Welcome to “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace.” Each week, Nicolle sits down with someone she admires for conversations that are illuminating, inspiring, and sometimes surprising. This first episode begins with Jason Bateman copping to how much he’d love to be behind the steady camon Nicolle’s “Deadline: White House” set. From there they discuss his endearingly barbed relationship with his “Smartless” co-hosts Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, reflect on how to navigate the incredible plot twists of this wild Trump era, and Jason walks Nicolle through how to capture good sound of a body splat on the pavement.
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Jason Bateman: But there’s a writer’s room somewhere.
Nicole Wallace: Somewhere?
Jason Bateman: Yeah, and in that writer’s room, they are figuring out these seasonal arcs that they’re just gobsmacking, like, for instance, you know, remember for a moment there, it was very plausible that he was going to win the election, but start serving in prison.
Nicole Wallace: Hi, everyone. It’s Nicolle Wallace from Deadline: White House. I’m here with a new project, it’s called, The Best People with Nicolle Wallace.
The Best People are accomplished, but they’re also accessible. And here at The Best People, I’m going to share them with all of you, I’m so excited to do that. The first person that I reached out to is the person who hosts my most favorite podcast, SmartLess.
But when I asked Jason Bateman for advice about how to podcast, he said, it’s called SmartLess for a reason, I don’t have any advice. But he did agree to talk to me, which is very good news because he has a huge political brain and watches more MSNBC than I do on top of being an award-winning actor and director. So, this is The Best People and this is Jason Bateman.
Jason Bateman: I’ve wanted to be that person just off your camera so bad on that show.
Nicole Wallace: The big
Jason Bateman: The big steady cam tilt down. It’s all so exciting. I’m very addicted to your show, very big fan, very excited to be here.
Nicole Wallace: Oh, you’re so nice. You know, I’m very addicted to SmartLess in this thing like, I really believe in never meeting your heroes. It can only go downhill. I don’t ever do it like Steph Curry is my hero, I hope to never meet him. If I saw him in an airport, I’d run.
Jason Bateman: No, you would —
Nicole Wallace: And you, guys, like —
Jason Bateman: He is, like, run to him, he could not be sweeter.
Nicole Wallace: He is my hero. I love Shohei Ohtani. I don’t think we run in the same circles. I don’t know that I’d run into him. But I really try to never meet my hero, never. I don’t know if that’s getting old, and, like, I love you, guys, I really thought I was rocking COVID, I was like, you know, I’m eating green soup.
I’m nailing like third grade, I was teaching my son third grade. I was anchoring out of the basement and the numbers were up. And I started listening to SmartLess and I would laugh until I cried, and I was like, you know what? I’m probably not okay if these guys are making me cry.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: You know?
Jason Bateman: Exactly.
Nicole Wallace: So, I would just weep. You know, you’d be talking to, I don’t know, it wasn’t even COVID anymore, and I’d still cry like Courteney Cox plays a piano, and I didn’t know any of you. And I was just weeping. I’m like, that’s so beautiful. And I think I tapped into my own, like, instability and isolation from how in love I was with you guys on SmartLess.
Jason Bateman: Yeah, well, thank you, it wasn’t some necessary nonsense during that really kind of fraught period. And, we were really surprised that people were listening to us ‘cause it was just a selfish sort of thing for us to kind of stay in contact when you couldn’t be in physical contact or proximity. And so, it was kind of this zoom that turned into, you know, something to monetize, as Sean is so good at doing.
He’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, just, guys, let me have my guys just run some numbers ‘cause this is fun and everything, but I think we could make some money. I was like, all right. So, yeah, that was a big shocker and remains a big shocker.
We thought it was all going to go away after COVID and we’d get back to our lives of not doing it and actually seeing each other in-person. And there was such an audience there by the time COVID was done and we were getting so many flattering incoming calls to talk to people that we would never speak to, you know, to your point about Shohei Ohtani or Steph Curry, like you’re not going to bump into those people. It is possible to, like, talk to folks that you can really get a lot smarter speaking to.
And unless you’re trapped in an elevator, they’re not going to speak to you, so is our little one-hour elevator breakdown.
Nicole Wallace: Why did you think in the beginning that someone would listen to 45 minutes of, you know, like the thing about cable is like, you’re trying to be so efficient with words in time under this sort of hypothesis that people are busy and it’s so competitive, but people are really drawn to these really intimate, really unscripted, really long conversations. And as someone sort of on the other end of that medium making my first foray into this one, that, in and of itself, is like a delicious and wonderful, like, affirming reality about what people will listen to.
