-Jason, I'm so happy that you're here, but,
we have to admit that you were
supposed to be on "Stephen Colbert."
-You were not my first choice. -Okay, I understand.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-But I was yours, and then you hit him in the neck
with a blow dart of COVID. -Yes.
-Right? -Yes, yes.
-So Colbert got COVID and... -And you're here.
-...Jimmy said, "Hey, I got him."
[ Laughter ]
"Will you come over and play?"
-Stephen, get well soon. We do love Stephen.
-No, it was going to be like me
and Laura Linney and Julia Garner.
We were going to go do that. It was going to be like
a cast interview.
Julia Garner couldn't get here from London,
Stephen got COVID,
and Laura, whatever.
-I'm always here for you. I'm always here for you,
whenever you're around. -It worked out perfect.
-I, like, follow you around.
I go, I just want to make sure you're okay, man.
You know I love my Jason Bateman.
I need my Jason Bateman. -I love it.
-The world, we need -- [ Cheering and applause ]
We'll do anything for the Jason Bateman.
-But here's the thing. We got no plan.
-No, we don't know what we're going to talk about.
-We're just going to free ball this, y'all.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-Are you left-handed?
-I am. Well, here's a deal.
See? We're already improvising, guys.
It's beautiful.
He's just doing visual cues.
I got my watch on this hand.
So, yeah, so I write with the left,
I throw with the right. I kick with the left,
I eat lefty, I play pool lefty,
I golf righty, bat righty.
I'm all messed up. -Wow!
[ Laughter ]
That is really interesting to me.
I did not know that. -It's a problem.
-Yeah, but is it a talent?
Do your daughters have this same talent?
Are they ambidextrous?
-I don't know if that's a talent. I don't know
if left-handed is being a talent.
They are talented. -Yes.
But do they throw or they all -- -They don't.
And, in fact, speaking of golf,
I took the 10-year-old --
two daughters, 15 and 10 --
Maple, the 10-year-old, I took her out
because Daddy likes to play some golf,
and she's like, "Well, what, why?
What are you doing out there? That looks terrible."
And I said, "Well, come out and try it."
So I took her out to play golf.
She plays righty as well.
And she was just striping it.
She's 10 years old and I was like,
"Honey, here's the deal."
Because my wife hates golf.
My wife is like, "What are you doing out there?
Think about all the housing,
if you got rid of all the golf courses," it's like that.
[ Laughter ]
-That's so funny. -So now I'm trying
to recruit Maple into the golf, you know, addiction
because that means Daddy can play a lot more golf.
We can travel. I said, "Listen.
You get great at this, you get all hopped up about it,
you and I can have Daddy-daughter time.
We can travel." I said, "There's courses
in France and stuff like that." You know.
-Spend the rest of our lives together.
-Yeah. Mommy and Franny will have fun.
doing whatever the hell they want to do."
-[ Laughs ] In the house. -"And you and I, we can fly
around the world!" -Yes!
-So she's working on her swing. -Yeah, she is, yeah.
[ Laughter and applause ]
That's good.
You want that? -I want it.
-They're very cute kids. I was very lucky,
I got to do your podcast, "Smartless."
-Mm-hmm. -And it was very funny.
-We originally -- well, we had booked Stephen Colbert,
but then, he couldn't. -[ Laughs ]
-Yeah, because he got COVID. -You see what I did there?
-He got COVID again, yeah, exactly.
I'm just making sure- -Guy's lousy
with all kinds of viruses.
-The way the podcast works,
if you don't know "Smartless" --
-Hold for applause. [ No applause ]
-We'll add it in later.
[ Laughter ]
You can't hear it, but it's getting a standing ovation.
-It's pretty solid. -Yeah, it's pretty serious.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Too late. Too late. -It is the best.
No, it is so fun. -Too late.
-But, basically, it's you and two other hosts,
Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.
-Irrelevant. -Irrelevant, yes.
It doesn't matter. It's really "The Jason Bateman Show."
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
One of you knows who the guest is,
the other two do not.
-Yeah. We take turns inviting guests
and we don't tell the other two who that guest is,
so that the other two do not need to prepare.
See, we don't need to do stuff like this. You know?
-Yeah. -Jimmy's been up for hours,
you know, since he nailed that dart into Stephen's neck.
-Yeah, Colbert, yeah, he's taking a day off.
I want to make sure I get these questions in, yeah.
-Yeah, but we, you know, we're -- actors are not
incredibly, should we say, disciplined
with their work ethic.
So we like to have -- we don't like to break a sweat.
So I said -- Or maybe Will said --
Will thinks it's his idea. I think it was my idea.
That we don't tell the other person who the guest is
so you don't have to do any work.
You literally just lift up the laptop, boom, we're recording,
and you can just be there just an observer,
and, like, "Oh, my gosh, there's Tom Hanks."
I've always wanted to ask Tom Hanks this question.
And so it's very -- you know, it's in real time,
like the listener would be.
You know? We're just -- -It's great.
-Yeah. It's really fun because we get to talk to people
that are heroes of ours and you can skip,
you know, four or five dates.
You can just get right into asking
like you're trapped in an elevator with somebody.
-Yeah, but is there any times
where you're doing the interview and you go,
"Ooh, I kind of wish I knew that person was coming
so I could prepare"? Like Paul McCartney.
-Sean had Paul McCartney was his guest...
[ Laughter and applause ] ...and, yeah, I was like --
Now, see, now the tepid applause of Paul McCartney
makes me feel better about no applause for "Smartless."
[ Laughter ] -It wasn't tepid.
They weren't sure if they --
-The bar is down, yeah.
-They know that Paul McCartney's not going to come out,
so they're just like, "Yeah, yeah,
we love Paul McCartney, but we know he's not there."
-If Paul McCartney had a podcast, "Whoo!"
-No, no, no. They're like, "Jason Bateman's here.
Let's get to the Bateman," that kind of standing O.
-But, no -- yeah, so --
Yeah, if I knew Paul McCartney was coming out,
I would have been like, you know --
because like, I love Wings -- -Me too.
-But the fact that he --
Did you know he was in a band before that?
Like I had no idea.
So he comes out and I'm like -- I was a little embarrassed
because they start talking about the Beatles.
-And you go, "I've never heard of you."
-Well, there are no bugs in my house.
What are you talking about?"
[ Laughter ]
And so that was embarrassing for him.
I wish I'd had a little bit of a heads-up, yeah.
-I want to talk about "Ozark."
It's the final season. It's coming to an end. It's over.
-This is it. Well, listen, "all good things..."
-Oh, it's great, yes. It's a series final--
All good things, all great things.
This is one of the best shows I've ever seen.
-Thank you, buddy. -And, dude, you are so good...
[ Cheering and applause ] -Thank you.
-...in this. You are so good.
I just don't want it to end.
But I heard this -- that, originally,
you weren't supposed to be in it.
You were just producing it and directing.
-That was my original goal, was to direct them all.
The acting part of it, I can't remember
what the sequencing of it was, but, yeah.
I -- I, um -- I just -- I don't know what it --
maybe because I've been doing so much comedy,
the idea of doing something dark and dramatic
and then, especially as a director, too,
where, you know, you get to shoot cinematic stuff
and like work with a composer about creepy music
and all that stuff was really exciting to me.
And the scripts were such that it was like,
"Oh, yeah, you're going to need to do that
to match these scripts because they're dark."
-Yeah. -And so that was the plan.
Couldn't make enough time to direct them all,
so I just did the first two and the last two
of that first season and did a bunch since then.
-Yeah. I want to talk more about "Ozark"
when we come back and also show a clip.
More with Jason Bateman after the break.
Come on back.