Photo: Michael Tran/FilmMagic
In Jeffrey Tambor’s first lengthy interview earlier this month about the sexual-harassment allegations that got him fired from Transparent, he mentioned a “blowout” with his Arrested Development co-star Jessica Walter that got ugly. He noted that he apologized to her, but Walter declined to comment. Now, in a new New York Times roundtable with the entire AD cast, Walter addresses what really happened, breaking down in front of Tambor.
As the discussion turns to whether or not they would hire a person with Tambor’s admitted anger issues, Jason Bateman defends Tambor, saying his on-set outbursts are par for the course in Hollywood and that many an actor has been labeled “difficult.” Alia Shawkat responds, “But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable.” Walter then tearfully interjects and, for the first time, addresses what he did to her, telling him she’s ready to move on (audio of the emotional exchange is available at the NYT):
Let me just say one thing that I just realized in this conversation. I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize. I have to let it go. [Turns to Tambor.] And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again.
Though other cast members also defend Tambor, saying they’re all guilty of having exhibited anger on the set, Walter makes it clear that Tambor crossed a line, telling Bateman directly that he’s “never yelled at her at like that.” “But it’s hard because honestly — Jason says this happens all the time. In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set,” she says. “And it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now. I just let it go right here, for the New York Times.” She also adds that she would not have brought up the incident had Tambor not spoken about it first, and would work with him again “in a heartbeat.”
Update, May 24, 2018, at 9:05 a.m.: Jason Bateman apologized for his behavior in a series of tweets.
Based on listening to the NYT interview and hearing people’s thoughts online, I realize that I was wrong here.
I sound like I’m condoning yelling at work. I do not.
It sounds like I’m excusing Jeffery. I do not.
It sounds like I’m insensitive to Jessica. I am not.
In fact, I’m- — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
... sitting right there!
I’m incredibly embarrassed and deeply sorry to have done that to Jessica. This is a big learning moment for me.
I shouldn’t have tried so hard to mansplain, or fix a fight, or make everything okay.
I should’ve focused more on what the most important... — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
...part of it all is - there’s never any excuse for abuse, in any form, from any gender. And, the victim’s voice needs to be heard and respected.
Period.
I didn’t say that and instead said a bunch of other stuff and not very well.
I deeply, and sincerely, apologize. — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
- horrified that I wasn’t more aware of how this incident affected her.
I was so eager to let Jeffrey know that he was supported in his attempt to learn, grow and apologize that I completely underestimated the feelings of the victim, another person I deeply love - and she was.. — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
Update, May 24, at 12:14 p.m.: Tony Hale has also apologized for his comments in the interview.
Update: Jason Bateman has since issued an apology for failing to reassure Jessica Walter during the interview as well as for calling the industry 'a breeding ground' for Tambor's alleged behaviour. Tony Hale has also spoken out on the interview claiming he reached out to Walter to personally apology.
An interview with the cast of Arrested Development has sparked controversy after Jessica Walter's male co-stars jumped to the defence of Jeffrey Tambor as she recounted, in tears, being verbally harassed by him on set.
The actor, who plays Bluth matriarch Lucille in the sitcom, was sat with Tambor and fellow stars Jason Bateman, Tony Hale, David Cross, Will Arnett and Alia Shawkat for an interview with The New York Times when the subject of the allegations against Tambor - which saw him fired from Amazon series Transparent - came up in conversation.
Walter began crying when discussing a “blowup” that Tambor had with her on the set of Arrested Development, something he admitted to in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. In a recording, Walter can be heard emotionally refuting Bateman's suggestion that Tambor's behaviour is “common” in the entertainment industry as she continually attempts to clarify the effect the incident had on her.
“Jason says this happens all the time,” she can be heard saying. “In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on set.”
Walter adds: “I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologise. I have to let it go. [turning to Tambor] And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again.”
Film premises that shouldn’t have worked but did
14 show all Film premises that shouldn’t have worked but did
1/14 1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Kicking us off is Phil Lord and Christopher Mille’s bizarre animated film about a scientist who creates a machine that transforms water into food. So far, not too crazy, but then the machine gets stuck in the sky and it starts raining food. Everything goes wrong and Flint Lockwood must save the day by flying up to the machine and kicking fried chicken butt. Yeah, a pretty crazy premise, but a fantastic film.
