SAN JOSE, Calif. — Hours after being shot on the set of his Western film, “Rust,” director Joel Souza lay in the hospital, thinking he didn’t want to wake up the next mourning.

Souza’s friend and collaborator, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, had been killed by the same live round that wounded him and that had inexplicably been loaded into a prop gun used by Alec Baldwin for a scene rehearsal. The October 2021 shooting on the New Mexico film set soon plunged Souza, Baldwin and many others connected to the case into an ongoing ordeal of grief, trauma, recriminations and legal jeopardy.

“I hoped I would just bleed out overnight because I didn’t want to be around anymore,” Souza told Vanity Fair, in his first-ever interview about the incident. Souza, who reportedly lives in Palo Alto, told Vanity Fair that he’s not sure he’s grateful he lived, but that a part of him didn’t want to survive.

“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think,” Souza said. “I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped.”

In the interview, the Fremont native, who grew up wanting to make movies, was asked whether he feels justice was done in the case. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for loading firearms with dummy rounds and making sure the weapons were safe for actors to use, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Souza’s first assistant director Dave Halls took a plea deal for negligence with a deadly weapon.`

Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter and went on trial in July. But the judge ended the proceedings after the defense successfully argued that prosecutors concealed evidence that could be exculpatory. The judge dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning prosecutors can’t seek to retry the case.

“I don’t know, and I don’t know what (justice) even is anymore — I’ll be very honest with you about that,” Souza told Vanity Fair. “No one feels good about someone going to jail.”

Souza expressed complicated feelings about whether he blamed anyone, saying, “I think it would be disingenuous and lunacy to say that people didn’t screw up things. I don’t think anyone would ever allege that anything was intentional. But when there are matters of things like ammunition and guns and safety, you don’t (expletive) around there.”

“I think blame can be toxic to your soul — not that people don’t deserve blame,” he added.

Souza didn’t want to weigh in on discussions about Baldwin’s culpability, including whether the veteran film and TV actor acted “recklessly” by not checking the gun himself, as some leading stars said he should have done. Baldwin and his attorneys had said that any actor should be able to trust when the armorer or assistant director tells them the gun is safe to use, which is what Baldwin said he was told.

“I don’t know,” Souza said. “Again, it’s a cop-out to say it’s not up to me, but it’s not. Does it matter if I think it’s fair or not? So I don’t know anymore, to be honest with you. The charges got filed. That’s what they decided to do. Was he overcharged? I don’t know.”

Souza also expressed complicated feelings about his relationship with Baldwin, explaining how those feelings changed over time and circumstance. He said they had known each other since 2015, when the “30 Rock” star was a producer on “Crown Vic,” a crime thriller he wrote and directed.

“You see what you see in the press, you hear stories,” Souza said. “We had a very good relationship. When anybody’s famous for a long time — I don’t know that you can ever have an actual, true give-and-take friendship with somebody like that.”

“He was always very good to me and very deferential to my creative instincts and incredibly supportive, creatively, of me,” Souza continued.

But when it came time for Souza to direct Baldwin in “Rust,” he told Vanity Fair that he heard that the famously temperamental actor could be difficult. Souza acknowledged that he and Baldwin butted heads over the approach to his character, a legendary former outlaw who comes out of hiding when his young grandson is accused of murder. Souza said he didn’t care if Baldwin was prickly: “I’ll get the performance,” he thought.

Souza told Vanity Fair that he and Baldwin also sparred over how the actor’s outlaw character would move in the scene they were rehearsing when the shooting happened. Souza said he was standing behind Hutchins, who was trying to examine a camera shot of Baldwin pulling out his gun. For reasons that remain a mystery, the gun held a live round, when it should only have held dummy rounds. When the gun discharged, Souza said the sound was loud, and he felt like “a horse kicked me in the shoulder and someone hit me with a bat.”

Souza told Vanity Fair he was in the emergency room when he learned Hutchins had died. “It was crushing in a way that is difficult to put into words,” he said. “There was an emptiness and just an absolute devastation.”

Two years later, Souza returned to work with Baldwin again, to complete filming for “Rust,” a project that many in the public felt had become macabre. Souza told Vanity Fair he was reluctant to finish the film, but believed that doing so would financially benefit Hutchins’ family. He also hoped that people could one day see Hutchins’ final work.

Working with Baldwin, though, “was tough,” Souza said. “We got through it. I got the performance I wanted. We’re not friends. We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship.”

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