Hilaria Baldwin steps out in electric metallic leggings with Alec hours before his interview airs

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A somber Alec Baldwin and smiling wife Hilaria were spotted at a coffee shop near their New York City home on Thursday, just hours before his interview about the deadly Rust film shooting was set to air on ABC.

The pair were seen grabbing coffee at the Madman Espresso in the West Village, a favorite haunt for the couple, as Baldwin kept a sullen look, dressed in all black, while Hilaria wore electric metallic leggings and a golden-colored Moncler vest priced at $1,900. 

The Baldwins had also been spotted earlier in the day taking a stroll with their infants in the Manhattan streets.

After the coffee break, Baldwin carried suitcases and packed them into his SUV before going home.

His bombshell, 90-minute interview with George Stephanopoulos, in which the sobbing star denies ever pulling the trigger on the gun that killed his cinematographer, airs at 8 pm.

In teasers for the upcoming interview, Baldwin could he seen weeping as he described the accidental shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. 

‘I think back, I think: ‘What could I have done?’ Baldwin told Stephanopoulos. 

He insists that he never pulled the trigger but said it appeared to inexplicably fire on its own.

‘The trigger wasn’t pulled, I didn’t pull the trigger,’ he said, often having to pause to collect himself, or wipe away a tear.

‘I would never point a gun at anyone or point a trigger at them, never.’

It’s not yet known why the weapon was loaded with a real bullet.

‘Someone put a live bullet in the gun – a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property,’ Baldwin said.

Baldwin made his account on Twitter private, just before the ABC interview airs. 

Bryan W. Carpenter, a weapons armorer who works for Dark Thirty Film Services, said he was skeptical that Baldwin never pulled the trigger.

‘In order to make it fire, you have to put your thumb up onto the hammer, cock the hammer all the way back, and then as the hammer is completely cocked back, then you pull the trigger and then the gun fires,’ Carpenter told Fox News. ‘So that’s very important because that gun had to have two step process to fire. It had to be cocked and the trigger pulled to fire.’

Carpenter continued: ‘Once you cock the hammer back on one of those old west guns, it doesn’t take a lot to set that trigger off.’

His comments come after Santa Fe Sheriff Adan Mendoza told the outlet that ‘guns don’t just go off. So whatever needs to happen to manipulate the firearm, [Baldwin] did that and it was in his hands.’

But Lisa Tarraco, attorney for Assistant Director Dave Halls – who along with Baldwin and set armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed are the focus of Mendoza’s investigation – says she was told by her client that Baldwin did not pull the trigger.

‘Dave has told me since the very first day I met him that Alec did not pull that trigger,’ Torraco told GMA. ‘His finger was never in the trigger guard.’

She added that she would be ‘shocked’ if her client were charged in connection with the incident and that this ordeal has been ‘very, very painful and very hard for him.’

Detectives are currently investigating whether Seth Kenney, a 51-year-old Hollywood veteran who was supposed to provide the film with dummy rounds and blanks, may have sent recycled bullets from a previous set, according to an affidavit filed by the Sante Fe County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators there continue to probe Hutchins’ death, and have yet to file any criminal charges. 

It was revealed that the bullet that killed Hutchins, may have been a homemade bullet that a New Mexico armorer supplied from a previous film where makeshift ammunition was used to train actors at a firing range.

During the interview with ABC set to air, Baldwin also spoke fondly of Hutchins, saying: ‘She was someone who was loved by everyone who worked with and liked by everyone who worked with – and admired.

‘Even now I find it hard to believe, it just doesn’t seem real to me.’

When asked if the shooting was the worst thing that ever happened to him, Baldwin replied: ‘Yes. Yes, yes.’

His wife, Hilaria, previously shared on Instagram the toll the tragedy has taken on the couple’s family. The mother-of-six revealed she’s had some ‘heart-wrenching’ conversations with her children after the accidental shooting.

Stephanopoulos said Baldwin spoke to him in detail about everything that happened on the day of the shooting.

‘As you can imagine he was devastated, but he was also very candid, was very forthcoming,’ Stephanopoulos said of his hour-and-a-half long interview with the actor.

