"Arrested Development" star Jason Bateman has apologised for downplaying co-star Jessica Walter's comments about facing verbal harassment at the hands of Jeffrey Tambor during a group interview, saying he was "incredibly embarrassed" for underestimating her feelings.
The team of the sitcom, which has been revived and is set to return for a fourth season on Netflix, sat down for an interview with the New York Times and the conversation soon moved towards Tambor's alleged past behaviour, prompting Walter to speak about the actor.
Tambor was fired from his critically-acclaimed role in "Transparent" over allegations of sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegations but has admitted to rude behaviour on the sets. His return on "Arrested Development" is his first major gig after the controversy.
During the interview, Walter and Tambor were asked about their working experience and the actress became emotional as she revealed that she was yelled at her co-star.
"He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever," Walter told reporter Sopan Deb. "Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologise."
Bateman interjected twice and tried to shift the blame to an actor's process, which led to a huge online backlash.
"...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 what you learn is context," he had said.
After the criticism, the "Ozark" star took to twitter to issue an apology to Walter.
"Based on listening to the NYT interview and hearing people's thoughts online, I realise 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 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 apologise that I completely underestimated the feelings of the victim, another person I deeply love and she was sitting right there!," the actor said.
Bateman said there is never any excuse for abuse, in any form, from any gender.
"I didn't say that and instead said a bunch of other stuff and not very well. I deeply, and sincerely, apologise," he added.
Walter became emotional during the interview and her male co-stars tried to take over the conversation. She received support only from Alia Shawkat, the only other female star present at the interview. Shawkat said there was no excuse for bad behaviour.
Bateman repeated his sentiment, saying, "What we do for a living is not normal, and therefore the process is not normal sometimes, and to expect it to be normal is to not understand what happens on set. Again, not to excuse it, Alia, but to be surprised by people having a wobbly route to their goal, their process - it's very rarely predictable."
Walter, speaking through tears, responded, "But it's hard because honestly - Jason says this happens all the time. (In) 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.
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