2/14 2. Frank Michael Fassbender may be one of the most bankable stars of the moment - having starred in the likes of Steve Jobs, X-Men and Macbeth - but in 2014, instead of flaunting his face, producers decided to make him wear a weird papier-mâché mask for the film’s near entirety. The plot see’s Fassbender’s titular character front a rock band, play SXSW and make ‘likeable’ music. It’s all just a bit strange.
3/14 3. Groundhog Day Almost anything with Bill Murray in it is a win in my book, but when you say the premise of Ground Hog day out loud - a weatherman who must relive the same day over and over again - it sounds quite boring. What transpired was one of Murray’s funniest films.
4/14 4. Star Wars With Star Wars being so prevalent in pop-culture, it’s hard to imagine a time when no-one except George Lucas knew what a Lightsaber was. Producers must have been shocked when this young director came into the office trying to sell a script about Luke Skywalker, R2D2, Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Stormtroopers. Thankfully, they believed in his vision and now we have one of the best sci-fi sagas of all time.
5/14 5. Incepetion A dream, within a dream, within a dream. Even those who watched Inception were left confused, let alone those who only heard what the film was about. Christopher Nolan’s final flick, however, was a masterclass in storytelling and one of the best films of the last ten years.
6/14 6. Speed The high-concept Speed is quite ridiculous really. Keanu Reeves can’t let a bus go below 50 miles per hour or it will blow up. It’s quite amazing how Jan de Bont managed to make his debut 116 minutes long in the first place, let alone making it a decent film in the process.
7/14 7. Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton is a director who could fill this entire list up. While he may have chosen to reboot numerous films in the past few years (Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the upcoming Dumbo 2) it was his original concepts that set him apart from everyone else. In Burton’s head, the love story of a man with scissors for hands and a young woman made complete sense, while for everyone else - from just the premise - it seemed entirely weird. Luckily, he was given the opportunity to make the film and a cult classic was born, all while Johnny Depp’s ability to play the outsider was solidified.
8/14 8. Mrs Doubtfire Post-Hook and Aladdin, Robin Williams was on a role. One of his standout performances was as Mrs. Doubtfire, the father-turned-drag-housekeeper. As a premise, dressing your lead male as a woman wasn’t exactly new (see Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie), so the filmmakers ran the risk of it all seeming like an overdone joke. Luckily, Chris Columbus managed to pull off the ridiculous plot (how wouldn’t the kids know it’s their father, really?) leading to one of the funniest films of the 90s.
9/14 9. The Lobster Like Burton, most of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films could probably feature on this page, but we’ve gone with The Lobster. The film tells of a hotel where residents must find a suitable partner within 45 days otherwise they will be turned into an animal. Try to run away and the other residents will hunt you down with tranquillisers. The result was one of the best love stories of 2015.
10/14 10. Ant-Man Some comic book superheroes should not be adapted to the big screen (*cough* Howard the Duck *cough*). Ant-Man is not one of them. Against all the odds, Paul Rudd and Peyton Reed managed to make a compelling film about a man who could shrink down in size and control ants. What’s incredible is that - somehow - the film quickly became one of Marvel’s most beloved films. Of course, everyone knew Marvel could pull off weird, having knocked it out of the park with Guardians of the Galaxy the year before.
11/14 11. Beetlejuice Two ghosts living in their old home want to scare away the alive people who now live there. Unfortunately, the new home-owners can’t see them and so the ghosts have to call upon a deranged Michael Keaton to help them out. Add one of the strangest afterlife scenes in film history and you’ve got a brilliant film.
12/14 12. Forrest Gump While not an obvious contender like Star Wars or Beetlejuice, when you think about it, Forrest Gump is a weird idea. A below-average intelligent man, sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus, telling strangers about all the famous moments in history where he observed/effected. Thanks to Tom Hanks, Gump was a magical film of love and hope, winning over the hearts of thousands and becoming an instant classic.
13/14 13. The Lego Movie Another film from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, The Lego Movie shouldn’t have worked. Making a beloved toy into a film; it was all just a bit silly. Thankfully, Chris Pratt’s turn as Emmett (and a catchy song in “Everything is Awesome”) the film was a huge hit with critics and fans alike, and now we have a cinematic universe of Lego movies to come. Awesome?