Jason Bateman: Well, first, obviously we did not think anyone was going to listen and that no one really needed to listen because, you know, it cost next to nothing to put one of these things up. I mean, you can go down to the Apple Store and get a podcast mic and stick it in your laptop. That’s all we do really, it’s just the Zoom.
The fact that people did check us out, probably because, you know, the first wave of guests were just some of our fancy friends that were nice enough to say yes. And then I guess somewhere through that sample size, people kind of liked the ability to go about their day and you know, multi-task and kind of half listen to us because we are not journalists. We don’t claim to know much about anything and are happy to sit there and have smarter people answer our questions that are really coming from a layman’s point of view.
And, you know, he’s now since become, , a controversial figure, but Charlie Rose is somebody that I watch every single episode he ever did for no other reason then he kind of he was, he’s us, you know, as far as like being a non-expert in, most of the industries and experts that he had on his show and he would just basically, well, explain that to me, you know, how, why are you the king of drywall, you know, why were you drawn to sheetrock, you know, when you’re and what is it that makes it such a big industry? Like, you know, and like that’s a fascinating in to just be kind of, a common person that is curious about the industry that might live right next door to you. And you have one of the reasons I love your show is you have people skills and you’re able to listen and talk and you never get the sense that you’re just waiting for them to stop talking so you can go to the next question on your buck slip there.
You’re listening to them and the audience is listening as well. And so, you are probably going to arrive at the same question the audience has if you take the same position the audience has, which is just listening. You’re not prepared hopefully, you know, I mean the other two on our show are not, that was part of the design, that’s the you know, to have a surprise guest that was really selfishly so that the other two don’t have to do anything.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: But it also affords them the same perspective as the audience that they’re just listening, they don’t have anything loaded, and the next question is just going to simply be prompted by being a part of the conversation.
Nicole Wallace: And listening. I —
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: I mean, I think that’s it, and I think that goes beyond what either of us does, like, I think that’s the political answer. And there’s something like perversely brilliant about Trump hearing anger and then feeding it back to voters. One of his political gifts is, like, he hears the grievance and then he makes it clear to his voters that he hears them.
Jason Bateman: Right. And are you’re implying, I think, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but that there’s a baked in level of cynicism there and manipulation and opportunity to tap into a large group of people that are aggrieved and that —
Nicole Wallace: Well, yeah.
Jason Bateman: Well, their votes count the same, so let’s go after them because there’s a lot of people that are pissed off. I can’t begrudge them that ‘cause that’s kind of the game of politics.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: But, once you’re elected, it’s like, can we now, like, actually help the country instead of continuing the cynicism and–
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: Trying to put more people into–
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: It’s basically creating a larger group of people aggrieved with his policies and then somehow convincing him that, yeah, I know I’m the arsonist, but, trust me, I’ll be a firefighter soon, you know?
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: I don’t know how he’s able to do both.
Nicole Wallace: But I think politics is like Nordstrom, right, like the customer’s always right. I worked at Nordstrom one year in college and like people would return things, they were like 11 years old and stained. And I remember going to like a manager, I’m like, you’re going to take that skirt back, and they’re like, yes, we take back any, like, so the voter’s always right, but I think that to the degree that voters were saying something about Biden’s age or about inflation or about the democracy, you know, instead of trying to change what they were saying, I think people are too slow to not listen to it.
But I do think it’s still true that people face-to-face don’t hate each other as much as people do online. And so, I feel like to the degree that I think we could be okay, I still think it’s like going and getting in front of people, like I still think the resurgence of, like, if this were political, this is retail politics, right? It is two people talking to each other and listening to each other.
I think that’s what politics has to go back to. And then I think–
Jason Bateman: Well, the thing.
Nicole Wallace: Right?
Jason Bateman: But that presupposes that they have access to a speaker from which a bunch of facts are coming. So, what do you do about that, you know, your point about the customer is always right? Well, they’re making their right decision on facts that might not be facts. And so, what do you do about that?
In other words, do you think Trump would have gotten the same number of votes if the people who voted for him had access to or the curiosity to seek out and find the truth because they’re not getting the truth over on Fox? The $780-some million lawsuit is proof of it.
