Bateman Quits Drugs for Marriage Peace

Jason Bateman didn't get 'California sober' until 2004 - three years into his 24-year marriage to wife Amanda Anka, who always encouraged him to quit drinking alcohol and snorting 'the Scarface stuff.'

'Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off,' the 57-year-old former child star told THR Magazine on Wednesday.

'She'd be like, "This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason."'

At the time, Bateman felt like his sobriety 'ETA was six months away' but, after some back and forth, he decided 'if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let's just f***ing do it.'

In fact, when the eighties teen idol originally met the 57-year-old retired actress at an LA Kings game in 1988, she delayed dating him for an entire decade due to his hard-partying Hollywood lifestyle.

'I just wasn't into where he was at,' Anka told GQ in 2013.

Jason Bateman didn't get 'California sober' until 2004 - three years into his 24-year marriage to wife Amanda Anka, who always encouraged him to quit drinking alcohol and snorting 'the Scarface stuff' (pictured in 2002)

'Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off,' the 57-year-old former child star told THR on Wednesday. 'She'd be like, "This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason"' (pictured February 7)

'[Now] I can't get him off the couch to go to a party. This is a guy who wants to go get frozen yogurt and come home.'

And that hasn't changed as Bateman's buddy Jimmy Kimmel told THR: 'He rarely makes it out past 10, and if he does, there's a lot of, "Oh great job, Grandpa. Congratulations."'

Like the nepo daughter of Paul Anka, the 58-year-old talk show host didn't want to get close to the SmartLess co-host until 'after drugs' as he ominously recalled the 'shenanigans' he got into with Andy Dick backstage in 2003.

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The New York-born couple - who co-starred in the 2003 rom-com Sol Good - are proud parents of 19-year-old daughter Franny and 14-year-old daughter Maple.

Bateman - who's not above a marijuana gummy - was incredibly disciplined and responsible in his youth acting in projects like Little House on the Prairie, Silver Spoons and Teen Wolf Too in order to help financially support his family.

By the time the Black Rabbit producer-star had wrapped his six-season run as David in NBC sitcom The Hogan Family in 1991, he went wild.

Bateman recalled: 'Fortunately, I was living at a time without social media and camera phones, so I got away with a lot, but it was definitely close a few times.'

The Zootopia 2 star's career resurgence didn't come until he portrayed straight man Michael Bluth in Mitchell Hurwitz's satirical sitcom Arrested Development, which ran for five seasons spanning 2003-2006 on Fox and 2013-2019 on Netflix.

Bateman then expertly parlayed that success into his prestige era producing, directing and starring in Netflix drug drama Ozark followed by his lucrative $100 million deal co-hosting the podcast SmartLess.

At the time, Bateman felt like his sobriety 'ETA was six months away' but, after some back and forth, he decided 'if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let's just f***ing do it' (pictured January 11)

In fact, when the eighties teen idol originally met the 57-year-old retired actress at an LA Kings game in 1988, she delayed dating him for an entire decade due to his hard-partying Hollywood lifestyle

'I just wasn't into where he was at,' Anka told GQ in 2013. '[Now] I can't get him off the couch to go to a party. This is a guy who wants to go get frozen yogurt and come home'

And that hasn't changed as Bateman's buddy Jimmy Kimmel (M, pictured in 2025) told THR: 'He rarely makes it out past 10, and if he does, there's a lot of, "Oh great job, Grandpa. Congratulations"'

Like the nepo daughter of Paul Anka, the 58-year-old talk show host (R, pictured in 2018) didn't want to get close to the SmartLess co-host until 'after drugs' as he ominously recalled the 'shenanigans' he got into with Andy Dick backstage in 2003

The New York-born couple - who co-starred in the 2003 rom-com Sol Good - are proud parents of 19-year-old daughter Franny (R, pictured November 23) and 14-year-old daughter Maple (L)

By the time Bateman had wrapped his six-season run as David in NBC sitcom The Hogan Family in 1991, he went wild after years of helping financially support his family

The Black Rabbit producer-star recalled: 'Fortunately, I was living at a time without social media and camera phones, so I got away with a lot, but it was definitely close a few times'

The Emmy-winning director told the mag: 'I still feel like I'm trying not to be a child-actor failure. I'm still trying to make it out'

Bateman will next executive produce and star as Clark, who gets entangled in a love triangle, in Steve Conrad's seven-episode series DTF St. Louis premiering March 1 on HBO Max

'Having been on the outside looking in for so long, I'd gotten a real good sense of what it was that provided longevity, and it wasn't fame or money, it was respect,' the Emmy-winning director noted.

'I still feel like I'm trying not to be a child-actor failure. I'm still trying to make it out.'

Bateman will next executive produce and star as Clark, who gets entangled in a love triangle, in Steve Conrad's seven-episode series DTF St. Louis premiering March 1 on HBO Max.

David Harbour, Linda Cardellini, Richard Jenkins, Joy Sunday and Peter Sarsgaard will also be featured in the black comedy/murder mystery where one middle-aged character winds up dead.

The high school drop-out's production company Aggregate Films is also behind Courteney Cox's second directorial feature Evil Genius starring David Harbour, Patricia Arquette, Ryan Eggold and Thomas Michael Allen.

The indie crime thriller is based on the 2018 Netflix docuseries about the 2003 death of pizza delivery man Brian Wells.

Meanwhile, Anka's last IMDb-credited gig was producing Apple TV+ newsroom drama The Morning Show in 2019-2021.