Jason Bateman Says ‘Uncut Gems’ Was “A Good Shorthand” for ‘Black Rabbit’

Jason Bateman , one of the nicest men in Hollywood, has a real talent for playing assholes.

The wry everyman with a hidden vein of creep has become something of a Bateman archetype.

Think of his financial planner turned drug cartel enabler Marty Byrde in Netflix’s Ozark . Or Mark Loring in 2007’s Juno , the prospective adoptive dad revealed to be a boundary-crossing man-child. More recently, he’s been Clark Forrest, the local weatherman eager to scratch his dark sexual kinks in the HBO series DTF St. Louis . But with Vince Friedken in Netflix’s crime drama Black Rabbit , Bateman finally goes full scumbag. Related Stories TV Salli Richardson Whitfield on Her Second Historical Emmy Nominations: "Female Directors Can Do Action" TV Workplace Comedies Are Having a Major Emmy Moment

When we first meet Vince, he’s hanging out in a low-rent Reno casino, waiting to do a shady deal with some shady folks to sell some (obviously pilfered) rare coins. The deal goes bad, violently so, and Vince hightails it back to New York, looking for a bailout from brother Jake (played by Jude Law), owner of Manhattan’s hippest restaurant. Vince brings his chaos with him. His outstanding gambling debts to a local mobster (Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, of CODA ) threaten Jake’s business and the life he’s built away from his self-destructive sibling. Bateman even looks lousy: Vince’s greasy hair and untamed beard are a world away from his usual clean-cut presentation.

The performance earned Bateman an Emmy nomination for acting, while his work behind the camera on Black Rabbit also earned him a directing nomination — a fitting double recognition for an actor increasingly drawn to the other side of the camera.

“I remember thinking, ‘I bet the audience would expect to see me in the part that Jude ended up playing,’ ” says Bateman, reflecting on how he and Law were cast by Black Rabbit creators Zach Baylin and Kate Susman before it was decided who would play which brother. “It would have been more comfortable for me [to play Jake]. But I had a real good take on Vince. He’s a very broken guy. He has a sense of humor, but he’s very aware of what a failure he is. I’ve known a lot of people in my life like that, people who are just heartbreakingly ill-equipped to manage the things that they find themselves involved in.”

After his career as a child actor in ’80s family sitcoms — Little House on the Prairie , Silver Spoons , The Hogan Family — shows where “the big note is always: Make sure your character is likable,” Bateman says he finds it more “exciting” to play the noxious jerk. Even one as toxic as Vince.

“[Vince] starts pretty unlikable, and I play him pretty unlikable as well,” he says. “Then, by virtue of his bad decisions and getting backed into a bunch of corners, he becomes much more vulnerable and apologetic, and hopefully that earns it back in time for the ending to be satisfactory.”

Bateman was determined to test himself on Black Rabbit , and not just in front of the camera. He directed the first two episodes of the show.