Although
Bad Words advertises itself with a close-up of Jason
Bateman’s mouth forming (possibly foaming) the F-word, it turns out
that Focus Features’ irreverent R-rated antic is more about
spelling than swearing. In fact, it passes plausibly for the Bad
Speller cousin of
Bad Santa—another ornery adult battling youngsters a
third his age—and Bateman has himself quite a W.C. Fields-day here,
putting down the precocious set.
He looks, and looms, a little like Jack Black’s Gulliver when he
shows up among a sea of teens and preteens to compete in a national
Golden Quill spelling bee, crawling into competition through a
loophole that says anyone can enter if he never finished the eighth
grade. Through a quirky twist of fate, Bateman’s character
qualifies.
A 40-year-old proofreader and misanthrope, he bulldozes and
fast-talks his way past the organization’s officials (Allison
Janney and Philip Baker Hall). There is, of course, A Big Reveal
behind his disruptive agenda, and a reporter (Kathryn Hahn) is on
the case, but he keeps making her forget the question with a little
sexual activity.
Bad Words speaks directly to Bateman, who never finished high
school either—and it speaks loud enough for him to make his
movie-directing debut with it. Of course, he missed his graduation
because he was a constantly working child actor deep in TV sitcom
land (“Silver Spoons,” “Valerie,” “It’s Your Move,” etc.).
“I was really too busy to be concerned about not graduating from
high school,” he admits. “I had completed the courses. I just
didn’t take the last two tests, so it was a bit of a technicality.
It really doesn’t bother me. I have a deep curiosity about a number
of things, so I self-educate myself about questions I need answers
to.”
For instance: how to direct a film. He started early with that one
on the small screen. At 18, while his contemporaries were getting
sheepskins, Bateman directed three episodes of his “Valerie” series
and became the DGA’s youngest-ever director.
“That was the first time I did any directing, and I directed on and
off a tiny bit since then, but I never directed a feature film
before, and only one other time did I direct anything
single-camera. But I’ve been asking questions and keeping my eyes
open.”
Bateman’s first directed feature comes from Andrew Dodge’s first
produced script, which was on the 2011 Black List of hot unproduced
screenplays, somewhere between
Saving Mr. Banks and Grace of Monaco. An agent
got them together.
“I told my agent, ‘Don’t wait for me to have free time in my acting
schedule to direct something. Pursue opportunities for me as a
director all the time.’ He said, ‘I’ll send you a few scripts
immediately,’ and he sent three. Bad Words was one of
those.
“It had the comedic sensibility that I liked—I skew a little dark
and subversive—and it had the kind of size and scope I felt was
responsibly moderate for a first film.”
What he probably saw in the script was a perfect role for him—a
kid-hating crank with enough charm and wit to get away with it—but
he resisted the obvious as long as he could. “I wanted to
not play the lead part and just enjoy the directing part of
it,” he insists, “but after I took a couple of swings at bigger
actors and couldn’t get them, I decided to play the part myself—for
two reasons: one, it’s a tricky target to hit, play this character
where you gotta be pretty spiteful but likeable, and, two, it would
cut down on some of my workload if I didn’t have to direct another
actor.”
When it comes to directing yourself in a scene, Bateman subscribes
to the
Ralph Fiennes women-and-children-first technique: “My part was
the last of my concerns. I was much more of the ‘We’ll get to my
stuff after everything else, if need be.’”
Was directing as hard as he thought it would be, or was it fun?
“Much more on both sides, and that’s why I loved it even more than
I thought I would. I was expecting to go absolutely crazy for it,
and I couldn’t believe I loved the experience even more.
“The short and the long of it is you basically are creating a world
for the audience in all its complications and complexities. You’re
responsible for what the audience sees and hears and feels, and a
lot of different components are required to execute that.”
Considering where he’s coming from, it’s not surprising that
Bateman finessed an excellent showing from ten-year-old Rohan
Chand, who plays his primary opponent in the big spell-off, a
winsome Indian lad Bateman dismissively tags “Slumdog.”
“If you find someone who is good at what they do—but it’s not
necessarily what you had in mind—it’s not a bad thing to help them
manage to do what they’re able to do,” Bateman says. “In this case,
Rohan played the part in a way that was even more charming and more
likeable than it was in the script. The problem with that is, if
he’s so likeable and sunny, you’ll hate my character even more for
being so nasty to him, so it necessitated my making a little switch
in the way I delivered lines to him.
“This happens on every film. You find your character needs to
change to fit the way the other actors play their characters. It
all has to work together. You can’t decide how you’ll do something
till you see how everyone else is going to do their stuff.”
Bateman’s own performance of the mean-spirited Guy Trilby is
something of a tightrope walk. “We wanted to make him likeable but
not take any of the teeth out of the film,” he explains. “It was
tough for me to be nasty to kids. That’s really not me up there.
It’s Guy Trilby. He’s got less of a problem with the kids because
he’s going through something completely different than I am.” In
real life, Bateman and his wife, Amanda Anka (Paul’s daughter),
have two daughters, ages seven and two. “I became such a softie
when I had my first kid. Now, I cry watching toilet paper
commercials.”
His directing debut has left Bateman wanting to do it again. And
again. “I’d love to direct full time,” he confesses. “I’m starting
another, actually. It’s taken from a book called The Family
Fang, about a brother and sister who return home to search for
their missing parents. The parents are performance artists, and we
don’t know if they are just doing another performance-art piece or
if they have been murdered. So the film has a tricky tone that
falls somewhere between a comedy and a drama.“
Nicole Kidman plays the sister. His own sister, Justine Bateman,
wasn’t an option. “She’s taking classes in computer science at
UCLA. It’s a new life, a new career.”
Another family comedy-drama, This Is Where I Leave You, is
poised for release. “That’s about a family that comes together to
sit shiva for a father who has just passed. It’s not even a Jewish
family, but the father found Judaism right before he died, and his
dying wish is that we all get together and sit shiva for him for a
week. We don’t know what the heck to do—we’re not Jewish, how would
we? What it does is bring the family together. All the baggage and
garbage and scares resurface when stuck under one roof for a week.
It’s obviously very funny and also very dramatic.”
Horrible Bosses 2 just wrapped and will be out for
Thanksgiving. “Christoph Waltz is our main nemesis, Chris Pine is
his son, and our old nemeses come back as well. It’s a great group,
and I think we got something even better than the first one,
actually.”