By MOR­GAN LEE and WAL­TER BERRY, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

SAN­TA FE, N.M. (AP) — Ac­tor Alec Bald­win fired a prop gun on a movie set and killed the cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, au­thor­i­ties said. The di­rec­tor of the West­ern be­ing filmed was wound­ed, and au­thor­i­ties are in­ves­ti­gat­ing what hap­pened.

Ha­ly­na Hutchins, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er on the movie “Rust,” and di­rec­tor Joel Souza were shot Thurs­day on the rus­tic film set in the desert on the south­ern out­skirts of San­ta Fe, New Mex­i­co, ac­cord­ing to Coun­ty Sher­iff’s of­fi­cials.

A spokesper­son for Bald­win said there was an ac­ci­dent on the set in­volv­ing the mis­fire of a prop gun with blanks, though a charge with­out a met­al pro­jec­tile is un­like­ly to kill at a mod­er­ate dis­tance. Sher­iff’s spokesman Juan Rios said de­tec­tives were in­ves­ti­gat­ing how and what type of pro­jec­tile was dis­charged.

The San­ta Fe New Mex­i­can re­port­ed the 63-year-old Bald­win was seen Thurs­day out­side the sher­iff’s of­fice in tears but at­tempts to get com­ment from him were un­suc­cess­ful.

Hutchins, 42, was air­lift­ed to the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co Hos­pi­tal, where she was pro­nounced dead by med­ical per­son­nel, the sher­iff’s de­part­ment said. Souza, 48, was tak­en by am­bu­lance to Chris­tus St. Vin­cent Re­gion­al Med­ical Cen­ter, where he is un­der­go­ing treat­ment.

“The de­tails are un­clear at this mo­ment, but we are work­ing to learn more, and we sup­port a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this trag­ic event,” In­ter­na­tion­al Cin­e­matog­ra­phers Guild pres­i­dent John Lind­ley and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Re­bec­ca Rhine said in a state­ment.

Sher­iff’s deputies re­spond­ed about 2 p.m. to the movie set at the Bo­nan­za Creek Ranch af­ter 911 calls de­scribed a per­son be­ing shot on set, said Rios, the sher­iff’s spokesman. The ranch has been used in dozens of films, in­clud­ing the re­cent Tom Han­ks West­ern “News of the World.”

“This in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains open and ac­tive,” Rios said in a state­ment. “No charges have been filed in re­gard to this in­ci­dent. Wit­ness­es con­tin­ue to be in­ter­viewed by de­tec­tives.”

Hutchins, a 2015 grad­u­ate of the Amer­i­can Film In­sti­tute, worked as di­rec­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy on the 2020 ac­tion film “Arch­en­e­my,” star­ring Joe Man­ganiel­lo. She was named a “ris­ing star” by Amer­i­can Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er in 2019.

“I’m so sad about los­ing Ha­ly­na. And so in­fu­ri­at­ed that this could hap­pen on a set,” said “Arch­en­e­my” di­rec­tor Adam Egypt Mor­timer on Twit­ter. “She was a bril­liant tal­ent who was ab­solute­ly com­mit­ted to art and to film.”

Man­ganiel­lo called Hutchins “an in­cred­i­ble tal­ent” and “a great per­son” on his In­sta­gram ac­count. He said he was lucky to have worked with her.

Bald­win teamed up as a pro­duc­er pre­vi­ous­ly with Souza on the 2019 film, “Crown Vic,” which starred Thomas Jane as a vet­er­an Los An­ge­les po­lice of­fi­cer on a man­hunt for two vi­o­lent bank rob­bers. Souza’s first cred­it­ed film, 2010’s “Han­na’s Gold,” was a trea­sure hunt ad­ven­ture fea­tur­ing Luke Per­ry.

Pro­duc­tion was halt­ed on “Rust.” The movie is about a 13-year-old boy who is left to fend for him­self and his younger broth­er fol­low­ing the death of their par­ents in 1880s’ Kansas, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­net Movie Data­base web­site. The teen goes on the run with his long-es­tranged grand­fa­ther (played by Bald­win) af­ter the boy is sen­tenced to hang for the ac­ci­den­tal killing of a lo­cal ranch­er.

In 1993, Bran­don Lee, 28, son of the late mar­tial-arts star Bruce Lee, died af­ter be­ing hit by a .44-cal­iber slug while film­ing a death scene for the movie “The Crow.” The gun was sup­posed to have fired a blank, but an au­top­sy turned up a bul­let lodged near his spine.

A Twit­ter ac­count run by Lee’s sis­ter Shan­non said: “Our hearts go out to the fam­i­ly of Ha­ly­na Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all in­volved in the in­ci­dent on ‘Rust.’ No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Pe­ri­od.”

In 1984, ac­tor Jon-Erik Hex­um died af­ter shoot­ing him­self in the head with a prop gun blank while pre­tend­ing to play Russ­ian roulette with a .44 Mag­num on the set of the tele­vi­sion se­ries “Cov­er Up.”

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Berry re­port­ed from Phoenix. As­so­ci­at­ed Press film writer Jake Coyle con­tributed to this re­port.