Nicolas Cage says actors 'need to know how to use gun' after Halyna Hutchins tragedy
During the shoot of 'Rust' in October 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot dead as the bullet from one of the cast members' gun hit her. In the wake of this tragedic incident, actor Nicolas Cage put out a statement saying "it is part of the job profile" and movie stars "need to know how to use a gun". He ended his statement by saying that he was not trying to place 'blame' on anyone.
The gun was held by Alec Baldwin when the bullet discharged and hit the Ukrainian cinematographer who had worked in over 30 films, short films, and other visuals.
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While discussing their work and the challenges it comes with, Nicolas Cage said at the The Hollywood Reporter's roundatable conference, "I don’t want to cast blame anywhere. But I do think, and I’m not talking about anybody, but people don’t like the word movie star. We want to be humble actors. But a movie star is a bit of a different kind of presentation because you need to know how to ride a horse. You need to know how to fight. You’re going to do fight scenes. You need to know how to ride a motorcycle. You need to know how to use a stick shift and drive sports cars, and you do need to know how to use a gun. You do. You need to take the time to know what the procedure is. Those are part of the job profiles.Now, the stunt man and the movie star are two jobs that coexist. Every stunt man needs to be a movie star, and every movie star needs to be a stunt man. That’s just part of the profile, and that’s all I’m going to say about it."
With what went down with late cinematographer Hutchins, many stars from the industry have voiced their opinions opposing the use of real guns or weapons on set.
At the roundtable, actors like Andrew Garfield, Simon Rex, Jonathan Majors and Peter Dinklage were present too. The question asked by the host was, "People are talking about safety more in the industry now because of the tragedy that happened on Rust. There’s some discussion of whether there should be guns on sets at all. What do you think?"
Peter Dinklage said, "That should never happen again. Anything we can do to move away from that, then we should. That’s our responsibility." Then Garfield said, "Yeah, it’s kind of a no-brainer. If it can be avoided, avoid it."
Before Cage could share his two cents, Dinklage added, "Yeah, and it can be avoided because look at what you can do with movies. But that also calls into question, are there too many guns in movies? We’ve all held guns in movies, probably. I always think about that, being anti-gun myself, but the character isn’t. So it’s a very complicated thing. But that made it very clear that there has to be change now, 100 percent."