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LOS ANGELES — Hollywood star Alec Baldwin is back to filming ‘Rust’ in Montana, after he accidentally shot the film’s cinematographer in 2021 while preparing for a scene at a New Mexico ranch.
Naturally, the producers were focused on safety, forbidding the use of any functional firearms on set, and hiring two veteran safety officers to oversee the completion of filming, reports Variety.
Now one of those officers, Paul Jordan, is set to testify against Baldwin at his upcoming manslaughter trial in Santa Fe, saying that the actor resisted advice not to ride a horse at full gallop.
“There was a little bit of yelling at times, insisting he could do certain things that everyone else felt he couldn’t do”, Jordan testified in a pre-trial interview.
As per Variety, prosecutors want to use Jordan’s testimony to help establish a pattern of recklessness. They have argued that the accidental shooting was just one of several instances on set in which Baldwin was careless with safety. They have also sought to show videos of Baldwin cursing and rushing the crew on the set in New Mexico.
Jordan wasn’t on set in New Mexico. And Baldwin’s defence says his opinions about what happened when filming resumed are beside the point. “Nothing that took place in Montana, more than a year after the accident occurred, is relevant to any issue in this case,” the defence argued in a motion to bar his testimony.
Baldwin has said that he has a bad hip, which makes it hard to get on a horse. In his pre-trial interview, Jordan said that Baldwin required three or four people to help him mount and dismount the horse, but that once astride it, he wanted to ride fast over uneven terrain.