Alec Baldwin reacts to George Clooney’s comment on Rust shooting: ‘It didn’t help the situation ’

In October, actor Alec Baldwin misfired a gun on the set of Rust, leading to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Last month actor George Clooney reacted to the incident by saying that the gun should have been checked before firing. Alec has now reacted to George’s comment.

In conversation with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Alec said that he didn’t appreciate the comments George Clooney made after the tragedy. “How do you respond to actors like George Clooney who say that every time they were handed a gun, they checked it themselves,” George asked Alec.

“Well, there were a lot of people who felt it necessary to contribute some comment to the situation, which really didn’t help the situation. At all,” Alec said.

“If your protocol is you check the gun every time, well, good for you. I’ve probably handled weapons as much as any other actor in films with an average career. Again, shooting or being shot by someone. And in that time, I had a protocol and it never let me down,” he continued.

Last month, George linked Rust’s tragedy to the 1993 death of his late friend Brandon Lee. Brandon was killed in an accidental shooting while filming The Crow. “I’ve been on sets for 40 years and the person that hands you the gun, the person that is responsible for the gun is either the prop or the armorer, period,” George said on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

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“Now every single time I’m handed a gun on the set, every time they hand me a gun I look at it, I open it. I show it to the person I’m pointing it to, I show it to the crew. Every single take you had to back to the armorer when you’re done,” George explained. “You do it again and part of it is because of what happened to Brandon, everyone does it. Everybody knows and maybe Alec did that, hopefully, he did do that,” he added.