![]() ![]() ![]() “Now, that can be bad if my thoughts on that performance are off-base there’s not a checks and balances system in there to say, ‘Hey, buddy. “It eliminated one of the actors I needed to direct,” Bateman explains. Unlike some actors-turned-filmmakers who find wearing two hats on set to be too much of a distraction, Bateman doesn’t mind having to juggle two different roles on a film. “But also, the way he directed-he’d be in a scene, and then step out and be the director. “Jason is a wonderful actor,” Walken says. As someone who has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows across a five-decade-long career in show business, it takes a lot to impress him. His ability to switch off between roles in front of and behind the camera even managed to make an impression on Christopher Walken. “It just cuts down on my workload … I got to do what I really wanted to do, which was play with the other elements of filmmaking that actors usually don’t get to play with, which was cameras, lighting, editing, and composing.” “They don’t need some idiot like me telling them what they need to do: they know exactly what they’re doing,” says Bateman. I guess they took him out, but he was there for a while.”īateman described the opportunity to work with such high-caliber actors on only his second directorial feature as “a mindblower.” Rather than letting that intimidate him, however, the still-green director found that working with these talented professionals made his job much easier. I remember walking into my bank once, and there was some guy doing a show. ‘Happenings.’ … I saw a lot of it and often didn’t know what was going on. “I was never part of it, but growing up in New York as a young man, there was performance art all over the city. “For me, it was an interesting part,” Walken explains, through many of his famous, often-imitated pauses. He considers himself fortunate that Christopher Walken, their first choice to play Caleb-the siblings’ detached, performance artist father-was intrigued by the story. Bateman loved the script, and leapt at the opportunity. She reached out to him about not only helming the project, but starring opposite her in the film. She had been impressed with Bateman’s 2013 directorial debut, Bad Words, as well as his acting oeuvre. The book had initially been optioned by actress Nicole Kidman, who co-stars as Annie Fang and also produces. ![]() I named him after the character in Arrested Development!’” And goes, ‘Well, that’s no coincidence at all. I said to Kevin Wilson, who wrote the book, ‘I think it’s such a coincidence that your character’s named Buster. “I thought that might be a little bit weird. “In the book he’s actually called Buster, but I switched that because in Arrested Development there’s a character named Buster,” Bateman says, grinning, referencing the cult-favorite series in which he also starred. He also stars in the film as the down-on-his-luck Baxter Fang. Their parents, Caleb and Camille, are performance artists and provocateurs, infamous for roping their two young children (sometimes unknowingly) into their projects and impromptu “happenings.” The now-grown Baxter and Annie Fang are estranged from the famous parents they feel exploited them, but when Baxter injures himself and is taken in by their folks, it leads to an unplanned-and most unusual-family reunion.Īctor (and budding filmmaker) Jason Bateman directs The Family Fang, which was adapted from Kevin Wilson’s novel of the same name by Pullitzer Prize-winning writer David Lindsey-Abaire. His sister, Annie, is a washed-up starlet and former tabloid “wild child” similarly on the decline. Baxter Fang is a young adult novelist whose career is floundering. ![]()
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