Joel Souza never liked guns. “I didn’t grow up around them and I don’t like the culture,” says the grey-haired 51-year-old film-maker sitting at a desk at his home in Pleasanton, California. “Guns make me recoil. The idea of touching one, picking one up, I find very off-putting.”
In October 2021 he was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the set of his sixth feature, the western Rust, when a gun being held by the film’s star, Alec Baldwin, was discharged accidentally during rehearsals. The weapon should have been loaded with blanks but a live round had found its way into the chamber. The movie’s Ukrainian cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally wounded. Souza was hit in the shoulder by the same bullet that killed her.
