“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt told the AP that this is “not an easy time” to be Star-Lord. The actor was responding to a question about Disney firing James Gunn after some old, distasteful tweets of his were resurfaced.
“Well, I was a little shocked, like everybody,” Pratt said of the situation.
The man behind Peter Quill didn’t want to say too much more. “We put a lot of time, thought and effort into the statement that we released about it, and I think we all kind of want that statement to be essentially what we have to say about it,” Pratt added.
You can find that statement in full here.
“It’s not an easy time,” Pratt said. “We all love James and he’s a good friend of ours. We also really love playing the Guardians of the Galaxy — it’s a complicated situation for everybody.”
Watch the video above.
Gunn, the writer-director of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise, has apologized after a series of since-deleted tweets resurfaced in which the filmmaker made what he admitted were “offensive” jokes about taboo topics like rape and pedophilia.
While many of his former colleagues have shared support for their friend, former WWE Superstar Dave Bautista, who plays Drax in “Guardians,” has been the most vocal on Gunn’s side and against Disney.
Gunn frequently tweets about his opposition to President Donald Trump, and thus drew the ire of fans of the president such as right-wing provocateur Mike Cernovich, who began posting a series of old Gunn tweets.
Online sleuths then dug up dozens of old tweets of the sort Gunn admitted were “offensive,” many from between 2008 and 2011.
“Expendables is so manly I f-ed the s- out of the p-ssy boy next to me,” he wrote in one.
“The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!’” read a tweet from February 2009.