Emmy nominee profile: Jason Bateman (‘Ozark’) is still looking to nab his first — yes, first — trophy for acting
Jason Bateman took home his first and to date only Emmy three years ago — for directing the opener of “Ozark’s” second season. Even though the multihyphenate is primarily known as an actor, he has yet to win an Emmy for acting, losing twice for “Arrested Development” in Best Comedy Actor (2005, 2013), once for “The Outsider” in Best Drama Guest Actor (2020) and three times for “Ozark” itself in Best Drama Actor (2018-2020). Will he, nominated for the fourth time in a row for leading “Ozark” as cartel launderer Marty Byrde, finally get his due from the TV academy’s acting branch this year?
His Best Drama Actor nomination is one of three he pocketed for the fourth and final season of the Netflix series this year, earning the other two as one of the gritty drama’s executive producers as part of its third consecutive drama series nom, and as the solo director of its series finale. These three bids bring his overall total to 13, and match exactly the ones he received for “Ozark’s” second season in 2019. Rounding out his grand total are two additional noms for the show: one for directing the Season 1 finale (2018) and the other for serving as an EP on Season 3 (2020 — which is famously also the year in which he opted to be submitted for “The Outsider” instead of “Ozark” for directing and ended up missing out on a nom).
Serving as his Emmy submission this year is the 11th episode of the fourth season, “Pound of Flesh and Still Kickin’,” which was notably directed by his co-star and onscreen wife Laura Linney. When Marty returns home from Mexico in this installment, Wendy (Linney) informs him that someone is blocking their attempt to remove Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) from the SDN list. Since Camila (Veronica Falcón) is the only person with whom he had shared the details of the extradition plan, Marty quickly deduces that she must be behind the attempt to kill Navarro and the effort to keep him on the list.
Wendy, however, enlists Camila’s help in forcing Clare (Katrina Lenk) to resume financing the Byrde Family Foundation and proposes that Camila replace Marty as acting head of the cartel. After Navarro accepts the proposal and Marty has no choice but to agree, all the emotions that Marty had kept bottled up throughout the episode boil over during a climactic road rage incident, in which he beats the living daylights out of a rival driver.
It’s not all too often that viewers got to see Marty lose his temper in such fashion, which makes this episode the perfect submission for Bateman. As Marty feels the unbearable weight of everything happening around him, the actor, who stays closer to a simmer as his character throughout most of the show, knew to break away from his typical restraint to convey this build-up of emotions. While the road range scene sees Marty unload these feelings — above all, his anger anger at Wendy for making important decisions without his input — physically, it’s during a heart-to-heart with his daughter Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) that he actually puts them into words. Though he, like almost everyone else in the crime-ridden world of the show, has done many a bad thing, it’s hard not to feel some sense of sympathy for him as he expresses his guilt over ordering the execution of an innocent man and his frustration about being the “a——” in every situation, no matter the circumstances.
While Bateman is worthy of a victory for his inspired performance in this episode, he will certainly have to put up a fight to attain it. The race for drama actor is stacked and includes returning champ Jeremy Strong (“Succession”), who beat Bateman to the win in 2020. Also contending are returning nominees Brian Cox (“Succession”) and Bob Odenkirk (“Better Caul Saul”), both of whom have wins under their belts for other projects — Cox, one for the miniseries “Nuremberg” (2001); Odenkirk, two as a writer of “Saturday Night Live” (1989) and “The Ben Stiller Show” (1993) — as well as first-timers Lee Jung-jae (“Squid Game”) and Adam Scott (“Severance”). Like Bateman, Odenkirk and Scott are also nominated as EPs of their series.
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What sets Bateman apart from his competition is that he’s the only nominee seeking a farewell hug (note: Part 2 of “Better Call Saul’s” now-concluded final season will contend at next year’s awards). While his deliberate restraint on “Ozark” was oftentimes overshadowed by the louder, more emotion-laden performances of his co-stars, it’s clear that there’s support for his work on the show. He has won two solo Screen Actors Guild Awards for it and is the only cast member to score Emmy noms for all four of its seasons. As it earned a total of 13 Emmy citations, including four for acting — the others for two-time champ for this show Julia Garner (Best Drama Supporting Actress), Linney (Best Drama Actress) and Tom Pelphrey (Best Drama Guest Actor) — for its farewell season, there might be enough enthusiasm for it to allow Bateman to finally convert his individual support into a long-awaited acting victory.
This article is a part of Gold Derby’s “Emmy nominee profile” series spotlighting the 2022 acting contenders.
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