And that was just one issue. So, what do you do about that? You know, people judge
Nicole Wallace: You’re so good. I can’t believe you’re asking me a question. I wanted to ask, so this is my thing.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: This is the thing that keeps me up at night. I think the truth has to be the next moonshot. And I think that all the smartest people in the world, maybe all the fired scientists, have to figure out how to make the truth the thing that’s sticky, the thing that goes viral, like the truth has to be the thing that people are sending around and they’re like, you know, look at this when no one’s watching, this is the truth about Trump or this is the truth about —
Jason Bateman: But who’s the arbiter of what is true? I’ve always fantasized that, you know, that little grade that’s on the front of restaurants, you know, A, B, C or whatever, like, it’ll be great if media was forced to have that little bug in the bottom right corner of, you know, just like on MSNBC, during the day, it’s news reporting and it’s facts, and at night, it is opinion.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: And like that should have, it’s a separate letter, no better, no worse, just identifies that. And therefore, you can intellectualize the thing that you’re talking about, opine on, whatever it is, but the same burden is not placed on that reporter in front. And then on Fox, they can go and freestyle if they want. And on MSNBC, you freestyle if you want.
I happen to think of a huge fan, but I happen to think that MSNBC doesn’t drift from the truth. They just have this immense amount of really interesting, solid facts to talk about.
And so, they don’t have to freestyle and embellish or, so, I don’t know. Talking about Pete Buttigieg, he’s been on Fox a bunch of times and is somehow, you know, reaching that audience. I asked him why he’s the only one that’s really been on there and are the politicians not being invited on because Fox is afraid of what they’re going to say or the politicians not want to be on ‘cause they don’t want to take the heat, do you know?
Nicole Wallace: I think it’s probably a combination of both, but Pete’s been going on for years.
Jason Bateman: That’s great.
Nicole Wallace: I remember when I was first dating my husband, we were going to go for something to eat and he said, no, I can’t, we got to stay in. I said, why? He said, there’s a Buttigieg town hall on Fox.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: And this is like 2018 or ‘19, and I was like, we’re staying home for that? Like, okay. I mean, it’s great TV, it’s amazing that he does it, and, like he’s been doing it for almost 10 years, like it’s part of who he is.
To your point about news and perspective, I think it should go farther. Like, I actually think we should reveal, you know, like almost like a confessional. You know, I worked for George W. Bush, I worked for Dick Cheney, I still like them, I know they did lots of things wrong. I also think that if we’re part of our own sort of responsibility for our own credibility, I think putting it all out there and being more transparent.
I mean, I love Pete, I love everything that he’s doing. And I think that not only is that like the right model, I think it’s the only model, like, you cannot leave out half of the country and, you know, you don’t need to win everybody, but you have to win over some of those folks.
Jason Bateman: Yeah, but the truth-tellers or whatever book all the facts sit in from day to day is there is no attempt to hide that from the Republican voters.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: It’s ubiquitous.
Nicole Wallace: I know.
Jason Bateman: You have to make a real effort to stay insulated from the facts
Nicole Wallace: I know.
Jason Bateman: And common sense.
Nicole Wallace: I know.
Jason Bateman: It’s everywhere except
Nicole Wallace: It’s insane.
Jason Bateman: On Fox or Breitbart.
Nicole Wallace: It’s insane.
Jason Bateman: Whatever the hell those spots are. I was telling my girls in 2020, I was saying, you, guys, are going to look back, this is the most fascinating year, this is going to be a hard one to beat with COVID and with Jan 6 and the rest.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: And it just keeps getting more and more interesting. You know, I joked earlier about the Trump show I’m addicted to. I really am fascinated. I can’t stop watching the things that he does and the things that he says and marry that to the fact that there are 80-some million people that would vote again for him tomorrow.
Nicole Wallace: Tomorrow.
Jason Bateman: You know?
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: It’s just a social phenomenon, a political phenomenon that I just can’t get my head around and I don’t want to ignore it. We are all neighbors. We all share this country together. And so, I want to understand it. And I know that there’s genuine dissatisfaction with their standing in life or the system and whatnot.
So, that’s legit, I’m sensitive to that, I respect that, but, whatever section there is that is kind of doing it just to stick it to the libs, it’s not schadenfreude, but I am curious to see what they’re going to do when, you know, eggs keep going up and gas keeps going up. And again, I’m not wishing harm on anyone, but it’s tragic that I think the people who are least equipped to bear what the Trump administration is going to yield are a lot of the folks that voted for him, and that’s really freaking sad.
Nicole Wallace: Yes. Again, I don’t wish any person or business financial harm, but in some ways, the market reaction brought new people to the fight, and I think that’s–
Jason Bateman: Look at what happened, Elon Musk’s bottom-line.
Nicole Wallace: Right.
Jason Bateman: Right, Jesus Christ.
Nicole Wallace: I mean, right. And so, like, again, I don’t wish anyone financial ruin, I don’t wish anyone you know, and I welcome them to the effort to not have the whole country sort of held hostage to the whims of Trump. I mean, the tariff thing, like, isn’t even a thing, there aren’t any, there are no deals, no, they’re not on, they’re not off.
