Quentin Tarantino and Bill Maher smoke pot together and discuss numerous issues, including Alec Baldwin and the tragedy on the “Rust” set.
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.
