Jason Bateman: 'I've got a great deal of dirt on Jennifer Aniston'

Horrible Bosses star Jason Bateman. Photograph: Scott McDermott/Corbis Outline

You can get away with anything if you keep a straight face, and Jason Bateman seems to be a master at both: getting away with it, and keeping a straight face. Bateman always comes across as the sanest, smartest, straightest guy in the movie even though his characters regularly commit acts of either moral depravity or wild improbability, or both. In The Switch, he impregnated his secret-crush best friend (Jennifer Aniston) by replacing her donor's sperm with his own – that's just wrong. In Extract, he arranges for someone to sleep with his wife so that he can then cheat on her – bad! And he comes on to poor, pregnant Juno even as he's supposedly feathering the nest with Jennifer Garner – the douchebag. How does he get away with it? Is it his sharp comic timing? His low-key earnestness? His wolfishly charming but rarely deployed smile? What's his secret?

Horrible BossesProduction year: 2011Country: USADirectors: Seth GordonCast: Charlie Day, Colin Farrell, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Julie Bowen, Kevin SpaceyMore on this film

"If I do have a secret, I learned it too late," Bateman says, hinting at past regrets (more of which later), and making self-effacing excuses about having been lucky and working hard. You could say these straight-guy roles are all offshoots of his celebrated turn in Arrested Development, in which he first demonstrated his capacity as a sort of holding midfielder at the centre of the collective comic madness. "I really enjoy playing that everyman part because that part is us, the audience," he says, "And you need somebody inside a comedy to tether the absurdity to reality."

It doesn't sound like much of a secret formula, but it's clearly working. After nearly a decade of supporting roles in mostly decent movies – you could also add to the list Up In The Air, Paul, Hancock, and State Of Play – Bateman has finally worked his way up to leading-man status – albeit as a straight-seeming guy who gets away with improbable and morally depraved acts. In Horrible Bosses, Bateman's hard-working office drone attempts to murder his psychotic boss, Kevin Spacey, and assist his two buddies in doing the same to their bosses. The result is a mash-up of 9 To 5, Strangers On A Train and The Hangover, and as usual, Bateman's dry wit is an oasis of calm in a movie full of showy comic turns from Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and others.

It's also Bateman's third movie with Aniston, after The Switch and The Break Up. What's going on? "Right well, that's all gonna come out in my autobiography," he replies. So it's not just coincidence? "Well, I've got a great deal of dirt on Ms Aniston, and as long as she continues to hire me for her projects I will not show the pictures." So that's his secret.

Jennifer Aniston.

Bateman and Aniston have been friends since their early 20s, it turns out, when they met on a group skiing trip. "We've always just really gotten along well," he says, but nothing more than that. "I think I was just fortunate to be a good fit for parts in her films."

OK, so maybe that's not his secret, but the irony of Horrible Bosses and all these regular Joe roles Bateman excels at is that he's never been regular Joe himself. As a 12-year-old he was in The Little House On The Prairie, and by his teens, he was a familiar presence in TV sitcoms that were household staples in the US like Silver Spoons and The Hogan Family. In the latter, his role as the charming eldest son made him something of a teen idol. "Well, I don't know about that," he says modestly. "I think anybody who's doing work in their teen years on TV or in the movies, you're a teen idol by default. In real life, were people running after me screaming and crying? No. I was just of age to qualify as someone who might help sell magazines."

All right, but like many actors whose careers bore extremely close similarities to those of a teen idol, early celebrity was not the easiest thing to handle. He's described his youth as being "like Risky Business", a blur of house parties, alcohol, cocaine and hell-raising. "Throughout my 20s I spent a lot of time just playing and not really working, but fortunately for me I continued to get just enough work, and have a reason to wake up in the morning. I really empathise with some of my peers who had success in the early years then it dries up, and so there's no reason to get up in the morning." He hasn't had a drink in 10 years, or a cigarette, and he's something of a fitness fanatic, happily married and working hard. He got away with it.

"You can grab that low-hanging fruit if you're looking to become really rich and really famous really quickly," he says, "but oftentimes that will get you a celebrity's career, and those kind of flame out pretty fast. But if you're in it to just stay working, you end up taking parts that might not necessarily be above title but you've got a very interesting part with a bunch of interesting people. It's like a party. You don't care whether it's a barbecue or a dance party, it really just matters who's hosting it and who's going to be there."

Bateman makes no bones about the fact that it was Arrested Development that paved the way for his second act. To American viewers, Bateman's role as the show's responsible eldest son was an ironic comment on his teen TV persona, but it was the sitcom's dry, underplayed sense of humour that made it a cult hit. It's a relatively British comic register that's become increasingly prevalent in American TV comedy – the US Office, for example.

With Kevin Spacey (left) in Horrible Bosses. Photograph: Allstar/Warners

As it happens, Bateman's mother was British. "She was born in Shrewsbury," he says, sounding like he's got no idea where that is. "She established my sense of humour for me – that very dry, sarcastic, non-winking kind of wit. It's kind of become my style and my preference."

So that's his secret.

Talking of The Office, the entire cast of Arrested Development watched Ricky Gervais's Office religiously while they were making it, Bateman says. Gervais loved Arrested Development, too, and later cast Bateman in his The Invention Of Lying. "There was actually a moment when he was going to be on the show, but I think things got all complicated," says Bateman. "Perhaps if we ever get this movie off the ground."

Ah yes, the Arrested Development movie, which has been rumoured to be happening "next year" ever since the show was cancelled in 2006. "I hesitate in perpetuating a non-update," says Bateman. "There really is no update, aside from the fact that Mitch [Hurwitz] continues to write it, and they are in the midst of making a deal." Maybe next year, then.

In the meantime, after Horrible Bosses there's The Change Up, in which Bateman subverts his persona when he mystically swaps bodies with a womanising slacker played by Ryan Reynolds; at last, the straitjacket of straightness is cast off! He also reveals he's about to embark on a new movie with … Vince Vaughn. Could Vaughn be in competition with Aniston to star in the most Bateman movies? Or does he have incriminating photos of Vaughn as well? "You should see the pictures I have of them together!"

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