They’re just like whatever he wakes up and does and–
Jason Bateman: And to the extent there are, you got to eat it, you know, because you’ve made so much the last few years, like, what?
Nicole Wallace: But it might take something that he can’t spin his way out of to make everybody understand.
Jason Bateman: Right. And that’s unfortunate that there’s only one way that medicine’s going to go down or the lesson’s going to be absorbed, like, got to have to learn the lesson the hard way. Again, to my point, that’s going to be a painful lesson for mostly the people that voted for him. And that’s tragic, but, I guess, it’s the only way to break the fever, perhaps.
Nicole Wallace: We’re going to take a quick break right here. When we come back, we’ll have more with Jason Bateman, back in a moment.
(BREAK)
Nicole Wallace: I think that what makes the Trump story so amazing is nobody knows what’s going to happen next, you know?
I mean, the people in this cabinet don’t seem to know what’s happening next. You know, it’s crazy.
Jason Bateman: But there’s a writer’s room somewhere and–
Nicole Wallace: Somewhere.
Jason Bateman: Yeah, and in that writer’s room, they are figuring out these seasonal arcs that they’re just gobsmacking. And somehow, they build to these great, you know, cliffhangers too that are kind of like, well, that’s like jumping the shark, like for instance, you know, remember for a moment there, it was very plausible that he was going to win the election but start serving in prison, like that, you would write that in a movie.
Nicole Wallace: It was like crazy.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah.
Jason Bateman: Like that would be a jump the shark moment. But no, actually, everything was built towards. That legitimately can happen and people are trying to figure out the apparatus to get classified documents to him, et cetera, et cetera. And, like, to me, that’s just a show I can’t stop watching because he keeps out doing himself and doubling and tripling down and it’s not for show, it’s actually a reasonable escalation based on what just happened last. It’s really happening.
Nicole Wallace: Does it change your industry at all when, like, the real world is so batshit crazy?
Jason Bateman: Well —
Nicole Wallace: Like, does it make people think, you know, this couldn’t happen when the real world keeps defying that frame or this couldn’t happen?
Jason Bateman: Well, there’s plenty of projects, I’ve been involved with at least two of them that are directly related to key figures in his administration that I have started developing, but then backed away because there’s no way you can do that because those are still active storylines. And by the time you’re done shooting it, the ending may have been written, and we won’t have it in the show. So yeah, it’s the notion of what is plausible and possible in the political world. I think the writer’s rooms are having difficulty imagining it even in a fictional setting, if you were to just have a fictional administration because, you know, I think most of us come off the car lot with a standard feature of shame and an ability to become embarrassed. And that’s not built into our systems of defense. You can’t assume that somebody is going to drive right through shamelessness, and he does, and he is. And so, we’re constantly on our heels because we’re surprised.
Nicole Wallace: I think it’s amazing that people haven’t adapted, like to your point, like he has no shame, he has like three impulses, greed, winning, and I don’t even know what the third would be. And this is on us too. We still cover him like they’re playing 3D chess, they’re like they’re always playing whack-a-mole, you know, always.
Jason Bateman: I think it’s just a question of like the problem is that nothing matters ‘cause no one’s listening. Like the MAGA folks aren’t watching MSNBC or reading The New York Times where just one of the really salient points would be, why would this guy be slashing and burning and cutting all the waste and abuse and all that stuff, and then at the other side of his mouth, say, I want a $45 million birthday parade? You know, like, they’re at odds with one another.
Nicole Wallace: And a $400 million jet.
Jason Bateman: Exactly. And, well, that could have filled with bugs, listening device, and on and on and on. But, like, you wouldn’t even waste your time reporting that because it’s not going to move the dial because in the firehose, you’re not even going to hear it or see it.
And so, what do you do? People like yourself, you can’t stop reporting the news, but, like, who are we talking to? Do you ever see a day, and I know this is kind of a third rail for politics, but at what point, if ever, do you think this story would change from reporting on the outrageousness of Trump and his actions, his decisions, his words, and instead moved to the people that have voted for him twice? And I know that goes back to the whole story of deplorables and like, as soon as that happened, everyone just backed off and don’t ever talk bad about, you know, America and the 80 million. But he’s never changed, he’s always been the same. He didn’t do a 180 and duped everybody when he got to the White House. It’s the people that have put him there and then put him there again that really deserve a great deal of responsibility and a talking to, I’m sorry. And I say that with love, they are our neighbors, as I said before. And I know that they are, you know, deservedly aggrieved and whatnot. But there’s another way to do it. There’s somebody else in the Republican Party that can look after your issues.
