Arrested Development's David Cross reveals details of 'cruel' Jeffrey Tambor shouting incident that left Jessica Walter in tears

'There's yelling and then there's what Jeffrey did'

David Cross has shared details of the controversial 'blowout' which saw co-star Jessica Walter face 'verbal harassment' from Jeffrey Tambor on the set of Arrested Development.

The actor was speaking to Gothamist a day after him and his co-stars came under fire for failing to jump to the defence of Walter when she recalled the incident through tears in a group interview. Instead, her male co-stars - including Jason Bateman and Tony Hale - spoke over Walter who was repeatedly forced to clarify her experience.

Following Bateman and Hale, Cross issued an apology to Walter revealing that his co-star Alia Shawkat and wife Amber Tamblyn both expressed their “discomfort” over how the New York Times interview played out.

“I will unequivocally apologise to Jessica,” he said. “I'm sorry that we behaved the way we behaved. Whatever the criticisms are, I will own up.”

Cross then went on to describe the incident at the centre of the controversy as “extremely uncomfortable,” confirming it occurred during the filming of the brand new season which arrives on Netflix next week (29 May).

He strenuously disagreed with Bateman's initial comments in which he appeared to justify Tambor's alleged behaviour by saying the entertainment industry “breeds atypical behaviour.”

“Well, there's yelling and then there's what Jeffrey did. Those are two different things,” he said.

“It's one thing to pop off a little bit, to let frustrations boil over, that happens in any workplace. If it had just been that, then it would have been not cool, but par for the course for where we were and what was happening. I think what Jeffrey did was egregious and there was a little bit of cruelty to it, which I have a real issue with. I'm not going to defend what Jeffrey did at all, because I would never do that. I've never seen anybody do that to that level and that's just not right. There's just no excuse for behaving like that.

“But you just can't defend it. There's no reason for that. I've seen people [on set] be shitty to other people - belittling, unkind, condescending and dismissive. I'm not talking about every single person, Michael Cera never did it, Alia didn't. But I've seen it.”

Cross also claimed there was a separate incident in which Walter herself had an altercation with a person standing in for Portia de Rossi, but stated it wasn't on the same scale as Tambor.

The UK press tour for Arrested Development has been cancelled ahead of its return to Netflix on 29 May.