Rust director Joel Souza, in his first interview since the movies fatal shooting in 2021, has recalled the moment that a prop gun held by Alec Baldwin shot him and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and how he later came to the decision to finish the film.

In a Vanity Fair article published online Thursday, Souza described the whole incident as bizarre, saying he remembered watching Baldwins 1990 spy thriller The Hunt for Red October as a kid and imagining himself now saying, Hey, that guysomeday

When I tell someone it ruined me, I dont mean in the sense that people might generally think, he said of the shooting, which killed Hutchins. I dont mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away.