Jason Bateman a man in full
After almost 40 years in the business, he feels as if he’s just getting started
Please don’t confuse Jason Bateman with the mild-mannered everyman he’s played in so many hit comedies.
Not that he’d mind.
Bateman, 49, has indeed made audiences laugh in movies such as Horrible Bosses, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Hancock, Zootopia, Up in the Air, The Switch, Identity Thief and Office Christmas Party; on television, he’s the centre of Arrested Development, past and present.
So yes, lots of laughs in that resumé.
But the life-long actor is also a producer and director, and he’s currently starring (with Laura Linney), in Ozark, the hit Netflix violent drama about a guy who’s been laundering money for a drug cartel.
Bateman — who has been a director since he was 18 — helmed four episodes of the first season and is a producer on the show.
He’s also a producer on his new movie, Game Night – which opens Friday.
I feel fortunate that I haven’t really been swept up in any kind of celebrity attention. It helps my personal life, my family life — my wife, my kids and I, we get to cruise around for the most part, undetected.” Jason Bateman
Q A lot of the laughs in Game Night depend on delivery. The action gets grisly and violent and yet everyone is so understated and polite. Wait — are you all supposed to be Canadian?
A I hope what you’re picking up on is our intention to make it very relatable. You say ‘Canadian’ and I think I know what you mean. [Laughs] They’re kind and human, and not afraid of their vulnerability. The concept always appealed to me, that a bunch of decent people get together to have a game night and get involved in something they’re obviously not expecting, and that they’re ill-equipped to respond to. So, if they were at all more snarky or edgy or broad, then perhaps you wouldn’t enjoy watching them navigate this, because they would seem more capable. I had a really good time doing the ensemble studio comedy role.
I just finished the final season of the first year of Ozark, so I was able to power down a little bit and not have to manage so much. And it ended up being a really fun time.
Q What’s the path from child actor to producer/director been like?
A My ideas about what I want to do when I grow up have changed as I grow up. I started off wanting to be a character actor, like Lon Chaney Jr. and then I wanted to be Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, then I wanted to be kind of a funny guy. Then I wanted to be somebody who was the centre of things, the everyman, the leading man, so I can service the whole story. And then I wanted to direct these things I was doing, because it became clear to me that that was the really challenging job on set. And then my life got into a place where I could actually handle that kind of responsibility, and fortunately, I was given the opportunity to do that.
And that’s where my interests lie now.
Perhaps if my goals hadn’t kept changing, I might have run out of energy, but I’ve been in it for 38, 39 years now, and I haven’t been doing the same job for that long, so it still feels like I’m pretty fresh. Inside, I feel like I’m just kind of starting, certainly with the directing and producing. My aspirations, my goals, are way down the line. I have a long way to go to get to where my current ambition sits.
Q How does one handle the
whole celebrity whirlwind for almost 40 years?
A I feel fortunate that I haven’t really been swept up in any kind of celebrity attention.
It helps my personal life, my family life — my wife, my kids and I, we get to cruise around for the most part, undetected. Or if someone does come up to say something, it’s usually something kind of, casual, kind of peer-topeer and positive, and anybody who doesn’t like what I’m doing, I don’t hear from them. [Laughs] Which is kind of nice. I think the media decides who they want to make a celebrity and who they don’t. And I don’t think I do anything in my life that warrants that kind of celebrity attention. I’ve been married for 16, 17 years now, I have two little girls, I’m up at six in the morning, and in bed by nine. [Laughs]
I just work hard. I’m not doing the kinds of things I think are very exciting to read about or follow.
I’m not feigning humility. I just love working, and I love my family. And my friends are all pretty sane.