Another actor defends James Gunn

Glenn Close doesn’t believe James Gunn’s controversial remarks should “negate him as an artist.” The American actress starred in Guardians of the Galaxy, playing Nova Prime Irani Rael. A flurry of actors and actresses have spoken out in support of Gunn, the film’s director, who was fired from the franchise in July after a number of tweets surfaced that he’d posted between 2008 and 2011. In those tweets, the filmmaker made light of sensitive subjects such as rape and pedophilia. Close is the latest Hollywood star to question Disney’s decision to remove him from his post, months before he was due to begin production this fall on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. “It was a question I was talking about to somebody last night — you have somebody that actually has the creative energy to create something like Guardians of the Galaxy,” she explained in an interview with Empire magazine. “He’s a flawed human being. He was a, you know, cocky a--hole back then, and was saying things to provoke people. Does that negate him as an artist? I don’t think so. I personally do not think so.” The 71-year-old compared this to other artists, such as Pablo Picasso, who “treated women terribly” but was not penalized professionally, while also emphasizing that Gunn’s tweets were written “in a totally different context. What are we going to do, go back to our pasts and make sure that everything we said was politically correct? Who can live like that?” she added.