14/14 14. I’m Not There “Let’s get Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw to all play Bob Dylan in a single film”, Todd Haynes said. While you would think that would be overkill, the result was stunning, with Dylan himself eventually praising the film in 2012.
Throughout the exchange, none of Walter's male co-stars even try to jump to her defence. Instead, it's Alia Shawkat who can be heard snapping back at Bateman: “But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. And the point is that things are changing, and people need to respect each other differently.”
It's here where one of her male co-stars - Hale - seems to brush over this, saying: “We've all had moments.”
“Not like that,“ Walter is forced to clarify. ”That was bad.”
Bateman and Cross then launch into a defensive parlay about how acting "is not normal." The former calls it "a little narrow to single that one particular thing that is getting attention from our show," forcing Walter to exclaim, "Only because you brought it up, Jeffrey, in that article! I never would have brought it up."
Walter has since cancelled her interviews running in conjunction with Arrested Development which returns to Netflix on 28 May
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In an interview with the New York Times published Wednesday, May 23, Arrested Development star Jessica Walter (who plays Lucille Bluth) spoke publicly, for the first time, about a time fellow Arrested star Jeffrey Tambor (who plays Lucille’s husband, George) berated her on set. Arrested Development returns for a new season May 29 on Netflix.
“He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever,” Walter says to reporter Sopan Deb. “Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize.” (The Times piece includes audio of this section of the interview as well.)
But Walter wasn’t speaking to Deb alone — she was part of a group interview with several other Arrested Development stars, including Jason Bateman (Michael), David Cross (Tobias), Alia Shawkat (Maeby), Tony Hale (Buster), Will Arnett (Gob), and Tambor himself. Thus, when she spoke about this, she was doing so with Tambor just a few feet away.
Tambor first brought the incident into the press in a lengthy profile of him in the Hollywood Reporter, meant to talk about his exit from the series Transparent, on which he played Maura Pfefferman, a role for which he won two Emmys. After being accused of sexual harassment by two women he worked with, Tambor was fired from the series following an investigation conducted by Amazon.
Though Tambor continues to deny the harassment accusations, he has copped, several times, to having a temper and yelling at co-workers on Transparent and other projects, which is how the altercation with Walter first became public knowledge. (There has, so far, been no report of when the incident took place. Arrested’s first three seasons ran from 2003 to 2006, while its fourth season aired in 2013.)
The bulk of Arrested Development season five was filmed before the news about Tambor’s behavior on Transparent became public in late 2017, though the actor’s co-stars who have been asked about Tambor have mostly stood by him. A notable exception is Shawkat, who, with Walter and Portia de Rossi (not present for the Times interview), is one of just three women in the nine-person ensemble cast.
Here’s the key section of the Times report:
BATEMAN: Again, not to belittle it or excuse it or anything, but in the entertainment industry it is incredibly common to have people who are, in quotes, “difficult.” And when you’re in a privileged position to hire people, or have an influence in who does get hired, you make phone calls. And you say, “Hey, so I’ve heard X about person Y, tell me about that.” And what you learn is context. And you learn about character and you learn about work habits, work ethics, and you start to understand. Because it’s a very amorphous process, this sort of [expletive] that we do, you know, making up fake life. It’s a weird thing, and it is a breeding ground for atypical behavior and certain people have certain processes. SHAWKAT: But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. And the point is that things are changing, and people need to respect each other differently. WALTER [THROUGH TEARS]: Let me just say one thing that I just realized in this conversation. I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize. I have to let it go. [Turns to Tambor.] And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again. TAMBOR: Absolutely. WALTER: But it’s hard because honestly — Jason says this happens all the time. In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set. And it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now. I just let it go right here, for The New York Times.
It’s worth noting that for the bulk of the interview (which is worth reading in full, even beyond the discussions around Tambor), the male actors in the room in addition to Tambor strike much the same note as Bateman above — doing their best to place Tambor’s actions in a context and explain that he was just being “difficult” — with only Shawkat (the sole woman other than Walter in the interview) defining the behavior as unacceptable.
