bitchy | Jason Bateman: ‘I like my candles… I’m very soft. I love a fireplace. I love nesting.’

Am I the only one who still finds Jason Bateman really attractive? Most of the time, I find those ageless vampire actors cute but not sexy. Jason Bateman is both, in my opinion. I like how sharp he is – sharp wit, a comedic streak which can actually be quite mean at times, and capable of a withering assessment of himself and his chosen profession. That being said, he also seems like he flat-out adores his wife and daughters and they’re the light of his life. Which is very attractive too. Anyway, Bateman chatted with Esquire, I think to promote Zootopia 2 (which is massively successful). Some highlights:

He’s still a child actor at heart: “I still feel like I’m trying to not be a child-actor failure. I’m still trying to make it out.”

His goals as a kid: “When I was a kid, the three things I wanted to get done as an adult were to be a father, a husband, and direct a movie.

His parents: “My mom was a flight attendant for Pan Am, so she was flying internationally half the month my whole childhood. Sometimes, Christmas would be on December 15 or the 2nd of January or whatever, depending on whether she was in town. We never really had Sunday dinners. My dad was a freelance writer, director, producer, so he would either be on location or maybe downstairs in the basement writing a script. My sister and I had a peer relationship with our parents; they were our managers.

His daughters: “My older daughter is just eating up everything about the college experience. The future’s so bright. I remember feeling that when I was eighteen too. I just thought there was no one better than me, and there are interviews that I’ve seen that prove that. I can’t stand watching them. It’s so gross…My daughter is not anywhere near as gross as I was at the time. I just love seeing her blind confidence. You think it’s all just going to be unicorns and rainbows forever, and then she’ll be a little bit humbled by the practicalities of life and hopefully she’ll come and seek our counsel for that. My thirteen-year-old daughter is still at home. It’s going to be tough when she moves out.

Getting his act together in his 30s: “In my early thirties, I stopped drinking, married my girlfriend, who’s still my wife, and got Arrested Development. I married a friend as opposed to a girlfriend. Since I only wanted to get married once, I thought, Find someone I’m sexually attracted to that’s also a friend. That’s the bull’s-eye.

Dealing with fans: “When you’re doing a public job, people are going to want to say hi. To feel inconvenienced by that is natural, but you need to develop a set of coping skills that enables you to not make them feel like jerks for saying, Hi, I recognize you because you’re on my TV. That’s the math of it.

Soft life: “I like my candles. I like my soap. I like my towels and sheets. I like my socks. I’m very soft. I love a fireplace. I love nesting. I love being with my family.

He reads the reviews: “I am a people pleaser. I care about what people think about me. I read all the reviews. I am doing these projects for public consumption, so it matters to me what the public thinks about them. It matters to me what critics think about them. But what’s most important is that the weather inside is 72 and breezy. It takes a lot of work to stay happy, to stay clear, and to be proud of yourself. You can try to drink through it, but you’re sober in the morning and you got to live in those hours too.

He’s an obsessed Dodgers fan: “I am passionate about baseball, specifically the Dodgers. We didn’t have a football team in L.A. for a long time, so I’m a whore when it comes to football teams. I had a bit of a gambling problem with football for a while there, so I started to just fall in love with whoever had the best spread. The Dodgers are going to win a third World Series next year. And then we’re going for a fourth after that. I’m calling it right now.

His relationship with his sister Justine: “My sister and I don’t see each other a ton. There isn’t the typical “We see each other every Thanksgiving or every Christmas and our kids want to be together.” There isn’t that. In a great way. Our conversations are the rich conversations you would have with an adult friend, not the kind of petulant back-and-forth you might have with your adult sibling. We hang out, and we’re nice to each other because we respect one another as individuals regardless of the blood thing. I’m seeing her for lunch next week.

[From Esquire]

It’s so weird that he still hangs out with Justine because… she’s a MAGA nutjob now who cries about woke constantly. She’s profoundly jobless and she tried to join the Deranger industry earlier this year. He does make it sound like they have an agree-to-disagree relationship. I wonder if his daughters have any relationship with their crazy aunt. As for the rest of it… it’s just a great piece, I enjoyed this so much. I love his “soft life,” I love how much he enjoys his daughters, I love his people-pleasing child-actor energy.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.