As the film industry debates the future of Guns on movie sets, actor Nicolas Cage said one of the first principles needs to be that actors know what they are doing.
Cage made his comments Wednesday in an âActors Roundtableâ sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter.
In October, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed on the set of Alec Baldwinâs movie, âRust,â when she was shot after a gun Baldwin was holding fired. The gun, which was not supposed to be loaded, contained a live round.
Baldwin has claimed he was not responsible.
Cage said actors have a responsibility to know how to do the things they are portrayed as doing on film.
âI donât want to cast blame anywhere, but I do think, and Iâm not talking about anybody, but, you know, people donât 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,â he said.
âYou need to know how to fight. Youâre 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,â he said.
Cage said the job of being an actor comes with a duty to know what is taking place.
âYou need to take the time to know what the procedure is. Those are part of the job profiles,â he said.
âNow, the stuntman and the movie star are two jobs that co-exist, they co-exist. Every stuntman needs to be a movie star and every movie star needs to be a stuntman. Thatâs just part of the profileâŠAnd thatâs all Iâm gonna say about it,â he said.
Cage did not mention the âRustâ incident specifically, but his remarks appeared to be aimed at Baldwinâs situation.
The investigation into the Shooting has not yet concluded.
In a video released on Instagram, Baldwin maintained that âIâm very hopeful that the people in charge with investigating this whole thing get to the truth as soon as possible. No one wants the truth more than I do.â
Baldwin has said that he is not really responsible for the death of Hutchins, according to Reuters.
âI feel someone is responsible for what happened, but I know it isnât me. I might have killed myself if I thought I was responsible, and I donât say that lightly,â Baldwin said in an ABC interview.
Baldwin said he never pulled the trigger of the gun that fired the fatal shot.
âI let go of the hammer of the gun and it goes off,â he said.
Correction: Nicolas Cageâs name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.