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Alec Baldwin defended working conditions on the set of the Western flick “Rust” — sharing a crewmember’s social media posts ripping her co-workers for describing it as “chaotic and unsafe.”
The actor and producer — who fatally shot cinematographer Halnya Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza — shared several screenshots of remarks by Terese Magpale Davis, who worked in the wardrobe department for the movie.
“Read this,” Baldwin, 63, wrote to introduce the multiple Instagram posts, all of which were screengrabs of Davis’ own social media posts.
“I’m so sick of this narrative,” Davis wrote. “I worked on this movie. The story being spun of us being overworked and surrounded by unsafe, chaotic conditions is bulls—.”
She insisted that the crew never worked for more than 12 ½ hours a day – and that “most days were under 12.”
“The day Halyna died we had come off of a 12-hour turnaround after an 11 hour shoot day. We had (including camera) gotten off by 6:30 pm,” she wrote.
“We had just had a 56 hour weekend right before that. No one was too tired to do their jobs. This is all provable by daily timesheets,” Davis added.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that camera crewmembers — many of whom live in Albuquerque — were told during the second week of production that they would no longer get nearby hotel rooms in Santa Fe.
Instead, they said they were expected to drive from Albuquerque, which is nearly 50 miles away — and took about an hour each way on Interstate 25, a rural four-lane highway with a 75-mph speed limit, the LA Times report said.
But Davis denied the allegation, according to the screenshots posted by Baldwin.
“The camera crew HAD hotels. They just didn’t feel they were fancy enough,” she insisted.
“They were given hotels. Half of them didn’t use them even when the hotels were nicer because we were getting off so early each night,” she continued.
“And our set was only 35 minutes from Albuquerque. Santa Fe is an hour from Albuquerque, but the set was 25 minutes south of that. So they aren’t even traveling that far to go home.”
Davis also pushed back at suggestions that safety was compromised on set, despite union members walking off the set over safety concerns just hours before Baldwin fired the .45-caliber Colt revolver, according to text messages obtained by The Post.
“Our AD never seemed flippant about safety,” she wrote, referring to the assistant director Dave Halls, who reportedly handed Baldwin the pistol that killed Hutchins and insisted that it was a “cold gun,” according to a search warrant.
“Am I angry with him? Yes. But I won’t jump on the bandwagon and pretend he was uncaring about our safety the whole way through,” she went on.
Davis also defended head armorer, 24-year-old Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, after crewmembers expressed concerns over her lack of experience.
“I’ll fight to have our armorers have higher standards they must pass to be in that position where they hold all of our lives in their hands,” the costume designer wrote, according to the screenshots.
“But I’m not okay with using her to be the poster child for better hours.”
Davis then slammed the “pitchfork” mob railing the producers in the media.
“Maybe you could just not be one more person with a pitchfork in a mob that has no idea what you’re talking about because you weren’t there,” she wrote.
Davis did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the LA Times to verify that the comments were hers. Baldwin also was not immediately available for comment.
Source: NYPOST
