Jason Bateman

Jason Bateman has been married to actress Amanda Anka since July 3, 2001. Anka is the daughter of singer-songwriter Paul Anka, and the couple have two daughters, Francesca Nora Bateman and Maple Bateman.

Bateman has discussed struggling with alcohol and drugs during the 1990s. In a 2009 interview, he described that period as lasting roughly a decade, and an IMDb biography noted that he had not consumed alcohol for about 10 years by July 2011.

Bateman began acting on television at age 12, appearing as James Cooper Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie. He later played Derek Taylor on Silver Spoons and David Hogan on The Hogan Family, where he gained recognition as a teen actor. He also appeared on Knight Rider and starred in the short-lived sitcom It's Your Move.

His first film role was Todd Howard in the fantasy comedy Teen Wolf Too (1987). Bateman's sister, actress Justine Bateman, was also a successful child actor, appearing on Family Ties. Their acting income helped support the family during their childhood careers.

Bateman's career was revived in 2003 when he was cast as Michael Bluth in Arrested Development. Michael is the comparatively responsible middle son of the Bluth family who tries to manage the family's housing development company and contain the fallout from his father's fraud. Bateman described the character as an exaggerated version of one side of himself and called the role the most important of his career.

The series originally aired on Fox from 2003 to 2006 before gaining a cult following and returning on Netflix in 2013 and 2018-2019. Bateman won the 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy for the role. He appeared alongside cast members including Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, David Cross, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, Jeffrey Tambor, and Jessica Walter.

From 2017 to 2022, Bateman starred in and served as an executive producer on the crime drama Ozark. He played Marty Byrde, a financial adviser who relocates his family to Missouri after becoming involved in laundering money for a drug cartel. The role marked a major dramatic turn from the dry comic characters associated with much of his earlier work.

Bateman directed nine episodes of Ozark, including the series finale, and won the 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. His other directing credits include the films Bad Words (2013) and The Family Fang (2015), as well as episodes of The Hogan Family, Arrested Development, The Outsider, and Black Rabbit.

Following Arrested Development, Bateman appeared in comedy films including Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, The Break-Up, Juno, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Switch, Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief, This Is Where I Leave You, Horrible Bosses 2, and Game Night. He also took dramatic roles in The Gift, The Outsider, Air, and Carry-On.

Bateman voiced Nick Wilde, a con artist fox, in Disney's Zootopia franchise. In Air (2023), he played Nike marketing executive Rob Strasser. In 2010, he launched the digital content company DumbDumb with Arrested Development costar Will Arnett and producer Ben Silverman.

In 2020, Bateman created the comedy and talk podcast SmartLess with Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. The program features conversations among the three hosts and interviews with guests.

Bateman and his co-hosts later formed SmartLess Media to develop additional podcasts. Apple listed SmartLess as one of its four most popular podcasts of 2023.