On the cusp of Arrested Development‘s fifth season (which drops May 29), the star-studded cast sat down with the New York Times for a group interview. Most of it was pretty standard stuff—stories of fan interactions, a discussion of humor and Donald Trump—but then they got around to addressing what Times reporter Sopan Deb called the “elephant in the room”: Jeffrey Tambor’s departure from Transparent in the wake of allegations he sexually harassed two women. Tambor has denied the allegations but admitted to the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that he had a temper and that on Transparent, “I was difficult. I was mean.” He also said in that interview that he had had a “blowup” where he yelled at his Arrested Development castmate Jessica Walter.
With Walter and Tambor among the actors in the room, Deb asked Tambor, if Arrested Development continues with new seasons, “Do you expect to be a part of it?”
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“I surely hope so,” Tambor said. To which Jason Bateman added: “Well, I won’t do it without you. I can tell you that,” saying later, “There’s no reason he shouldn’t [come back].”
That opened up an awkward portion of the interview where the male cast members (which is most of them) supported Tambor and minimized his bad on-set behavior, even as Walter—the person who was on the receiving end of that bad behavior—obviously was a bit more conflicted about it. At one point, Bateman said they’ve “all” yelled at Walter. Then:
WALTER: Oh! You’ve never yelled at me.
BATEMAN: Not to belittle what happened.
WALTER: You’ve never yelled at me like that.
BATEMAN: But this is a family and families, you know, have love, laughter, arguments—again, not to belittle it, but a lot of stuff happens in 15 years. I know nothing about “Transparent” but I do know a lot about “Arrested Development.” And I can say that no matter what anybody in this room has ever done—and we’ve all done a lot, with each other, for each other, against each other—I wouldn’t trade it for the world and I have zero complaints.
Batemen continued to back up his costar Tambor, this time with Alia Shawkat (besides Walter the only woman present, and who was largely silent during this bit) sounding a note of disagreement:
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.
Then:
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.
BATEMAN: She didn’t give it up for anybody else.
[TONY] HALE: But I will say, to Jason’s point, we can be honest about the fact that—and not to build a thing—we’ve all had moments.
WALTER: But not like that, not like that. That was bad.
This segment of the interview closed with Walter saying in front of everyone that she would work with Tambor again, and that she was letting go of her anger. But what came across to a lot of people who read it was that the men, while not quite saying Tambor did nothing wrong, were defending him and making excuses.
As for Deb’s original question—would Tambor be back if they made more Arrested Development?—the answer seems to be, “Yes, obviously.” According to Variety, Netflix is submitting Tambor for the supporting actor in a comedy category in this year’s Emmys.
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