Jason Bateman on Fake Boobs, His Dream Job, and 'This Is Where I Leave You'

In the newly released This is Where I Leave You, Jason Bateman plays Judd Altman, a cuckolded New York City radio producer who leaves the city to sit shiva for his father — and to get his life back together. But when he’s reunited with his family (including Tina Fey as his frustrated sister, and Jane Fonda as his over-sharing mom), he realizes he might just be the sole sane member of a very dysfunctional brood. Yahoo Movies caught up with the 45-year-old actor earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Were there elements of This is Where I Leave You script that reminded you of your own family?

Not really. My upbringing was so atypical, with my sister and I both doing all that acting, and my mom [working as] a stewardess for Pan Am — she was always flying around the world. And my dad was an independent writer, director, and producer, so he was always out, or if he was home, he was writing. [The Altmans] reminded more of my family on Arrested Development than my family that I grew up with. In both families, my character is kind of the sane, exhausted center.

Jane Fonda upends a lot of scenes in this movie, in part because of some eye-grabbing prosthetics —

Are you talking about her boobs?

Yes. Where those at all distracting to work with?

Not really. But we were all excited to see the technology, because it’s a full synthetic piece. It’s like a skin costume that they just glue on, Adam’s apple to the belly button. So she had a blast with it. She’d constantly “accidentally” have them fly out, and Kathryn Hahn enjoyed playing with them quite a bit.

You first met Fey while hosting Saturday Night Live in 2005. Did you ever tell her about your desire to be a Not Ready For Prime Time Player?

I’m sure I have. I still think that’s just an incredible environment for people to have the privilege of working in.

But have you ever seriously sat down with your wife and said, “Okay, I want to move to New York and be on SNL. How can we make this happen?”

I actually had more serious conversations with her about becoming a talk-show host, and to have that be the New York move.

Did you have that talk recently? There were a few openings.

Yeah, actually. I’ve thought about it two or three times over the last five or six years. [I’ve even had] some kind of tongue-in-cheek conversations with my wife, with my team, with some producers, some network executives. I just love routine, and that is the quintessential routine job. It’s just like, “Here are your hours,” and it’s the same thing five days a week, every week, with a couple weeks off a year.

Finally: Any word on what’s going on with Arrested Development?

I have been told nothing.  I know absolutely zero. I haven’t heard a thing about it since the Netflix episodes.

So now you can look forward to eight more years of being asked about it.

Well, that’s a fantastic problem to have. No one asked me if there was going to be a Teen Wolf 3, I can assure you that.

You must be excited that there’s a new guy now who has to deal with all Teen Wolf-related queries .

Yeah. I was actually asked to guest on that show [smiles]. I politely declined.

Want to see This Is Where I Leave You? Visit our Showtimes page to get tickets.

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