Jason Bateman Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

when joel edgerton called me i thought well what's the what am i missing what's the catch she said well here's the thing you play guys that people kind of like and the twist in this movie is that you're not that nice so I want to cast somebody where they're not gonna see it coming I was like got it I still somehow spun that into a compliment James Cooper was the character I played on Little House on the Prairie he was a sweet young boy that lost his parents to a fiery stagecoach accident he and his sister Cassandra thankfully were in a follow a ghen and and and got to see mom and dad tumble down the side of a cliff [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] luckily Charles Ingalls Michael Landon was was there he took a knee and he said come live with us and so we joined the Ingalls family there for a year this was a character I had to be super sweet with he had this gorgeous little bowl haircut that this was just just horrendous I'd do a lot of crying because you cry a lot on the Prairie I don't know how I did that at 11 cuz you know there's a lot of sort of sophisticated tricks you got to figure out to cry when you're older nose hair pulling or burning yourself with a match or something right before you go that's what I had to do Todd Howard was a character there in Teen Wolf too that presented not a lot of create a challenge for me except for getting in and out of the prosthetic makeup which took a few hours every day back then they didn't have the ethically safe chemicals one needs to put these things on and off and I've literally got chemical burns on my skin we had to shut down production for a few days at one point but you know all for the craft really you know and the Academy Awards that we got on the film so you know worth it mark Loring was the character I played in Juneau he was a creep to to some who watch the film and then to others at watch the film they were like oh well he's taking a shine to that young girl cuz he's lonely it's interesting to to talk to different people about how they read that movie I in fact I asked the director at one sort of crucial scene okay now I have to know is he trying to you know hook up I think is what the kids are saying nowadays with this girl or is he just looking to connect and have a bond with it and he said I I don't want it I don't know I'm not gonna tell you I said well all right well I'm gonna I'm gonna decide he's all right then just hide it that was sort of a an interesting balance and he said do the scene ten different ways like from you know totally harmless all the way up to really lascivious and in the editing room I will try to play with all the different takes to build this ambiguous sort of cocktail I'm leaving Vanessa what I'm getting a place in the city and all plans something I want to do for a long time oh he cut up that scene with a bunch of different performance takes and you've got the stew Michael Bluth was a character that I played in Arrested Development this this guy is sort of the the same person I put in quotes in an insane family although there are plenty of times when he was he was pretty pretty dumb himself let's not play the bike okay it's the poor carpenter that blames his shoddy tools for the what is it like to be a part of a cult series it certainly didn't feel like it at the time although we thought we were doing something that was mildly amusing for us sickos that were making the show and fortunately there were enough people that were equally kind of bent that that found it there obviously there weren't enough people otherwise it would still be on the air but at least on Fox but there are enough sickos in Netflix to who want more and more of it so there's that dodgeball I played a character named pepper Brooks I believe I was only on that set for about three or four hours I play a guy who does color commentary for a dodgeball tournament and so they kind of shuffled those scenes throughout a tournament cuz I was there for such a short amount of time I didn't know really how to fit the comedic tone of the movie I didn't know what would be too much or too little and and I remember talking to the the writer/director rawson thurber about like should my hair be like up like a neck tattoo is that too much and it's like no more crazier bead be a real dumbass and I said I got that looks like it's gonna be a too [Music] usually you pay double for that kind of action pot Gary coal was the the other actor next to me and we were kind of a two-man team and he's so incredibly talented at figuring out how to be the the other balance to some jackass next to him and he was just beautifully dry and that was a lot of fun to do that then we did a bunch of stuff in the the sound booth months later dadang more crazy crap Hancock I don't remember the name of the character I played but it was I play a PR agent that's trying to help Will Smith's alcoholic superhero figure out how to get his his image back under under control all I really remember about shooting that movie was just feeling so lucky to be a part of some big-ass Hollywood movie with Will Smith and Pete Berg was directing it it was just a huge production and I'd never been a part of anything like that and it was just really cool to see what this incredible crew was was able to rig and the safety units with the stunts and all the effects and that was awesome I'd love to do another nother film like that one day the switch was a film it was originally called the baster because it is about a guy that I played named Wally Mars who boy I'm not sure how old the people are that are watching this but what he does is he he takes his well semen is a clinical term and he switches