“She’s a rookie”: Rust’s armourer comes under fire
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As investigators continue to determine what led to the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rust</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, complaints about armour Hannah Gutierrez-Reed have emerged from her last movie.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 24-year-old armourer was the subject of several complaints from crew members working on the 2022 film </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Old Way</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, including the film’s key grip, Stu Brumbaugh.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Western film, starring Nicolas Cage, was Ms Gutierrez-Reed’s first job as head armourer after she graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2020.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr">24 year old Hannah Gutierrez-Reed the set armorer that was hired by Rust Movie Productions and is responsible for all guns on the Alec Baldwin Western Film ‘Rust’ in New Mexico has deleted her TikTok and Twitter and also her Facebook and Instagram accounts. <a href="https://t.co/NvCJiTUCMu">pic.twitter.com/NvCJiTUCMu</a></p>
— 🌈 (@MagicZoetrope) <a href="https://twitter.com/MagicZoetrope/status/1452111230718545933?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 24, 2021</a></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mr Brumbaugh told </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.thewrap.com/rust-armorer-inexperience-hannah-gutierrez-fired-nicolas-cage-film/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking_news_5702530s" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">TheWrap</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that Ms Gutierrez-Reed failed to follow basic gun safety protocols.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He said Nicolas Cage yelled at Ms Gutierrez-Reed after she discharged a weapon for the second time in three days without warning, saying: “Make an announcement, you just blew my f**king eardrums out!” before walking off set.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mr Brumbaugh said he urged the assistant director to fire the armourer, and said the film’s low budget led to her filling the role despite her lack of experience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“After the second round I was pissed off. We were moving too fast. She’s a rookie,” he </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10134763/Rust-armorer-subject-numerous-complaints-previous-film-infuriated-star-Nicolas-Cage.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He also argued that Ms Gutierrez-Reed should have had additional help on both </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Old Way</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rust</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I would have had minimum two more people. She was doing everything by herself in that movie and on the other movie (</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rust</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">),” he said. “If there was one more person in the other movie the tragedy wouldn’t have happened.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Two anonymous sources also told </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Daily Beast</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that Ms Gutierrez-Reed about worrisome gun safety issues on the set. According to the sources, the armourer gave a gun to child actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong without properly checking the weapon first and was “a bit careless with the guns”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“There were a couple of times she was loading the blanks and doing it in a fashion that we thought was unsafe,” one source added.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, Jeffrey W. Crow, the prop master who supervised Ms Gutierrez-Reed in her first armourer role, told the </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-10-23/hannah-gutierrez-reed-rust-shooting-armorer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">LA Times</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that despite his initial doubts, she was scrupulous.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“All the armourers I knew and tried to bring in were working already, so I left it up to producers,” Mr Crow told the publication.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I had never heard about Hannah until I was informed she would be my armourer, but my skepticism of her initially, about her lack of experience, was allayed after I’d worked with her.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As for the incident on the set of </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rust</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Mr Crow said he was “surprised that any of this happened under her watch”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I thought she was exceptionally young, up-and-coming, very eager and talented armourer,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“She was without a lot of experience, but coming from her family lineage, I thought she was exceptional, professional, and I thought she had - and I still think she has - many years of an amazing career ahead of her.”</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Although he didn’t want to speculate on what had occurred on the day of the fatal shooting, Mr Crow shared his hopes that Ms Gutierrez-Reed would be exonerated.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“This is not a typical role for women - especially a young woman,” he said. “I had a lot of faith in her, and I still do. I’m gonna be surprised if there was anything she was ultimately responsible for in all this, just seeing how she acted in the past. This is all such a surprise.”</span></p>
<p><img style="width: 500px; height:281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7845155/rust1.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/9ac7c3128d9c449ebe087ca738aae71b" /></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Signage directing people to the set for “Rust”. Image: Getty Images</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On October 21, actor Alec Baldwin accidentally discharged a gun while pointing it at the camera, injuring one of the filmmakers and fatally injuring cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/devastating-new-details-of-alec-baldwin-shooting" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">documents released earlier this week</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the star was rehearsing drawing the revolver across his body while Ms Hutchins and Joel Souza were checking camera angles.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Investigations by the Santa Fe County </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/finance/legal/new-details-emerge-in-baldwin-shooting-tragedy" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">have also revealed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that Mr Baldwin fired a lead projectile, with authorities seizing approximately 500 rounds from the film set.</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: Twitter</span></em></p>