It hasn’t been an easy time for the Guardians of the Galaxy since director James Gunn was unceremoniously ousted last month due to old tweets resurfacing. Cast members have since threatened to quit and the nonstop rumors of Gunn’s possible return has made it tough to truly move on from the ongoing ordeal.

Now, Chris Pratt is opening up about the problems plaguing the franchise. In an interview with the Associated Press, the actor talked about how the cast has responded to the ordeal and how difficult it’s been on them losing not just a director, but a friend in James Gunn.

“It’s not an easy time,” said Pratt. “We all love James and he’s a good friend of ours, but we also really love playing the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a complicated situation for everybody. And you know, we just want to move forward and do what’s right and be the best people we can be.”

Upon first hearing the news at Comic-Con, nothing but shock crossed Pratt’s mind as the franchise had lost such a pivotal part of its success.

“I love going to Comic-Con but I ended up not doing a lot of interviews around that time just because it was so shocking,” said Pratt. “All I know is we put a lot of time, thought and effort into the statement we released about it. And I think we all kind of want that statement to be essentially what we say about it. And we were pretty clear and honest about how we feel.”

Though the joint statement released by the cast was supposed to be a unified voice, it did little to ease the shock the cast had experienced. Dave Bautista came out days later and threatened to quit if Gunn’s original script wasn’t used for the film, casting more doubt on the franchise.

Ever since news broke of Gunn’s firing, the fate of the franchise has been tossed into turmoil with rumblings that the next movie in the series will be delayed or possibly even cancelled as Disney tries to assess how to handle the movie after firing its director, writer and creative leader.

Talk about Gunn returning hasn’t ended with a recent report revealing many within Marvel are now throwing their support behind the director in a last ditch effort to convince Disney to change course.