And if it makes you sick to vote for a Democrat, great, vote for Republican. Tons of my friends are Republican, like I have no issues with Republicans. It’s this extra step that, I think is so unnecessary to follow blindly.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah. I mean, I started out covering the Trump voters because from our end, we kind of missed them, and I covered people who’d voted for Obama at least once or twice or Clinton and then voted for Trump. It’s everything we’ve been talking about.
They either don’t believe the bad things, they think Democrats are worse, they found something they really didn’t like about Biden, and then Harris.
Jason Bateman: I was at some fancy Hollywood thing and Rahm Emanuel was–
Nicole Wallace: Oh, tell us about a fancy Hollywood thing.
Jason Bateman: It’s boring, as you can imagine.
Nicole Wallace: No.
Jason Bateman: But–
Nicole Wallace: This is boring. Tell me about–
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Tell me a fancy Hollywood story.
Jason Bateman: Well, only to bring it back to politics, which was that Rahm Emanuel was there and as was Ari, and I said to Ari, I said, I hear that Rahm is going to run. And Ari gave, you know, beautifully kind of non-committal kind of grin or whatever, but it’s now since become more public that Rahm might be one of the people to run. And I got really excited about that because, like yourself, he’s been uniquely accessed to, you know, these places of this access in there and the knowledge and being Chief of Staff and, what, Ambassador to Japan and Mayor and whatnot.
And so, anyway, I think he’d be a really exciting candidate. But then I said to somebody, and somebody said, oh no, he’ll never win, he’s Jewish. And like, I’m a guy who lives in Los Angeles and
Nicole Wallace: We trust a felon, we have to stop with that.
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: Right?
Jason Bateman: But then I started thinking, and Pete Buttigieg can’t win ‘cause he’s gay, and I started thinking, well, am I just in such an L.A. bubble that–
Nicole Wallace: No.
Jason Bateman: I just can’t imagine that that would be a barrier to somebody voting for someone or that somebody is Black or that somebody is a woman, and then I started thinking, and I’m going to ask you to the extent you’re comfortable answering it, if you are an independent voter or somebody that’s kind of on the border between voting a Republican or a Democrat is gay, Black, Jewish or female has the best chance of being the next non-White middle-aged male president, where do you think the tolerance is?
Nicole Wallace: Well, I think you go to the battleground states, right? And in Pennsylvania, Shapiro won. I think he won like, a huge margin, huge margin.
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: So, those are the same people you have to win over.
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: Right?
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: And he’s, you know, very comfortable with his faith, talks about it all the time.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: I think you go to Michigan, huge, huge crossover of Trump voters and Whitmer voters.
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: I mean, there is a woman. I mean, you got to go study the battleground states where women, I mean, Michigan, I think women hold all those top statewide offices. Jocelyn Benson’s the Secretary of State, there’s a female attorney general, I mean, you got to go look. I mean, this is the worst you gave a–
Jason Bateman: And Obama’s already been President twice, so–
Nicole Wallace: And Obama’s been President twice. So, you got to go look behind the tabs. I worry a lot that the Democratic Party will take all the wrong lessons from Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris’ defeats because I think, you know, Whitmer is a great example, I think Nikki Haley was really a threat to Donald Trump.
And she was the second highest vote getter. I don’t think that’s the barrier and I don’t think that was Harris’ barrier, I hope not, because you look in the battleground states that pick presidents, they’re open to all sorts of politicians.
Jason Bateman: Well, it was economy really is what the sort of the–
Nicole Wallace: That’s what they say.
Jason Bateman: But now, look at it. So, you know, we’ll see if that was true.
Nicole Wallace: We’ll see.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: We’ll see, we’ll see. Okay, wait, I got to hear more about the fancy Hollywood stuff. I’ll tell you, in our world, everyone’s talking about goodnight and good luck.
I know you just saw it.
Jason Bateman: I just saw it, yeah.
Nicole Wallace: And then Clooney’s story of sort of coming out and writing about Biden is everywhere in politics because Jake Tapper has just written about it. So, you know, you talk about how it’s hard to not jump the shark in the writer’s rooms. It seems like some of those moments from history are maybe the way to get it this moment better than anything.
Jason Bateman: Well, and that’s one of the reasons that, yeah, his play is so timely and important or no matter what side you’re on, I’d recommend anyone who’s in New York to go see it. And what he and Grant Heslov have done with adapting the film and contemporizing, it is there’s a piece at the end and I won’t ruin it for folks, but there’s a bit of a status report per se of where we’re at, where we’ve come from and where we currently are from McCarthyism to, you know, today. And it just lands the plane in such a heartbreaking slap in the face of, you know, you see it.
