When it came to playing the chaotic and charismatic Vince Friedkin in the limited drama series Black Rabbit, Jason Bateman found one particular method that really helped him get into character.
“The quick hack for me was just to separate my jaws,” Bateman tells Krista Smith during a recent episode of Skip Intro. Since Bateman jumps between directing and co-starring in the series alongside Jude Law, he needed a simple trick to slide back into Vince’s shoes. “If you just open up your mouth a little bit, you’re Vince. Vince never has his lips together. He’s either talking or he’s mouth-breathing. Most people are aware of not wanting to look like they’re in the middle of trying to figure something out — but he always is.”
It’s an accurate description of Vince’s character. When we meet gambling addict Vince, he’s grappling with debt and headed back to New York City, in need of his brother Jake’s (Law) financial help. Soon enough, Vince has dragged restaurant owner Jake down into the depths of the city’s criminal underworld, as Vince tries to keep mobster debt collectors at bay, and Jake tries to keep his business, the up-and-coming Black Rabbit restaurant, afloat.
“These two guys are less capable than most of the people watching [them are],” says Bateman. “They just don’t have the coping skills that a more functional person does. If they did, it’d be a shorter show. They’d probably make a pragmatic decision and that would be the end of their problem.”
Luckily for viewers, it takes Jake and Vince eight tense episodes to attempt to unravel their messes. “You’re tracking a pretty sticky plot all the way through,” says Bateman. “There’s a bag of money and a gun. I’m a caveman; I love that stuff. It really moves.”
Beyond the fast-paced spiral is an emotional arc, a true “love story between these two brothers.” And Bateman believes it’s the brothers’ incompetence that endears them to the audience. “One is a little bit better at faking it than the other one. Maybe between the two of them, they would make a good brother. I knew that that would be winning.”
In addition to playing such a delightful “simpleton,” what really excited Bateman about working on Black Rabbit was the opportunity to direct and dive into the show’s mood and aesthetic. “There was a lot of grit to this, which I really like, a lot of danger and unsettling moments and conflict,” he says.
And then there was Jude Law. “I'd never met Jude before, and I’ve been a fan of his forever,” shares Bateman, who likens the sense he had about working with Law to working with Ozark co-star Laura Linney (who also directs two episodes of Black Rabbit). “I knew that she would really be this great recruiting element for the rest of the cast, and it would be a really clear declaration to the audience of what the show is and what it isn’t, as far as her pedigree goes. I knew that Jude would be of quality to the audience, that, ‘Oh, this is a Jude Law thing. Well, it probably doesn’t suck. It’s probably pretty good, otherwise he wouldn’t do it.’ ”
Also pretty good? Vince’s shaggy rock-star hair, which the actor admits his wife prefers to his usual tidier look. “It probably means she’d like to be going to bed with somebody different after 25 years,” he jokes. “So if I look like somebody that just got off a stage and unplugged his guitar, all the better.”
Stream Black Rabbit now. And watch Bateman on Skip Intro above.
