Jason Bateman on Black Rabbit, DTF St. Louis & Grisham
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- Jason Bateman stars in two Emmy-contending limited series: HBO Max's DTF St. Louis (as a guileless weatherman named Clark alongside David Harbour and Linda Cardellini) and Netflix's Black Rabbit (as gambler Vince opposite Jude Law) — and he produced both
- Bateman also directed Black Rabbit, which has already earned him DGA and Actor Award nominations
- Bateman is prepping to direct the dark comedy The Cackling of the Dodos, starring Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell as farmers who discover a body in a grain bin
- Bateman will next direct The Partner, a John Grisham adaptation starring Tom Holland as Biloxi lawyer Patrick Lanigan — a role he's framing as a blend of "Jason Bourne and Bond and Michael Clayton"
- Katharine Hepburn stopped a take on the CBS movie of the week This Can't Be Love to tell a 19- or 20-year-old Bateman to "stop acting" — advice he says took "a while to decipher" but remains the best he's ever received
- Bateman calls DTF St. Louis "the part I always wanted" — praising the character's vulnerability and naivete, a deliberate departure from the "sardonic, cynical guy" roles he's played for the last 10-20 years
Why it matters: Bateman's dual Emmy push — acting in DTF St. Louis while directing Black Rabbit to DGA and Actor Award recognition — lines up with a pipeline of two star-studded directorial gigs (a Grisham adaptation with Tom Holland, a dark comedy with Harrelson and Rockwell), making this stretch the clearest evidence yet that his pivot from sardonic everyman to director-actor has industry weight behind it.