And it’s upsetting that my takeaway, at least, as I was, you know, drawing my tears, that it’s been a bit of a frog boil. , as much as we are aware of that, of the heat, it did really sneak up on us and it’s not coming, it’s here, we’re in it.
Nicole Wallace: Yes.
Jason Bateman: And like all the way up to and including they’re coming for you, like they’re literally knocking on people’s doors today and pulling them out and shipping them off and not just into their home country and get out of here, into a maximum security horror then.
Nicole Wallace: Mm-hmm.
Jason Bateman: So, what do we do about that? It’s really heartbreaking, and I refuse to believe that even though the folks on, you know, the other side are numb to it, they deeply care about this country, just like we do. We all love the flag, we all love the military, we all care about the health of the country.
And I’m just heartbroken that somehow they found a way to shield their eyes and their ears from the current status and that they could be so helpful to fixing that. It doesn’t take a lot of them, just a few of them to kind of say, you know what, my bad, I’ll make a better choice next time. And you don’t even need to admit it.
I mean, that’s why there’s a little curtain you can close behind you when you go in the booth, you know?
And so, I don’t know, it was a great show, and I think he’s done a lot for giving voice to a bunch of people like myself that no one really wants to hear from. It’s like, okay, Hollywood elite, you know, would tell us how you feel about America, but we don’t care about the country any less. And if you can use that uniqueness to speak a little bit clearer, louder to a larger number of people, he’s doing that, and this play is an example of that.
Nicole Wallace: I think Trump is aware of how powerful it is, and I think that’s why he’s so obsessed.
Jason Bateman: Oh, Trump is uniquely aware of what George is doing and it’s a problem, yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Correct. And I think his attacks on Bruce Springsteen for what he said in Manchester at the end of his concert, he’s attacking Beyoncé, I mean, I actually think–
Jason Bateman: Well, and that was a chilling thing. Is that a precursor for a complete IRS? I mean, he’s kind of created the predicate for the IRS going all the way into Beyoncé’s finances, Springsteen’s finances. You know, there’s nothing there, but he set up the predicate for it.
And now, he’s just going to make their financial life miserable and force them to spend a bunch of money to defend themselves.
Nicole Wallace: And this is where I think so much of what they do is designed to chill, right? They want you to both believe that no one wants to hear from Hollywood elites when Trump is deeply interested in Hollywood Elites.
And, two, they want to make the barrier of entry so high so that it’s just not worth it to speak out. And I think that he is acutely aware of how people with large platforms who don’t like what he’s doing do represent a threat to his political support.
Jason Bateman: Yeah. But the problem is that somehow, those people are still kind of inoculated from that information, those voices, those facts. I don’t know how they do it. , I mean, it is by choice, they are by choice keeping themselves insulated from those facts or when they do hear them, they are using their intelligence to discount it and somehow feel more intelligent to imagine that there’s actually a conspiracy and that there’s a deep state and that somehow that’s a more complicated thought and so that makes them feel smarter. It’s like, there’s not some big effort to do America into thinking that Donald Trump is a bad guy, you know, right?
Nicole Wallace: Well, I think what’s amazing too is his family is sort of our original sources, the most that most journalists have is the books written by his niece and nephew, Mary and Fred Trump. So, to the degree that I know anything about his childhood, it’s from reading about them. And to your point, there’s so much, you know, original source material.
We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Jason Bateman. Stay right here.
(BREAK)
Nicole Wallace: You know, I feel like the power of the moral story and the facts all being out there is that, I mean, I always view our show as like a sports bar, right?
Like they have to be open every day. They have to have like the good turkey burger and like the nice fish tacos, it has to be good.
Jason Bateman: Is Homan the turkey burger?
Nicole Wallace: Right, yeah. But it has to be open every day. And, like, we’re not Broadway, right? I do not put on goodnight and good luck, we are not Clooney, right? We are not SmartLess, right?
Well, we will not make you laugh, but, like, we’re there every day. And when people are ready, you know, when the price of everything is so high, that people are like, man, how do we get here and how do we get out of here, like, we’re just going to be there every day. And so, to me, it’s like, how do you keep the doors open and keep it straight enough?
And then that’s why we have all these economists on, like, how do you keep it inviting enough so that when people are ready to come, we’re open and we’re friendly and, like, we have a good meal, if you, you know, haven’t eaten yet, you know, the game’s on? And it’s like, keep it open, keep it friendly and keep it real so that when people are ready, you’re there.
Jason Bateman: And your group, as you put it, your favorite friends and reporters, or what are the phrases?
Nicole Wallace: Yeah, favorite reporters and friends.
Jason Bateman: Yeah. , it a great, great group, so congrats to you and to your team, your staff and whatever you’re doing. You have a great mix of studies that are in there.
