Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the 24-year-old gunsmith who handled guns on the set of Alec Baldwin’s “Rust”, was the subject of numerous complaints about her previous film just two months earlier after unloading weapons without warning and infuriated star Nicolas Cage. , a crew member told TheWrap.

Stu Brumbaugh, who played a key role on Cage Western “The Old Way” this summer, told TheWrap that Gutierrez upset Cage and the other members of the Montana production team by not following the protocols of Basic gun safety like announcing the arrival and use of guns on the set.

After firing a shot near the cast and crew for the second time in three days without warning, Brumbaugh said Cage shouted at him, “Make an announcement, you just blew my eardrums!” before going off in a rage. “I said to the AD, ‘She has to be released,’” added Brumbaugh, “After the second round I was pissed off. We were going too fast. He’s a rookie.

It wasn’t until he alerted his superiors that production needed a more experienced gunsmith who didn’t make these kind of basic security mistakes that he learned it was the very first. film by Gutierrez. While her LinkedIn profile presents her as a videographer whose experience as a gunsmith dates back to March 2021, she is the daughter of Thell Reed, a weapons expert and quick-draw exhibition shooter well known in Hollywood and who has worked with actors like Brad before. Pitt.

Gutierrez-Reed could not be contacted by TheWrap and appears to have removed most of her social media presence. She did not immediately respond to an attempt to reach her through her LinkedIn page.

Clayton Turnage, the first assistant director listed on “The Old Way” IMDb page, and representatives for Cage did not respond to requests for comment.

Reached Tuesday by TheWrap, a producer of “The Old Way” denied the incidents and denied that anyone had ever called for the gunsmith’s dismissal. “I have no memory of this event on our set. I asked the same of my partners, ”said the producer. “The details of some of these accounts, especially when it comes to ‘The Old Way’, have been overkill.”

The producer said Gutierrez-Reed worked under the direction of a veteran property master, Jeffrey W. Crow, who oversaw his work. Crow did not respond to a request for comment from TheWrap, but he has previously defended Gutierrez-Reed in an interview with the Los Angeles Times and said he was “surprised” that one of the crashes on “Rust” “happened. be produced under his watch “.

“I told them there was no way for anyone to make props and armory on sniper film safe because there were too many guns,” said Crow. “All the gunsmiths I know and tried to bring in were already working, so I left it to the producers. I had never heard of Hannah until I was informed that she would be my gunsmith, but my skepticism about her at first, about her inexperience, died down after I worked with her.

Despite these remarks, others on the set disputed this view.

The incidents detailed by Brumbaugh and another person on set “put the cast and crew in a number of unnecessary and dangerous situations,” the latter said. Brumbaugh has confirmed that the following incidents have occurred, including:

• Gutierrez-Reed entered the set with streaks of live whites and no public announcements to cast and crew, violating established safety protocols.

• She stored pistols under her armpits and carried guns in each hand that were ready to be used in a scene. The firearms were aimed at people. She turned around and the pistols that were hidden under her armpits were pointed at people.

• She shot twice on the set without warning the cast and crew, as required. The first time, she was demonstrating the volume of the cannon to see if the loud sound would startle the horses when without warning the cannon exploded.

Gutierrez-Reed had previously played down his inexperience as a gunsmith. Speaking on a recent podcast “Voices of the West” just a month before the “Rust” tragedy, Gutierrez-Reed said that although she had retrieved some details of her father’s work, she described her work on ” The Old Way “as a” really badass way “to start her career, but said she learned the process of loading guns blanks on her own, calling it” the most scary “.

“It was also the first time that I became a chief gunsmith. You know, I was very nervous at first and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure I was ready, but doing it went really well, ”he said. she declared in September. “The best part of my job is just showing people who are normally a little panicked about guns how safe they can be and how not really problematic unless they’re in between. bad hands. ”

Gutierrez-Reed also said on the podcast that before becoming a gunsmith she considered being an actor or cinematographer, but found that she was better at gun work. She was also featured on social media under the Instagram username @no_son_of_a_gun, but in the past few days after the crash virtually all of her social media accounts have been disabled.

Like many in the Hollywood production community, Brumbaugh was upset that someone so inexperienced was in charge of guns on the set of “Rust,” and said it was because independent budgets were too tight to maintain security. “The tragedy is that it comes down to the producers,” he said. “It’s happening more and more. As the producers refuse to bring in more experienced people because their prices are higher, they demand that we take our time and (the producers) do not want to pay for it. So they hire a newbie who is energetic and wants the job and will do it with fewer people. ”

He continued, “The problem was she didn’t have any help. I would have had at least two more people. She did everything on her own in this movie and in the other movie. If there had been one more person in the other movie, the tragedy wouldn’t have happened. A second person would have inspected to make sure the barrels were clear.

Given the tight budget and the demands of the job, Brumbaugh understood how deadly mistakes can happen. “You have an advertiser yelling at you,” he said. “You are 24 years old, you have energy and you don’t want to be yelled at. So you rush in and start arming people.