Jason Bateman is having one of the biggest awards seasons of his career, earning multiple Emmy nominations this year across acting, directing and producing for his work on Netflix’s Black Rabbit and HBO Max’s DTF St. Louis.
Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast, recorded in front of a Chapman University journalism class, the 57-year-old reflected on his decades-long career and what pushed him toward the darker, more dramatic material found in both projects.
Bateman discussed how directing has become just as central to his creative identity as acting, he made clear that the opportunity to direct on Ozark was a condition of his agreeing to act on the show in the first place, a strategy that paid off when he won an Emmy in 2019 for directing an episode of the series’ second season.
He also spoke about the origins of SmartLess, the podcast he co-hosts with friends Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, which has grown into a massive commercial success generating nine figures in revenue.
On Black Rabbit, Bateman plays Vince, the more troubled of two brothers running a New York restaurant together opposite Jude Law, a role that earned him nominations for lead actor and directing in the limited series category, he also directed two episodes of the show himself.
On DTF St. Louis, he stepped into an entirely different register, playing Clark, a naive local weatherman swept into a murder investigation alongside co-stars Linda Cardellini and David Harbour, earning him a supporting actor nomination.
Between the two shows and his producing credit on both, Bateman is in contention across four Emmy categories this year.
He has 18 career Emmy nominations in total, with his lone win coming for directing Ozark in 2019, a track record he’s joked about candidly, noting on a separate interview with Deadline, “I am 1 for 14!”