Homan included and McCaskill
Nicole Wallace: Yes.
Jason Bateman: And throughout all the shows on MSNBC, it’s–
Nicole Wallace: Thank you.
Jason Bateman: I love it and I know you, guys, are probably all going through a weird time. I hope that morale is as high as it deserves to be over there and you, guys, keep doing what you’re doing.
Nicole Wallace: Thank you. You keep doing everything that you’re doing.
Jason Bateman: Thanks.
Nicole Wallace: We love all of it. I know you’re getting all the buzz. Can you tell us anything about Black Rabbit?
Jason Bateman: Oh, yeah, I can, sure. That is a limited series that have coming out on Netflix in September. It’s an eight-episode show, Jude Law and I play brothers that run a night spot in the Lower East Side.
And, the first episode is a break in at this place and a couple people get shot and they steal a bunch of jewelry and then you flash back six months and you spend a few episodes catching up to that moment and then you reveal who did it, and then the last two episodes are kind of the fallout from that. But it’s really, really well done if I do say so just because there’s so many great people involved with this thing, and I’m super proud of it. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I’m just really excited for it to come out, really, really excited.
Nicole Wallace: And Laura Linney’s involved. Everyone loves you and Laura Linney from Ozark.
Jason Bateman: Yes. I brought her in to direct a couple episodes.
Nicole Wallace: She directs? Yeah.
Jason Bateman: Yeah, yeah. Well, she did. I finally talked to her into doing one on Ozark and it was one of our best episodes ever and it was the first time she’d ever directed anything.
Nicole Wallace: Which one did she, episode?
Jason Bateman: I forget what it was called, but, we get in like this sort of this traffic jam at the end and I just store them out of the car and I walk all huffy towards camera. People remember that we get into this big, huge fight. But she directed two of these in Black Rabbit and was just fantastic.
And she could have very easily said, no, especially once she had done one and she knew how much work it was, but she didn’t, she leaned into it and she said, yeah, I’d love to, it’s just a few blocks from my house and let’s go to and the episodes were incredible, she was awesome.
Nicole Wallace: I can’t wait to see it.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: I went back and watched, the first Ozark
Jason Bateman: Oh yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Because I remembered everything there, but I couldn’t, like in my brain, I was like, I don’t remember how they got there.
Jason Bateman: Right.
Nicole Wallace: So, I watched the first one.
Jason Bateman: Oh, wow.
Nicole Wallace: And I forgot the drop and I like screamed out loud to death
Jason Bateman: Oh, right. The guy that falls off the building, yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah. The robber. And I watched the whole thing and I don’t know if I blocked it out, I don’t know.
Maybe there’s something about how dark it is and like–
Jason Bateman: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Nicole Wallace: –escaping and so I kind, like in the back of my brain, I’m always like, where would I go? And so I had a whole, like really going like from Chicago, like that part of it really, like, spoke to me in a different way, watching it again.
Jason Bateman: So that there’s a body that falls from the 40th floor and hits the pavement.
Nicole Wallace: And like it falls.
Jason Bateman: Yeah. Well, and I wanted to have a dummy, do that. I didn’t want that to be computer-generated.
So, we dropped like a 200-pound dummy from about 300 feet, but we had to put it on cables in case the wind blew it towards me because I was standing pretty close to the landing spot. But then in post-production, the amount of time I spent trying to get the sound right of what a body would sound, I mean, it was a very bleak, some of the stuff we have to go through to get, you know, the authenticity just right. And then in Black Rabbit, kind of semi-spoiler, there is a body that falls, at one point in one of the episodes, and I’m working with the same sound crew, the same mix team.
And so, we grab that file from the first episode of Ozark.
Nicole Wallace: It’s so good.
Jason Bateman: This body drops from not quite as high so we had to adjust the sound a little bit, but, you know, getting that sound just right is dark work, but it’s fun.
Nicole Wallace: Well, it’s so good. And because you’ve, you know, sleeping with your wife, like the reaction isn’t horror, it’s like, it’s just–
Jason Bateman: Oh right, exactly. Yeah, look what you’ve got?
Nicole Wallace: You know, like
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: Yeah. It’s so good. I wonder too, are you totally free from the real world when you’re in those moments when you’re directing or acting?
Jason Bateman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, totally different part of the brain and I truly, truly love doing what I do. They’re directing a little bit more than the acting just because, you know, you’re kind of in charge of what people are hearing and seeing and thinking, hopefully, whereas with the acting, you’re just kind of responsible for your one character. And I don’t mean to imply that people that are actors are doing easy work and directors doing hard work.
