Netflix cancels Arrested Development UK press tour after that infuriating NYT interview
An instantly infamous New York Times interview with the cast of Arrested Development that ran earlier this week has sparked a conversation about what director Steven Soderbergh has called the “extreme asshole clause” in entertainment—the idea that, just because a person’s abusive behavior on set isn’t sexual in nature, that doesn’t make it acceptable. And now Netflix is removing itself from that conversation by canceling a planned UK leg of the Arrested Development season five press tour, as Comic Book Resources reports.
Up until this week, Netflix’s general strategy seems to have been to ignore co-star Jeffrey Tambor’s recent firing from Amazon’s Transparent after reports that he sexually harassed several trans women who work on that show. Netflix submitted Tambor for Emmys consideration along with the rest of the Arrested Development cast—in contrast to Amazon’s quietly removing him from consideration for Transparent—and sent Tambor out for interviews like the sympathetic profile that ran in The Hollywood Reporter a few weeks back. There, he mentioned a “blowup” aimed at Jessica Walter, who plays Tambor’s onscreen wife, on the Arrested Development set, to which Walter’s reps replied: “Jessica does not wish to talk about Jeffrey Tambor.”