Quentin Tarantino Answers ‘Rust’ Gun Questions for Bill Maher

Quentin Tarantino appeared on Bill Maher’s longform “Club Random” podcast in an episode released Sunday, with the pair getting high together and musing on everything under the sun — until a discussion of the Academy Awards’ difficulty finding a host leading to a discussion of the accidental shooting on the set of the Alec Baldwin film “Rust” that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Maher noted that Jimmy Kimmel and John Mulaney (who Maher accidentally called “Mulvaney”) had turned the gig down.

“They went to Alec Baldwin,” Maher added, a remark that seemed to slightly confuse Tarantino until Maher added, “I’m joking. He said he couldn’t do it. He was shooting.”

After that murder joke, Maher went on to defend Baldwin from the criticism he’s faced since the tragedy on the set of western film “Rust,” on which he also serves as a producer.

Watch the first part of Quentin Tarantino’s “Club Random” appearance with Bill Maher here:

“I am the biggest supporter of his bullshit case, don’t you think?” Maher began. “I mean, how can it be his fault? Like, either you think he purposely shot that cinematographer, or you think he didn’t purposely shoot her. And if he didn’t purposely shoot her, then it’s all fucking bullshit. Am I wrong?”

Tarantino responded in the negative, tentatively agreeing while not completely absolving Baldwin of responsibility.

“No. It’s a situation, I think — I’m being fair enough to say that the armorer, the guy who handles the gun, an armorer is 90% responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun,” Tarantino said. “But, but, but, but, but, but, the actor is 10% responsible. The actor is 10% responsible. It’s a gun. You are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.”

The filmmaker laid out how the use of the gun is explained to actors.

“They show it to you. If there are steps to go through, you go through them, and it’s done with due diligence, and you know it’s f–king for real,” Tarantino said.

“If an actor knows he has three hot rounds in his gun, and he knows that, ‘OK, I’m going to do a scene, blah-bla-blah-bla-blah-bla-blah,’ and he knows he’s got three hot rounds as he’s doing the scene, and then at this point, bam bam bam. And then he’s going to continue on and say a few more things,” Tarantino laid out.

“OK, if one of the rounds doesn’t go off as he does his ‘bam bam bam,’ then he should cut the scene and say, ‘guys, one of the rounds didn’t go off, I think I’m still holding a hot gun here,’” Tarantino added, ending his example — albeit a different set of events than what has been described in Baldwin’s case.

“Why can’t we just do it this way,” Maher posited. “There’s nothing in the gun, nothing. So when the actor pulls the trigger, nothing happens except you hear–“

“Except that’s bloodless,” Tarantino interjected. When asked if he can just put it in post, he added, “Yeah, I guess I can add digital erections to porno movies, but who wants to f–king watch that?”

The always excitable Tarantino explained the magic of something physical happening during filming of a movie.

“It’s exciting to shoot the blanks, and to see the real orange fire, not add orange fire,” Tarantino insisted.

Maher came back at him, asking whether they could just shoot from an angle where the actor “wasn’t aiming at anyone, so if the worst happened, you would just be shooting the wall?”

Tarantino went deep into his film nerd reservoir for the response, asking Maher, “Can I answer that from an action movie lover point of view? Even before I was a filmmaker, when I was the guy at Video Archives, I can answer that exactly,” he began.

“That’s what Hollywood did in the ’80s,” Tarantino explained, “and then I started watching Hong Kong movies, and then they’re like, Chow Yun-fat’s got the .45.”

Tarantino stood up and acted out the story as he went, pointing his finger gun at Maher’s chest as he continued, “and he’s this close to the guy, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!” Tarantino followed with the soft thwap sounds of gunshots hitting the body and blood spilling out.

“And it was so f–king exciting. It was like movies were liberated,” Tarantino joyously said.

“I think for as many guns as we’ve shot off in movies, we only have two examples of people being shot on the set by a gun mishap. That’s a pretty f–king good record,” Tarantino added, referencing the deaths of Hutchins and the only other known accidental gun death on set, that of actor Brandon Lee in the original “The Crow.”

“That’s the kind of f–k-up that happens that undermines an entire industry,” Tarantino said. “You don’t need nervous people. You want people to go for it. That’s the last thing you want, is nervous people. You want ‘no, we’re all in this together, and we’re going to do this cool thing, and we’re going to capture this exciting thing on film, and it’s a thing that we’re capturing.’”

Maher lamented that Baldwin used to frequently do his show, but he’s been seemingly too busy to make time for it anymore.

“He’s living his best life. He’s got a thousand children, you know?” Maher shared. “I’m happy he’s a free man, or at least as free as a man with eight children can be, and I’m happy it came out well for him.”

The host continued to refer to Baldwin’s tendency to get in trouble and rub some the wrong way.

“I mean, has he colored beyond the lines? Many times, and he always survives, so I kind of love that about him,” Maher added. “And he’s too charismatic. People are like ‘Yeah, he said this, and he said that, and he said f–g, and he did this, but he’s Alec Baldwin,’ and I agree with that.”

“He’s kind of the whole package as a celebrity, when you add up the last 30 years,” Tarantino agreed.

A fired-up Maher went back to criticizing the court case against Baldwin, talking about the moment when Baldwin broke down in court.

“Well of course,” Tarantino responded, “he f–king ended up shooting somebody — that’s not something most of us human beings have to go through.”

“But then to have to put him through this charade,” Maher said. “Like, when I saw him break down — it’s like, yes. I mean, you saw this incredile amount of stress and tension, which any of us would have had under the same circumstances.”

“I just… it’s the kind of thing that just makes you really go yeeuch about the nature of our society these days,” Maher continued. “The pettiness that some people have, the bad faith. When you don’t really think he’s guilty of it, but you know you can get away with charging that, that’s called bad faith. It’s so gross.”

You can watch the full two hours of their conversation — which is just the first part — in the video above.