Jason Bateman had lots of anxiety and felt plenty of pressure to continue working as a child actor — because he knew his family was relying on his income.
“I do remember being really filled with anxiety about being able to continue to make a living in a business that I was pretty aware … was tenuous at best,” Bateman, 56, told Conan O’Brien on the Feb. 24 episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.
Bateman was just 10 when he began acting, eventually starring on TV hits like Little House on the Prairie, Silver Spoons, and It’s Your Move in the ‘80s. He went on to star in the long-running sitcom The Hogan Family (originally called Valerie) and shared that his parents made more money as his managers than they did in their day jobs — which allowed his family to live in the home they had. As Bateman recalled, you weren’t allowed to work as a child if you didn’t have good grades — which added to his stress.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
“My parents were my managers, and they were making more money doing that than what they were: My mom was a flight attendant for Pan Am. My dad was a freelance writer, director, producer,” Bateman, whose sister Justine starred on Family Ties as a teenager, explained. “And, you know, 15% of what I was making at that time just ended up being more than what they were making in their careers.”
“It became an important component … like, we were living in certain condo that we wouldn’t be able to live in if they were just using their salaries,” Bateman said, adding that as a child actor, his work permit would be renewed every six months based on maintaining a C average in school.
“The pressure of midterms and finals every year was immense for me, because it was 60% of your grade,” Bateman explained, noting that he would think about how “if I fail my midterm, I don’t get my work permit, which means I’m kicked off the show, which means everyone on the show loses their job, we lose our house.”
Frank Carroll/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
After The Hogan Family ended in 1991, Bateman struggled to find his footing professionally.
“My 20s was not a comfortable period,” he told O’Brien. “I was really petrified about being able to support myself and have the rest of my career not be anticlimactic” until he landed Arrested Development in 2003.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
He called the show a “reset button,” saying he had been thinking about “putting what cash I had in a duffel bag, driving to the [international] terminal at LAX, looking up on that board, picking a city, and going — just unplugging from this kind of competition.”
Bateman recently starred in the Netflix movie Carry-On and stars in the streamer’s upcoming miniseries Black Rabbit alongside June Law.
Read the full article here
