Jason Bateman Still Hates Baths, but Loves Playing Messy Men

Bateman, who’s up for four Emmys this year—for DTF St. Louis and Black Rabbit—talks about playing screw-ups and why cohosting SmartLess has been the “easiest yet most lucrative” work of his career.

By Rebecca Ford

August 11, 2026

Jason Bateman in New York, August 2025.Cody Cutter/The New York Times/Redux


Jason Bateman just got back from a vacation in Mallorca, but says it wasn’t as restful as one might think—at least, based on paparazzi pictures of him on a sun-kissed yacht with a group of good friends including Jennifer Aniston.

“I’ve still got another week to go on this film that I’m directing, so I’m leaving the day after tomorrow to go to Iceland to finish up,” he tells Little Gold Men. “So I wasn’t really able to fully relax knowing that there’s more to come.”

Clearly, Bateman is a bit of a workaholic. Right now, he’s back in the director’s chair for the feature The Cackling of the Dodos, a comedy crime thriller that stars Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson.

Jude Law as Jake and Jason Bateman as Vince in Black Rabbit. Netflix

He’s also going to have a busy night at the Emmy Awards in September: He is nominated for four separate awards for two different shows. He earned noms for lead actor in a limited series and directing for Netflix’s crime thriller Black Rabbit, as well as a supporting-actor nom for HBO’s DTF St. Louis, which is also up for best limited series. Bateman executive-produced the show, giving him his fourth nomination. In the first series, Bateman plays Vince, a charismatic and chaotic screw-up who reunites with his brother, suave bar owner Jake (Jude Law). Meanwhile, on HBO’s DTF St. Louis—created by Steve Conrad—Bateman plays a mild-mannered local weatherman who falls into a deadly love triangle with a married couple (David Harbour and Linda Cardellini). Both roles are far from the type A, controlled characters Bateman has been known for playing on the hit series Arrested Development and Ozark, as well as in movies like Horrible Bosses or Identity Thief.

Jason Bateman and David Harbour in DTF St. Louis. HBO

And as if that weren’t enough, Bateman has also become a podcast star thanks to SmartLess, the popular show he’s been cohosting with his good friends Sean Hayes and Will Arnett since 2020. On this week’s episode of Little Gold Men, Bateman reveals what he’s enjoyed about playing these messy men, why podcasting is the easiest work of his career, and if he’s changed his stance on baths since dissing them in the HBO documentary about SmartLess.

Vanity Fair: Is it weird that I know you were on vacation? Do you ever get used to that part of fame, that when you go on vacation with your famous friends it’s out there in paparazzi photos?

Jason Bateman: I guess it’s part of the job. You kind of sound silly complaining about it, and fortunately for me, I don’t have a lot of secrets or things I want to hide, nor am I particularly vain. It’s good if I just sort of keep my head down and I don’t look for any of the cameras because once you know they’re there, then you get self-conscious.

Did you film Black Rabbit and DTF St. Louis close together?

Black Rabbit was such a long shoot, and I was there for a few months before we even started shooting—just prepping those episodes that I directed. I was gone for a lot. It was my eldest daughter’s final year in school, and so I had promised her that when I was done with Black Rabbit, I would spend her remaining six months while still living at home with her. And then these damn Steve Conrad scripts showed up. We were wanting to do something together for a long, long time, and so these scripts show up, and I make my daughter read them. I say, “Baby, I know that I said I was gonna be home, but what do you think about these things?” Because she’s studying film herself, and so she understands what a great script looks like. She was like, “Oh my God, that sounds incredible, and you totally should.”

Jason Bateman as Vince in Black Rabbit. Netflix

The plan was for her to be on set with me and kind of study to be a director. It turned out she got too busy with her second half of her senior year. But she was very much on board with me doing this. I’m glad it turned out so well and I wasn’t just wasting my time.

On DTF St. Louis, the dialogue is intentionally stilted. Was that on the page?

It was very much on the page, and so much so that David [Harbour] and I had some private conversations about, “How do we approach Steve about how much he’s going to want us to play every ellipses and every ‘um’ versus ‘uh’?” Because I’m kinda loose with my dialogue, and David as well, and we were wondering how much of a stickler Steve was going to be. And Steve, almost before we could even get the sentence out of our mouths, he was like, “Don’t worry about any of that stuff. I want you guys to just feel natural.” And so the fact that he kind of gave us so much latitude actually made David and I learn it verbatim. It was super-duper challenging though. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn.

