Jason Bateman is living dangerously.
The actor-director enters this Emmy cycle with a problem most performers would envy: two acclaimed limited series, two wildly different roles and a directing-producing resume that keeps expanding even as he approaches the age when peers start thinking about slowing down. “Our tolerance for taking on more actually grows even as we start to approach the age when we’re supposed to [slow down],” Bateman says. “You gain so much knowledge through your experience that you just want to have the fortunate position of having a job that asks all of those things you’ve learned.”
He’s just landed in Los Angeles this morning and looks as relaxed as his public persona has looked across 40 years in the business — that run began as a child actor on the classic series “Little House on the Prairie” and made him, at the time, the youngest director ever to earn a DGA card. Three weeks from now, he starts shooting his first feature since “The Family Fang” (2015), a film titled “Cackling of the Dodos,” with Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson. But first, he gets to enjoy some of the awards spotlight.
It’s the “Ozark” playbook again with Netflix’s thriller “Black Rabbit,” in which Bateman stars opposite Jude Law. He serves as an executive producer through his production company Aggregate Films, and helmed the first two episodes, one of which has already landed him a DGA nomination this past winter. But playing the chaotic Vince in the show was a deliberate swing. “I’ve kind of been playing the Jake part for a while, and [I thought] playing the Vince part would be fun,” he shares. “I got a take on what a heartbreaking screwup this guy is.” After knocking it out of the park, he pivoted somewhere unexpected.
Jason Bateman and Harbour in “DTF St. Louis”
HBO
The HBO Max miniseries “DTF St. Louis” is Steven Conrad’s twisty whodunit built around a love triangle, with Bateman as smiling weatherman Clark Forrest alongside David Harbour’s Floyd Smernitch and Linda Cardellini’s Carol. Bateman shaped Clark from the page up, recasting a vain TV personality as a wide-eyed innocent who reads Floyd as a big brother. “It could lend to the mislead of, oh, [Clark] definitely killed him because he’s obsessed with him,” Bateman says. “He’s this sweet guy that you’re not used to seeing, because in our cynical world, we just misinterpret that.”
Bateman is competing in the lead actor category for “Rabbit” and supporting for “DTF,” plus EP credits on both. Producer noms for both would place him among only a handful of double-producer nominees in Emmy history. He already holds noms from the Actor Awards, formerly SAG, and a DGA mention for helming the episode, “The Black Rabbits.” Yet his 14 career noms (which he doesn’t track), and a lone directing win barely register. “This stuff does matter to me, but luckily not enough to know numbers,” he chuckles.
And while the moment is about his TV work, there is also an important question to address: a “Game Night” sequel. Bateman developed the 2018 hit, then handed directing duties to writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, and he wouldn’t mind reuniting the band. “I think if John and Jonathan wanted to write one, I’ll bet you [Warner Bros.’] Mike [De Luca] and Pam [Abdy] will be up for it, and I certainly would be there as an actor,” he says, calling studio ensemble comedies “the best jobs.”
Asked about AI, Bateman defers to a famous friend, “smart folks like my buddy Ben Affleck,” adding, “I’m looking forward to next time he and I talk to pick his brain about it, because he’s put in the time.” What he wants most is the hardest trick in the business, which is the lane Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan occupy: big tentpole studio projects. “If I were to dream as high as possible, it would be to Trojan horse a really fine piece of artistry into one of those huge pieces of studio business.”
An (arrested) development worth keeping an eye on.
Emmy nomination voting runs through June 22.
Leave a Reply