Using Fake Guns Is Like Adding “Digital Erections” to Porn

Quentin Tarantino has vehemently brushed off any notion of doing away with real guns on his movie sets. During a recent appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, the filmmaker pushed back against the idea of using fake guns and visual effects for shooting scenes.

The discussion started after Maher brought up the Rust tragedy and suggested filming with “nothing in the gun” and adding the muzzle flash in post-production. “I guess I can add digital erections to porno movies, but who wants to fucking watch that?” said Tarantino, balking at the idea. “It’s exciting to shoot the blanks and to see the real orange fire, not add orange fire.”

“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,” Tarantino continued, referring to the deaths of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust set and actor Brandon Lee while filming 1994’s The Crow. “That’s a pretty fucking good record.”

Though Tarantino briefly admitted such deaths are “the kind of fuck-up that undermines an entire industry,” he emphasized the importance of taking risks to capture “exciting” moments on film.

Watch Tarantino make his case for using real guns below. The discussion begins around the 1:05 mark.

Rust director Joel Souza recently expressed an opposing view in an interview with Vanity Fair, his first since being injured by a fragment of the bullet that killed Hutchins. “My recommendation is this: that no guns should ever be allowed. Nothing real that can fire anything,” he said. “It should all be fake from here on to eternity. And there should still be armorers even because it’s fake, because they’re still not safe unless there’s an armorer.”

Earlier in the conversation, Tarantino gave his opinion on who bore the responsibility for the Rust shooting. “It’s a situation I think I am being fair enough to say that the armorer, the guy who hands him the gun, is 90% responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun. But the actor is 10% responsible,” he said. “It’s a gun! You are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.”

On that note, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving 18 months in prison after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Alec Baldwin, who fired the gun that killed Hutchins, had his own involuntary manslaughter case dismissed in July after a judge determined that prosecutors withheld crucial evidence.