A 42-year-old woman is dead after a producer claims actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed her when a prop gun misfired on the set of a Western film in production in New Mexico.
In light of the incident, ABC7 spoke to Louis Hagney, a former Hollywood assistant director, to understand how prop guns on set work and what safety protocols are supposed to be followed to avoid tragedies like this.
Hagney explained that common misconception is that these “prop guns” are fake
Actually, these are real guns - so the danger can be real too.
Hollywood sets load the guns with blank rounds, so there’s no projectile. However, if something gets lodged inside it can be shot like a bullet.
“You can have something where the barrel maybe gets jammed with something else,” Hagney said. “Something from a previous shooting. Maybe they used the same gun the night before and something was stuck in the barrel, and they didn’t clean it properly. I mean, a lot of things could have happened.
It’s unclear if that’s what happened to Baldwin’s gun, that’s just a possibility.
He said crews are supposed to make it very clear when a gun is brought onto set.
The actors are only allowed to use them while shooting the scene and cannot point them at anyone.
Hagney said there’s no way this recent shooting could have happened if all the rules were followed.
“I’m very interested to find out what happened, because it should not have happened,” Hagney said. “There’s absolutely no way that that would have happened on any movie I’ve ever worked on.”
Definitely not accidental !!!