t just use empty prop guns and add all the bang-bang stuff in post-production, Quentin fired back with what can only be described as the most Tarantino response of all time: “I guess I could add digital erections to porno, but who the hell wants to watch that?”
Yup, because if there’s one thing Tarantino knows better than guns, it’s how to make things incredibly awkward and oddly hilarious.
Finally, Quentin concluded by saying, “Shooting blanks is exciting. You get that real orange fire.” And, really, who wants fake orange fire when you can have a little bit of danger on set? It’s like playing with fireworks, only riskier.
In case you were wondering about the real fallout from this incident: the Rust armorer has since been sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter, proving once again that in the movie business, sometimes it’s the guys behind the scenes who get the raw deal.