The invisible man
In Ozark, Jason Bateman aspires to be the anti-Day-Lewis
In his new drama series Ozark, Jason Bateman doesn’t make waves as Chicago financial adviser Marty Byrde — more like ripples that leave no one around him untouched or unexposed.
When not advising clients on their 401(k) plans, Marty launders cash by the millions.
But now he’s jammed up with the South American drug cartel he cleans that money for.
So he and his family bolt for the Missouri Ozarks, a safer base of operations where he hopes to make things right before the Byrdes end up dead.
The intoxicating saga is full of unexpected twists and is fortified by a splendid cast including Laura Linney as Marty’s accomplice-wife and the mother of their two kids.
The drama churns around Marty, yet, for Bateman, this starring role was just his means to a more compelling end: The role of director.
At 48, Bateman began his acting career in childhood on Little House on the Prairie and Silver Spoons, and is perhaps best known as a member of the flaky Bluth family on the cult comedy Arrested Development.
But he signed on as Ozark’s executive producer with plans to direct all 10 episodes.
This proved logistically impossible; he directed the four that bookend the season, passing the reins to others for the middle six.
Though slammed with one challenge after another, Marty responds in mostly microscopic ways. The audience can tell things eat at him, but it’s mostly buried deep beneath the surface.
Marty seems so disconnected from his feelings, the viewer is obliged to do the connecting for him, to fill in the blanks Bateman sketches out. The viewer is summoned to help Marty feel.
“The characters that I’m always drawn to play is ‘us,’” he says — “as a proxy who shapes the experience for the audience.”
“Acting changed for me a while ago when I started to become disenchanted with pretending to be other people,” Bateman says.
“I’m not interested in tricking you into thinking I’m somebody else.
“My challenge with acting has now changed into a different goal: to give me another hand on the wheel, along with directing, to steer the audience through the story.”
It seems like heresy: The notion that an actor wouldn’t want to claim the spotlight at every opportunity.
“I’m trying to not do ANY acting,” Bateman insists.
“I’m trying to be not distracting at all. I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to do anything where the audience goes, ‘Oh! Look at that performance!’ I’m just trying to service the story. I’m trying to be as natural” — a long, contemplative pause — “and invisible as possible.”
Or, put another way: “This ISN’T Daniel Day-Lewis work,” he says with a smile.
Suffice to say, Bateman didn’t study money laundering or consort with drug kingpins to prepare. Did he have any prior interest in the underworld economy?
“None. And I’m still not really sure what it means.”