It’s many more levers that you’re obligated to know about and prepare for, but also have the privilege to participate in. And so, I love it just because it’s harder and it kind of calls on all the things that I’ve kind of been trying to absorb since I started when I was a little kid.
Nicole Wallace: And I know even though all of your co-anchors, you, guys, give each other so much shit, it’s clear that your sort of longevity as an actor also fuels all the respect you garner as a director. I mean, it feels like it’s very hard for you, guys, to give each other any compliments.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: But even like a person that doesn’t know any of you can feel that come through and attach to you.
Jason Bateman: There is a begrudging, sort of respect for one another.
Nicole Wallace: Respect.
Jason Bateman: Yeah. For sure.
Nicole Wallace: Like it is clear that, like, because you have, you know, played such iconic roles that, I mean, my son knows Arrested Development, he’s 13, like there’s no reason for him, like the things you’ve done have different lives.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: But do you think that coming to directing, I mean, you’ve always directed and acted, but does that make it something that is a faster line to having actors’ respect to you that you feel they’re paying?
Jason Bateman: Perhaps, I mean maybe at a minimum, they can assume that the direction from the director is going to be a little bit more actor-friendly because it is a difficult thing to try to figure out how to speak actor, you know, when somebody is doing a scene where they’re having to maybe play the emotion of jealousy and they’re just, it’s coming across more as, paranoia as opposed to jealousy. And so, like, what word would you say to an actor to get that performance? Like it’s, you know, because we’re all crazy, you know, I mean, I’m nuts.
You know, we’re pretending to be other people. It’s a weird thing. So, it is nice for crazy to talk to crazy.
But, you’re right, me and, Will and Sean, we do give each other a lot of shit, but there is a deep amount of respect for one another. You know, Will just did this really, really cool, tough dramatic and comedic movie that he wrote that Bradley Cooper just directed, who’s an incredible director. Talk about an actor/director, I mean, he’s, I think, one of our finest directors.
And so he just directed that. And so, Will’s got that coming out, like, you know, I don’t want to jinx anything, but like there’s a good shot, like, there’s going to be like nominations for that film. So, Will’s got all the respect in the world I could give. And, Sean, you know, when he did, Good Night Oscar, which is a, play on Broadway last year that he won Tony for, when Will and I went and saw that, you know, Sean’s a classically trained pianist and we’d never really seen him play piano and he plays Rhapsody in Blue at the end of that thing for 10 minutes by himself in the middle of the stage on this grand piano and then the curtain comes down, and Will and I are crying. I looked at Will, I said, well, he’s just ruining the podcast because now we can’t make fun of him anymore, we got too much respect for him.
It was really, really amazing. So, they’re really special guys and, they’re very, very good at what they do, but you wouldn’t know that because they like to play dumb a lot. And I hope, if we do anything well, it’s that we’re just kind of just playing grab-ass and trying to get on with it and ask some decent questions, as the sort of common folks that we are, you know?
Nicole Wallace: I mean, what you guys model in terms of friendship and connection, as busy as you all are, as successful as you all are, I love that.
Jason Bateman: Yeah. I mean, it’s certainly not unique. We all have really close friends.
We’re fortunate that we get to do it in front of a microphone and bring on people that, as I said earlier, wouldn’t normally get a chance to talk to. And the fact that that’s also interesting to the people that listen to us is just really fortunate. So, we get to keep doing it hopefully, you know?
Nicole Wallace: I love it.
Jason Bateman: Yeah.
Nicole Wallace: I hope you, guys, do it for a very long time.
Jason Bateman: Yeah, me too.
Nicole Wallace: Thank you so much for doing this.
Jason Bateman: Thank you for having me. It truly is a pleasure to meet you and hope to do so in-person someday.
Nicole Wallace: It’s such a privilege. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Jason Bateman: All right.
Nicole Wallace: Thank you.
Jason Bateman: All right. Thanks, Nicolle.
Nicole Wallace: Have a good night.
Jason Bateman: Bye.
Nicole Wallace: Thank you so much for listening to The Best People. Be sure to subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcast to get this and other MSNBC podcasts ad-free. As a subscriber, you’ll also get exclusive bonus content that we’re excited to share with you later in this series.
The Best People is produced by Vicki Vergolina, and senior producer, Lisa Ferri, with additional support from Max Jacobs and Anne Gimbel. Our audio engineers are Bob Mallory and Katie Lau, and Bryson Barnes is the head of audio production. Pat Burkey is our senior executive producer of Deadline: White House.
Aisha Turner is the executive producer of MSNBC Audio. Remember to search for The Best People with Nicolle Wallace, wherever you get your podcast and follow the whole series.