Arrested Development: Jason Bateman

[Truestrengthwith]

People Magazine December 8, 2003
Acting his age tired of frathouse hijincts Jason Bateman grows up, gets married, and stars in Fox's new Arrested Development.
As someone who began acting at ten, Jason Bateman is aware of the irony of staring in a Fox sitcom called Arrested Development. Even though he avoided the humiliation of so many maturing kids actors arrests, rehab, a cameo in Dickey Roberts, he admits he endured a few maladjustment's after his early brush with fame. Like the time when he was eighteen and already the veteran of tv hits like Little House on the Prairie and Silver Spoons, and he bought his own home to create his own fantasy of a frat house, complete with pool table, sixty inch tv, and indoor basketball court. "I was trying to make up for not going to college," he says. "I needed the basketball hoops and the neon beer signs and that kind of crap. But I'm all caught up now." And making a leap forward into a grown up career. Now, 34 and married to Amanda Anka 34, daughter of pop star Paul Anka, the guy who played Ricky's sneaky buddy Derek on Spoons and Valerie Harper's smart-alecky son on Valerie later redubbed The Hogan Family is starring in a daringly wicked show that doesn't have one squeaky clean moment. On Development he plays Michael, the one sane person in a family of mindless craven creeps. After his old man Jeffery goes to jail for fraud he tries to help the family real-estate development business while being undermined by his bitter socialite mother, Jessica Walter. A sales magician.brother, Will Arnet, and a sister Ally McBeal's Porsha, who builds her lavish lifestyle as a company's expense. The show, one of the best reviewed new series of the season, "Is smarter and hipper than anything I've done," says Bateman. Co-stars say it wouldn't work, without Bateman anchoring the comedy. "It's like Johnny Carson, he lets the people around him shine then he has his moment and then he just kills." And then maybe he can finally lay to rest audiences image of him as a dependably likable cutie in the Michael J. Fox mold. "There's certainly some baggage that I carry," admits Bateman. Whose actress sister, Justine Bateman 37, herself became a star playing Fox's sister on Family Ties. "I'm still an ex-teen idol. I've never been as famous as I was as a teenager." He and Justine, who now lives just a mile away, with her husband real-estate developer Mark Fluent and their 1-year-old son Duke, grew up in a show biz household. Their father, Kent Bateman 67, is a tv producer and director. He and their mother Victoria 62, a former flight attendant, divorced in 1989. "Another kid might want to play football to impress his dad", says Bateman. "I wanted to be an actor." Dad who eventually directed episodes of both his kids hit sitcoms, was not disappointed. After a string of commercials, and a year on Little House on the Prairie, Bateman became a star, with his four years on Silver Spoons, which debuted in 1982. "Any kid and any teenager whose on a television show, is going to be a teen idol", he says. Shrugging off memories of those days. "You're just part of the machine." Keeping with the traditional script, the machines back him out. Twenty-two when the Hogan Family ended in 1991, he hit one pot hole after another in his twenties and thirties. Including failed sitcoms Chicago Sun, George and Leo, and movie flops like Love Stinks. "In fact, Development is the only show of his that I've liked a lot," says his wife. Not that he's complaining, "My motto now is you're alive now so live. I had plenty of money to have some incredible times. I've traveled all over the world and paid for my friends to go with me. I've rented ski houses and planes." He even drove race cars winning in the celeb portion of The Long Beach Grand "That was a cheesy celebrity thing I did for a while," he says with a laugh. "Racing isn't for me." He has been able to keep that sort of perspective through his bond with his sister, who still acts and designs clothes, and is pregnant with her second child. "They both went through the same things," says his wife. They get each other. A fellow Hollywood kid, Anka knew Bateman as a casual acquaintance for years, before they finally settled down to dating in 1998. "We did this dance for a long time," says Anka. Whose career emphasis has been on voice-overs, "But I think we always knew." They married three years later, and now live in a four bedroom house in Los Angeles. Both are ready to start a family, but at the moment, Bateman is obsessed with the Japanese garden flourishing in his backyard. "I love my coy pond and my coy fish," he pauses. "I really am 34."

[TJL]

Jason Bateman is brillaint in "Arrested Development."

I was never a fan of any of is previous work, but he is so good in this show.

It's nice to see one former child actor finally make it good on TV.