The “Arrested Development” star said he’d seen others hit “chilling” lows with drinking that he sought to avoid.

Jason Bateman says ‘tension’ with his wife led him to finally get sober: ‘Let’s just f‑‑‑ing do it’

The "Arrested Development" star said he'd seen others hit "chilling" lows with drinking that he sought to avoid.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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on February 18, 2026 8:57 p.m. ET

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Jason Bateman and Amanda Anka in 2017. Credit:

David Livingston/Getty

Jason Bateman has put his partying days behind him, and he has his wife to thank for it.

The *Arrested Development* and *Ozark* star broke through to household-name status when he was well into his 30s, and not all his fans realize that his Hollywood career began in childhood. Like many former child stars, Bateman went through a period of serious partying. But fortunately Amanda Anka, whom he married in 2001, was there to help save him from the worst.

"Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off," Bateman said in a new interview with *The Hollywood Reporter*. "She'd be like, 'This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason.'"

He added, "She didn't demand that I completely absolve, but that was sort of the back-and-forth, and I was like, well, I feel like my [sobriety] ETA is six months away, but if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let's just f‑‑‑ing do it."

Jason Bateman and Amanda Anka in 2010.

KMazur/WireImage

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Coming of age in Los Angeles in the 1980s, Bateman recalled "friends who had bottoms that were pretty chilling. But I was lucky enough to recognize, 'This is probably as far as I should go if I still want to accomplish the things that I want to get to.'"

Even as a teenager, Bateman was laser-focused on his career. He revealed in a 2016 interview with *Wired *that he chose to film the sequel to *Teen Wolf* rather than graduate from high school. "During finals of my senior year, we were shooting *Teen Wolf Too* and the workload was such that I couldn't take two of my four finals," he said. "So they didn't give me my diploma."

That kind of determination meant that he still had his eyes on the prize, throughout all the partying. He told *THR*, "I was conscious the whole time of wanting to get a lot of these boxes checked before I became a father and a guy with a career that I not only wanted but had a feeling I might be able to get it if I just got the right job."****

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Bateman appeared on a number of episodes of *Little House on the Prairie* in the early 1980s as James Cooper Ingalls, the adoptive brother of protagonist Laura Ingalls Wilder (Melissa Gilbert). He was a busy working actor by the time he landed a main role on *Arrested Development*, but the uncoventional sitcom catapulted him to a new level of fame.

He most recently voiced the fox Nick in *Zootopia 2*, one of the most profitable films of 2025.******

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