Actor Joe Manganiello got some big surprises when researchers for the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” went digging through his family history.

Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fired a fatal gunshot from a prop gun that he had been told was safe, seven camera crew members for the movie he was filming walked off the job to protest conditions and production issues that included safety concerns.

The cinematographer who was fatally shot with a prop gun by Alec Baldwin on a movie set grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle and worked on documentary films in Europe before studying film in Los Angeles.

Court records show that an assistant director unwittingly handed Alec Baldwin a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot a cinematographer.

A prop firearm discharged by veteran actor Alec Baldwin, who is producing and starring in a Western movie, killed his director of photography and injured the director Thursday at the movie set outside Santa Fe, authorities said.