The show is about midlife, and the way it can make a person feel stuck and uninspired. Did you pull any inspiration from life for this?

I think we all sort of battle with degrees of honesty, you know? I happen to be a professional liar, being an actor. That’s our job, to pretend we’re somebody else. But I think just anybody in their normal everyday life, you’ve got a conversation that’s going on internally versus the one you’re having externally. And the degree to which you can have those two get along kind of dictates your level of happiness.

In Black Rabbit, you’re playing the brother who’s the chaos agent, the screw-up, quite different from characters you’re known for playing. Did you learn something new doing this?

I learned that it’s a lot of fun to play a character like that. I had a real good take on the character I did play, based on a bunch of people that I’ve known in my life—people that are just kind of heartbreakingly incapable of managing their life well. They’re not bad people; they’re well-intentioned. But they’re dangerous to hang out with, emotionally and physically.

Do you feel like there is something in common about these roles that you’re being drawn to or that you’re exploring right now?

Yes. I don’t think this is particularly different from any other actor. I don’t know. We’re all so different and weird.

I knew you were going to say “weird.”

In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never met two actors that approach acting the same way. It’s really amazing. Both of these characters are men that are really raw, and there’s not a lot of artifice to either one of them. I’m usually playing a guy who really knows how to bullshit. I really enjoyed playing that with both these guys.

Bateman and David Harbour in DTF St. Louis. HBO

You’re nominated for directing on Black Rabbit. How do you decide when you want to take on that additional role?

I would love to direct constantly. I just find such an incredible joy in the workload of it, and maybe that’s just me being a masochist. Maybe it’s just me trying to channel my addiction issues into something that’s productive and healthy. I just love it so much.

You’ve been cohosting the podcast SmartLess since 2020. What’s been most surprising about that experience?

Where do I start? The three of us simply wanted to stay in contact during COVID, and this notion of a podcast came about, and then we discovered people were listening. It was just completely wild to me. It’s still wild to me that as many people listen to us as they do. I’m not being overly humble here. I truly think that, were it not for the really kind guests that come on our show, I’m sure the public would’ve been sick of our nonsense.

Any host can accidentally put their foot in their mouth when interviewing people. Has that changed your approach at all?

To be honest, the concept of only one of us knowing who the guest is is a workaround for the work. So only one person has to prepare, and the other two can be the idiots that we are. Like right now, you probably already have your next question in your head and you probably looked at it right after you finished asking the last one. So it’s in your head, but it also frees you up to listen to my answer.

Don’t give away the magic, Jason.

You’ve gotta stay ahead so that it doesn’t fall apart and there’s no awkward silence. The fact that there’s three of us, it’s so much easier, and you can just sit there and kind of freestyle a bit. It’s embarrassingly simple. I wouldn’t say the easiest work, but maybe, yeah—the easiest work in my career, yet the most lucrative.

Has your morning routine changed since the release of HBO’s SmartLess doc, and are you still anti-bath?

I am still not someone that understands the concept of stewing in your own juices. The bath doesn’t make sense to me. And my morning routine, I don’t remember how I described it on the doc, but I can safely say my morning routine [has been] unchanged for years, of whatever the hell I described it as being.

You have not been influenced by the feedback.

I don’t know what the feedback is. I mean, while I read everything when I do a project—I read all reviews, whether they’re good or bad—I do not go to comments. It seems like when people leave comments, everyone’s trying to outdo the last one with how sort of insensitive they can be or outrageous they can be. It’s not necessarily indicative of their true feelings, or maybe I’m just spinning that to get to bed at night. I do read all reviews out there, because I’ve got a public job. I feel like it’s interesting at a minimum, and if you right-size it, it need not put you into a feeble position, if it’s unfriendly.

Is that something that’s come with age?

I think if you equate age with being more comfortable in your own skin. As we get older, we’re more comfortable with who we are. So people can say what they want. It’s not really any of your business; your business is how you see yourself and how you think about yourself and the things you do in your life to either make yourself proud or the opposite. I guess getting older and being a little bit more solid with who you think you are makes it easier to take on this job.