Guardians Of The Galaxy Actor Says It’s Hard To Think Of The Series Without James Gunn

Glenn Close has become the latest Guardians of the Galaxy cast member to speak out about Disney’s decision to part ways with James Gunn.

To recap: the Mouse House severed ties with Gunn six weeks ago after a series of gross and disturbing tweets emerged online – tweets that clearly weren’t aligned with Disney’s image of family-friendly entertainment.

So Gunn was shown the exit door, much to the chagrin of Dave Bautista, who threatened to walk unless Marvel maintained the original screenplay submitted by James Gunn soon before the shit began hurling towards the fan. That now appears to be the case, though there’s seemingly no guarantee that Bautista will reprise his role as Drax the Destroyer beyond Avengers 4.

For Glenn Close, though, Disney’s final decision leaves her with nothing but sadness, as she struggles to imagine a Guardians of the Galaxy movie without James Gunn at the helm.

It’s hard to think of it without him. It’s sad. And it brings up, I think, some very tricky issues around this movement. I bring it up with every woman I talk to because I want to know what people feel, you know? Is that truly what we should be doing? Especially in this case, somebody [alt-right blogger Mike Cernovich] who’s know to ruin people for something that they wrote in a totally different context, what, ten, 12 years ago? 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? I just feel that there’s something wrong about that.

Close enjoyed a small, but pivotal role in the original Guardians film, where she played Irani Rael, leader of the Nova Corps. The character was initially set for a return during Vol. 2 as well but, sadly, never made the cut.

That tells us she won’t be returning for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Thanos did raid Xanadar for the Power Stone, after all), and while discussing Gunn’s firing to Empire Magazine (h/t CBM), Glenn Close cut James Gunn a little slack – even if he is a “flawed human being.”

We are very flawed creatures. Look at what we’re doing to our f***ing world. 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. He’s a flawed human being. He was a, you know, cocky asshole 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. Or else we’re taking down buildings and paintings – you know, take down all the Picassos, he treated women terribly. If it’s going to be a lasting cultural revolution, which is a big change, if… We’ve got to take into consideration human nature.

That “flawed human being” is the reason Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is on hold until further notice, and we’ll be bringing you all the latest as this story unfolds.