The Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage recently made an interview where he also weighed in on the shooting incident involving Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust. And according to him all actors “need to know how to use a gun.”
During the last actor roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, the Pig actor spoke with fellow award nominees Peter Dinklage, Andrew Garfield, Jonathan Majors, and Simon Rex to discuss their careers and status of Hollywood today. The shoot for Rust that resulted in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has taken place, and Cage, who has been in the business for decades, has offered his opinion.
Here’s what Cage said:
“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.”
He also highlighted the importance of stunt people for the most dangerous activities during filming.
“Now, the stuntman and the movie star are two jobs that co-exist, they co-exist,” he said. “Every stuntman needs to be a movie star and every movie star needs to be a stuntman. That’s just part of the profile… And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Peter Dinklage and Andrew Garfield also added that change needs to happen and that it’s a no-brainer to stop using real guns on set.
“That should never happen again,” Dinklage said about an on-set shooting. “So anything we can do to move away from that, that’s our responsibility. Clearly a no-brainer.”
Garfield added, “Yeah that’s kind of a no-brainer. Like, if it can be avoided, [it should be].”
Dinklage also noted that “And it can be avoided because look at what you can do with movies. You know that also calls into question, are there too many guns in movies? We’ve all held guns in movies, probably, and I always think about that being anti-gun myself, but the character isn’t. That’s a very complicated thing. But that made it very clear that there has to change, like, now. One hundred percent.”
In October of last year, Baldwin shot and killed the director of photography Halyna Hutchins, and injured director Joel Souza on the set of his film, Rust.
Ever since the tragic event, the actor has gone on record stating that he does not feel responsible for killing his colleague.
Baldwin was asked if he ever felt guilty for what happened he answered that “No. No,” Baldwin replied. “I feel that there is, I feel that someone is responsible for what happened and I can’t say who that is, but I know it’s not me.”
Sources: Daily Wire, Bounding into Comics, Then 24, CBS8