Jason Bateman is one of the rare child actors to transition to even greater success as an adult, but he admits it wasn’t as easy as it may have appeared.
In a new interview with the Guardian, Bateman explains he didn’t do that much acting during the 1990s because he was trying to make up for the childhood he felt he lost while also doing some serious partying.
“It was a combination,” said Bateman. “Me stopping everything on purpose, to catch up with all these inabilities I had as a kid, because I was always working. I wanted to get the wiggles out.”
READ MORE: Jason Bateman Named Hasty Pudding’s Man Of The Year
However, when he was finally ready to get back to work, Hollywood was no longer all that interested.
“Having thought, This is really fun, and staying at the party a little bit too long, I’d lost my place in line in the business; it was a case of trying to claw that back towards the end of the ’90s, and not getting a lot of great responses,” he said.
Everything changed when he was cast as Michael Bluth in “Arrested Development” in 2003, which was followed by a string of successful projects, including “Juno”, the “Horrible Bosses” films, and his award-winning work in Netflix’s “Ozark”.
“I will always respect the access and relevance that that show gave me, and try not to take that for granted again, and do everything I can to earn this place in the business that I love,” he said of “Arrested Development”. “It created an environment; I loved going there every single day.”
