Jason Bateman 'Would Love to Play a Woman'

In an interview for The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actor Roundtable, published on Thursday, the mag’s TV editor Lacey Rose asked Jason Bateman, Darren Criss, Jeff Daniels, Michael B. Jordan, Matthew Rhys, and J.K. Simmons what kinds of roles they wish Hollywood would cast them in, ideally.

Criss told THR, “Give me a sword and armor or put me in a hat.” (Somebody get this man a sword and armor or a hat!!) Rhys was as specific as Criss was vague—he referenced a project he’s trying to get off the ground about Welsh philanthropist and attempted wife murderer Griffith Jenkins Griffith. Bateman, who stars in the un-cancelable Arrested Development (and nearly half a dozen movies with Jennifer Aniston I have mostly not seen), said he’d “love to play a woman”:

I’m really enjoying being in this one specific lane, which is the audience’s proxy, like just a normal guy who gets to inhabit the center of the story and is your lens through which you are observing and experiencing this odd plot or group of people or scary guy or funny guy. I’m really enjoying that as opposed to playing a bunch of different characters. Having said that, I’d love to play a woman…[b]ut in a very real way. Like a Tootsie version of it would be pretty cool where there’s a wink to it but then also the plane lands every once in a while and there’s some real introspection there. Not to suggest that film needs to get redone, which it should never.

To recap: Man plays woman. Man who plays woman harasses and mistreats a bunch of women he works with. Other man defends the first man’s behavior, and now this other man wants to play a woman, too. Cool.

In the words of A Snake, “I’ll have the tail.”