it with what his friend Jennifer Aniston is going to use to make a baby and he switches out the sperm sample because he feels like well why not me why didn't you choose me then they called it the switch for obvious reasons and she and I had a really great time doing it and we've been really close friends ever since and that was worth all of it I play Nick Hendrix in Horrible Bosses the the character like most characters I play was not too tough the least dumb of a super dumb trio and or at least he thinks the movie was a lot of fun to shoot everybody associated with a casting crew we had a really good time a little too much night work for an old man not like me I like to be in bed by 4:30 4:45 this went oftentimes to 9:00 or 10:00 at night miss Aniston and I got to work together again on Horrible Bosses and Horrible Bosses want to a pretty fun sex therapy scene try not to make each other laugh I've just been hit hard I've been hit hard one after the other sometimes double fisted you know you know what I'm talking about so your sexual addiction it's it's homosexual in nature my sex addiction my sex addiction is and then what did you say I think I think the second one is even better than the first but well I guess a millions of people just disagreed identity thief as a movie about somebody having their identity stolen middle-aged guy stolen by a middle-aged woman that was an incredibly fun job because Melissa McCarthy was was the middle-aged white woman and I was very happy that she said yes it was originally gonna be a man and then I saw her in bridesmaid and I said let's switch it to a woman got to work with this lady and we're still really close and our daughters are actually really good friends Seth Gordon directed that one he directed Horrible Bosses one and I was lucky that he was nice enough to say yes to do identity thief another another good working experience again not a tough character to play that's that's a dream you got to try to find characters that you're not going to break a sweat playing so in the gift there was this character named Simon Callum that I play who when joel edgerton called me I was very starstruck to take his his phone call I'm an enormous fan of his and this movie the gift is a really great job that he did as a first-time director that was a really positive experience we shot that in a very short number of days that was a film that Jason Blum produced and he's got this incredible model where you you shoot a shoot a movie for not a lot of money in a short amount of time and allows you to really keep your vision as a director exactly the way you want it because he's not overexposed financially and the movie did did pretty well so very very happy to have been asked to do that Nick Wilde was the name of the Fox that I played in Zootopia that's the only well no I did an animated film a long time ago I forgot the name of it but anyway check that one out it's good but Zootopia was film that did I believe it won Best Picture animated picture if I'm not mistaken and that was a really eye-opening experience to see how they do things over there at Disney Animation it took us I want to say three years to do I went in there and did about 2 hours of work every three months their process of changing story around and and and being really fair to what's working and what's not and pivoting is a whole different process since there's no reshoots they just have to erase it and draw something else then you go in and and you either redo something or you do something a little bit different and when you see it at the premiere you then finally know what you've been doing because their animators are incredibly good at what they do obviously and it was a real honor to be a part of one of those films in Ozark I play marty bird who's this money launderer who is just dancing as fast as he can to keep his family alive and to accomplish this thing he has promised to do for this this this drug cartel he keeps making kind of half good decisions good enough to stay alive but not good enough to to get out of trouble his family is obviously very very important to him and he's justifying a lot of these ethical II challenged decisions in order to keep them safe and to provide Laura Linney plays plays Wendy bird and together we're kind of this unit that is trying to figure out a way out as quickly as possible they're not interested in two seasons or three or four like they just want the show to be over get home and and and make life boring again and that's something that the writers keep in mind that there's no reason the show should continue to go on unless they write a conflict legitimate enough to stay in there they get backed into corners and there's a reason why they can't go to the cops and end it so it's it's a really incredibly tasteful and talented group of people in front of him behind the camera and I'm really proud to be a part of that in all of these roles there's uh there's not a real big thread except I do enjoy playing a character that the audience can relate to and and kind of serve as that relatable proxy thank you for pretending to be interested in this and thank you GQ or

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Keywords: arrested development, dodgeball, horrible bosses, iconic, jason bateman, juno, jason bateman interview, little house on the prairie, iconic characters, jason bateman 2018, jason bateman ozark, hancock, teen wolf too, jason bateman juno, jason bateman movies, jason bateman movie, jason bateman funny, jason bateman arrested development, jason bateman little house, bateman, teen wolf 2, vf, jason bateman characters, jason bateman gq, gq, gq magazine

Id: pT3lDw-glOU

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 31 2018