Later, Bateman even says that sometimes these situations are “cumulative,” then immediately backtracks from the implications of that statement by saying he’s not talking about Walter, though it’s hard to read his initial statement any other way.
Walter says, multiple times, that she’s still working to forgive Tambor. That, too, fits into a familiar cycle when it comes to these sorts of confrontations, as writers Marin Cogan and Rebecca Traister point out.
Clear view of forces that lead women who're angry at abusive men to not express that anger 1) peers who won't care or even listen to you then 2) praise the man & 3) imply you asked for it & 4) ignore the other woman in the room pointing out that they're kind of being assholes. https://t.co/kR55c4jxcS — Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 23, 2018
Also, note how Walter says that she has to forgive him, because that's what women are expected to do. *Always.* I hope someone tells her she doesn't have to. — Marin Cogan (@marincogan) May 23, 2018
Following online backlash to the Times story, some of Walter’s co-stars began apologizing for their part in the interview. Early Thursday morning, Bateman sent a series of tweets apologizing for his behavior during the interview:
Based on listening to the NYT interview and hearing people’s thoughts online, I realize that I was wrong here.
I sound like I’m condoning yelling at work. I do not.
It sounds like I’m excusing Jeffery. I do not.
It sounds like I’m insensitive to Jessica. I am not.
In fact, I’m- — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
- horrified that I wasn’t more aware of how this incident affected her.
I was so eager to let Jeffrey know that he was supported in his attempt to learn, grow and apologize that I completely underestimated the feelings of the victim, another person I deeply love - and she was.. — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
... sitting right there!
I’m incredibly embarrassed and deeply sorry to have done that to Jessica. This is a big learning moment for me.
I shouldn’t have tried so hard to mansplain, or fix a fight, or make everything okay.
I should’ve focused more on what the most important... — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
...part of it all is - there’s never any excuse for abuse, in any form, from any gender. And, the victim’s voice needs to be heard and respected.
Period.
I didn’t say that and instead said a bunch of other stuff and not very well.
I deeply, and sincerely, apologize. — Jason Bateman (@batemanjason) May 24, 2018
Soon after, Tony Hale — who was less vocal in the interview overall, but did back up Bateman’s words by saying “we’ve all had moments” — also tweeted an apology to Walter:
I have reached out to Jessica personally to apologize. Arrested Development is one of my families. Regardless of my intentions, it is clear that my words, both said and unsaid, served to minimize Jessica’s pain and for that I am extremely sorry. — Tony Hale (@MrTonyHale) May 24, 2018
This article was updated on May 24 to include Bateman and Hale’s apologies.
In a raw sit-down with the New York Times, the cast of “Arrested Development” addressed the allegations against co-star Jeffrey Tambor, with Jessica Walter saying that he had verbally harassed her.
Walter said that she had to “let go of being angry at him,” adding, “He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize. I have to let it go. And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again.”
“But it’s hard because honestly — Jason [Bateman] says this happens all the time,” she went on. “In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set. And it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now.”
The cast, including Bateman, Tony Hale, David Cross, and Tambor himself, continued to have a frank discussion about Tambor’s behavior. When Hale noted that “we’ve all had moments,” Walter responded, “But not like that, not like that. That was bad.”
“Arrested Development” returns to Netflix for its fifth season on May 29. Though forced out of Amazon’s “Transparent,” Tambor is coming back for the latest installment of the Netflix revival — and is even in the Emmy race for the comedy.
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Tambor was first accused of sexual harassment on the “Transparent” set by his former assistant, Van Barnes, at the end of 2017. An actor on the show, Trace Lysette, leveled another accusation at Tambor later. While Tambor denied the allegations, Amazon decided to remove him from “Transparent” following an investigation.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, Tambor did admit to being “difficult” and “mean” on the “Transparent” set, while still denying any sexual harassment.
“I yelled at Jill [Soloway] — she told me recently she was afraid of me,” he told the publication. “I yelled at the wonderful [executive producer] Bridget Bedard in front of everybody. I made her cry. And I apologized and everything, but still, I yelled at her. The assistant directors. I was rude to my assistant. I was moody.”
In that same interview, Tambor acknowledged a “blowup” with Walter on “Arrested Development,” adding that he “profusely apologized” for it later.
Variety has reached out to Walter and Tambor’s reps for further comment.
