Actor Michael Shannon says the ‘Rust’ fiasco is about more than gun safety — ‘this is what comes of making a movie on the cheap’

In October 2021, when “Rust” star and producer Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a pistol containing live ammunition that should not have been on a movie set, a lot of actors nowhere near that incident in New Mexico thought a lot of things.

For Michael Shannon, “the main thing was: This is what comes of making a movie on the cheap.”

A Chicago stage veteran and two-time Academy Award nominee for supporting performances in “Revolutionary Road” (2008) and “Nocturnal Animals” (2016), Shannon, the co-star of Showtime’s “George & Tammy” and the recent, bullet-strewn theatrical feature “Bullet Train,” has played his share of gun-wielding hit men, lawmen and underworld adversaries in a prolific 31-year career in film and television.