In the weeks following the shooting, several former crew members have spoken out about what they called an unsafe environment on the set.

Two weeks ago, the script supervisor Mamie Mitchell tearfully announced that she was suing Baldwin and accused him of playing ‘Russian Roulette’ when he fired a gun without checking it first to make sure it was not loaded, and further claimed that the scene being filmed did not call for the firing of the gun.

The suit names 22 defendants associated with the film, including Baldwin, Rust producers, six production companies – El Dorado Pictures, Thomasville Pictures, Short Porch Pictures, Brittany House Pictures, 3rd Shift Media and Streamline Global – armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, First Assistant Director David Halls and others.

Mitchell, a 40-year industry veteran, was standing close to Hutchins when the bullet fired from Baldwin’s gun killed her and then injured director Joel Souza. 

The suit claims assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and deliberate infliction of harm. It also states that the scene being shot did not require a gun to be fired.

‘I ran out and called 911 and said, ‘Bring everybody, send everybody,”’ Mitchell said during a press conference. ‘This woman is gone at the beginning of her career. She was an extraordinary, rare, very rare woman.’

Serge Svetnoy, the head electrician who held Hutchins in his arms as she died has also sued Baldwin, Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director David Halls over ‘severe emotional distress’ after the fatal shooting and revealed that the scene did not call for Baldwin to fire the gun. 

Svetnoy filed the suit against the three crew members – as well as others, who remain unnamed – and claimed that their alleged negligence led to the shooting and put him in emotional turmoil.

Svetnoy alleged in the court documents that the bullet struck director Joel Souza, 48, and killed Hutchins nearly hit him, too, according to TMZ.

He also said that he was one of the first people to tend to Halyna while she was bleeding out and attempted to keep her conscious.

He told TMZ that he’s suing Baldwin because he ‘owed a duty to the Plaintiff and other crew members and actors on the ‘Rust’ set to handle the Colt Revolver provided to him by Defendant Halls with reasonable care and diligence for the safety of ‘Rust’ cast and crew.’

Lane Luper, who served as the film’s A-camera first assistant, said he quit one day before the fatal shooting because employees were being overworked, COVID-safety was not being enforced properly and gun safety was poor.

‘I think with Rust, it was the perfect storm of the armorer, the assistant director, the culture that was on set, the rushing. It was everything,’ he told Good Morning America about the events that led up to the fatal shooting.

‘It wasn’t just one individual. Everything had to fall into place for this one-in-a-trillion thing to happen.’

In his letter of resignation, Luper said there had been two accidental weapon discharges on set and one accidental sound-effects explosion that went off around the crew.

‘There have been NO explanations as to what to expect for these shots. When anyone from production is asked we are usually met with the same answers about not having enough time to complete the day if we rehearse or that ‘this is a 21 day shoot,” Luper wrote in the letter.

He added that the crew grew exhausted of long commutes from the set to their lodging, which for some more than two hours away.

‘In my 10 years as a camera assistant I’ve never worked on a show that cares so little for the safety of its crew,’ Luper said.

In a statement to Sky News, a spokesperson for the producers hit back at his claims, saying: ‘Mr. Luper’s allegations around budget and safety are patently false, which is not surprising considering his job was to be a camera operator, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it or knowledge of safety protocols or budgets.

‘As we continue to cooperate with all investigations, we are limited in what we can say,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘However, safety is always the number one priority.

Some social media users were skeptical of Baldwin’s claim that he didn’t pull the trigger.

‘The only way any firearm is going to fire is if the trigger mechanism is pulled or jolted hard on older weapons. I.E. dropped, banged hard,’ tweeted one user. ‘Do you truly believe people are so stupid to believe your nonsense?’

‘Good grief his ‘acting’ is horrendous,’ tweeted another. ‘Western style handguns either require the shooter cock the weapon first or don’t. Either way, this weapon had the trigger pulled. It wasn’t dropped.

‘@AlecBaldwin had it in his hands and killed Halyna and wounded another. Man up, already.’