The Ozark series star, Jason Bateman has had a lot of success in Hollywood. Starting out as a child actor, growing up in a Hollywood family, as his father, Kent Bateman is a film producer and director, he sure had great chances in life, but he probably wouldn’t have made it this far, despite the opportunities he had, if not for one person.
In his acceptance speech when he when won the SAG award in 2019, Bateman had said about his wife and their two daughters, Franny and Maple: ‘without you, none of it would be enjoyable and it probably wouldn’t be possible…I love you more than I even tell you I do.’
Let’s find out if his comments about his wife are true or not.
About Amanda Anka
Born in New York on 10 December 1968, to Canadian-American father Paul Anka, and an Lebanese mother, Anne de Zagreb, Amanda Katherine Anka is the second of six children–five girls and a step-brother. Her parents’ divorce in the year 2000 made the headlines, and her family rather the more popular.
Her father is a popular singer, who had a series of hit songs to his name in the 1950s, such as “Puppy Love” and “put your head on my shoulder”. Her mother was a model and an art lover in her lifetime before she died in 2017.
Growing up in an artistic environment must have helped Amanda discover her own creativity as an actor early enough. In 1992 at the age of 24, she had her first screen role, rising to stardom when she featured in the film “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Also, in 1997 she acted in the movie “Lost Highway”, a French-American neo-noir film, after which she acted as Deputy Sheriff Mina in “Cherry Falls” movie. In the same year, she appeared as Venus, in “Venus in Bob’s Video”. 2004 had her appearing in the film “Taxi” She has appeared in several other movies such as “Bones” (2001), “Ingenious”(2009), “Somewhere”(2010), “Light Bulb” (2013), and most recently “The Batman”(2022), to mention a few. She also co-produces AppleTV’s “The morning show”.
Her net worth as of 2022 is estimated at close to $30 million, according to ABTC.
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How they met
Amanda Anka and Jason Bateman’s first meeting was in the year 1988, at a hockey game in Los Angeles. At that time, Bateman and Amanda were both teenagers –around 18 years at the time, so they were just casual friends for about ten years before they started dating in 1998.
When they met, Bateman was at a point where he was struggling with his identity. He had moved out of his parent’s home at the time and he was living life as it came. Growing up in the face of the camera did a lot to him. He recounts on GQ that it made him pretend to be other people, as he struggled with alcohol and drugs, partying hard with friends and spending lavishly. This is one reason he personally does’ot recommend that children be put into the business of entertainment by their parents. He was literally a confused young adult trying to find his identity, and didn’t know how to navigate through.
In an interview with GQ, he also describes this period of his life as ‘living as if his parents had left town and left him a huge amount of money, with access to all the cars they had and there was no date to the time they would return.’
He spent money as he wanted, because he had lots. He partied like there was no tomorrow and was on drugs. He said in an interview with The Daily Telegram, ‘I was more interested in catching up on all the time I had lost when I was a kid, instead of building on the professional moment I was experiencing.’
Opening up about this time, between the ages 20 to 30, he said he was depressed because he was getting out of business but he cleared that the partying and drugs were not meant to mask the pain, but he was just having fun and living his life.
As to why Amanda Anka never considered being in a romantic relationship with him earlier than 1998, she said ‘I wasn’t into where he was at that time’, referring to his reckless living, as she didn’t love the idea.
After three years of dating, they married in 2001.
As Bateman had been losing job opportunities due to his carefree lifestyle, and spending without making more money, he ran out of money with time.
Bateman planned using the money left from his early success to start off a venture like a restaurant business when in 2001he was cast for a part of the project “Arrested Development”.
Marrying Amanda did not automatically change Bateman; he still partied and took drugs. His turn around time came about a year later – Amanda, who had lost her previous boyfriends to drug abuse, insisted Bateman quit drugs and partying altogether, but the latter was going to do so at his pace, if at all. At this point, Amanda made a drastic decision – at Christmas, she changed their plan and travelled alone to Mexico, leaving Bateman out of their planned vacation. Bateman, scared that his marriage may fail had to make a quick decision. In an interview with GQ, he remembered having to choose between two options by answering this question: ‘do you want to continue to being great at being in our 20s or do you want to step up and graduate into adulthood?’
He made the right decision, to quit drugs from that moment after meeting an old friend who had just gotten sober.
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According to digital spy, he said ‘meeting my wife was the best thing that could ever happen to me…I stopped drinking and started living like a decent guy.’
It was after Bateman sobered up that he got the chance to join the “Arrested Development” series. This was the point his career was revived, as it restored his credibility and saved his career from crumbling.
In an interview, he had said, ‘then I got very, very lucky when Arrested Development came along. That series saved my career– it gave me back my credibility I used to have when I was much younger, and before people gave up on me as a party guy in Hollywood.’
Today, Bateman is among the most celebrated actors in Hollywood, all thanks to his wife, Amanda Anka. Not only has she been instrumental to his rising, but she’s also instrumental to his being sustained in the industry.
According to US magazine, Bateman shares that Amanda has been the one looking after their two girls every time he’s away, affording him time to focus on his career, and making sure that his absence isn’t so felt on the home front. He says about her ‘she’s got a fulltime career herself, and she is able to be a full-time mom and she’s almost a full-time dad too…that reminds me that I’ve got a real strong example to live up to.’
They’ve been married for over two decades, and still enjoy being together. Bateman credits this to friendship. He says their secret is that he married his best friend, with whom he doesn’t have to be in any special mood.
