Love Stories: The 'annoyingly unpredictable' habit that almost derailed Jason Bateman's marriage to Amanda Anka

When Jason Bateman admitted recently he was left with no choice but to give up drugs and alcohol to save his marriage, it offered a rare glimpse into his personal life.

The actor, who started out as a child star in a range of TV shows in the '80s and '90s before cementing his fame as a comedy actor and later star of drama series Ozark, has been married to actress Amanda Anka since 2001.

But their marriage, which has produced two children, almost didn't last beyond its first years due to Bateman's partying. Let's look at everything we know about one of Hollywood's most enduring marriages.

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Bateman was born on January 14, 1969, in New York state to Victoria Elizabeth, a British-born flight attendant for Pan Am and Kent Bateman, an actor, writer, and film and TV director.

His older sister Justine is an actress who also found fame as a teen on the TV series Family Ties, which starred Michael J Fox.

The family moved around before landing in LA, where Bateman's career started with a 21-episode run in Little House on the Prairie, then the '80s hit sitcom, Silver Spoons, as Ricky Shroder's character's best friend.

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He worked steadily throughout the '80s, and was the family's main breadwinner, something he said caused anxiety.

During his last year of school, he won a starring role in the 1987 film Teen Wolf Too, which his father produced. Filming meant he never finished high school or got a diploma, and after the movie bombed, he professionally parted ways with his father, who was also his manager.

He continued to work in the early '90s, most notably in the long-running show Valerie, which later changed its name to The Hogan Family after its star Valerie Harper left.

In 1997, he began dating Anka, the daughter of singer-songwriter Paul Anka. She once played a vampire in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and appeared in three episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, among her many TV guest roles.

The two had first met a decade earlier at an ice hockey game in LA but they didn't start dating at the time, with Anka explaining why in a 2013 interview with GQ.

"I just wasn't into where he was at," she told GQ in 2013.

She was referring to his famed partying, which he spoke about in the same interview.

"I had all the money a 21-year-old could ever want, and I'd moved out when I was 18," he said.

"I spent 10 or 15 years having so much fun with all of my buddies and obviously losing my place in the business."

He and Anka married in Malibu in 2001, with the nuptials reported in People.

He told The Daily Telegraph in 2014, "I wanted to marry somebody who wasn't someone I had to be in any particular mood to want to be around.

"With close friends, you can be with them no matter what mood you're in. I just waited until I found a girl that really was that in my life.

"Amanda is and that's why it feels so effortless. It gets better every single year."

During the early years of their marriage, it was Anka who was the main breadwinner while Bateman mostly partied.

Then he auditioned for a role in a new show, Arrested Development, and despite thinking he would not be the right fit, he nailed it.

He told The Hollywood Reporter that a year or so later, he decided to give up drugs and alcohol, partly due to Anka's insistence.

"I was conscious the whole time of wanting to get a lot of these boxes checked before I became a father and a guy with a career that I not only wanted but had a feeling I might be able to get it if I just got the right job," he said.

"Amanda and I definitely had a few negotiations about the point at which the [partying] spigot was going to completely turn off.

"She'd be like, 'This drip, drip, drip is annoyingly unpredictable, Jason'.

"She didn't demand that I completely absolve, but that was sort of the back-and-forth, and I was like, well, I feel like my [sobriety] ETA is six months away, but if I could land this plane now, it would alleviate a lot of the tension, so let's just f--king do it."

Once he was sober, the couple welcomed their first child, daughter Francesca, or Franny, in October 2006.

A second daughter, Maple, arrived in February 2012.

Bateman told Redbook in 2013, he was a "big fan of marriage and being a dad".

"Being a father of two is everything I wanted," he said.

"And my wife, Amanda, makes those things easy. She spoils me; she makes the husband part simple.

"Our marriage has defied the odds and works really well. We are really aware of our boundaries. We know how to bug each other and not bug each other.

"With a girlfriend, you get into a fight, you drive away. With us, we learn to fight quickly or not at all.

"I wanted to marry a friend. Friends last longer."

His role in Arrested Development continued until 2019.

During that time, he also took on screen roles, first as a supporting actor in Juno, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Starsky & Hutch and The Break-Up, before reaching leading man status in the 2010 romantic comedy The Switch, which co-starred close friend Jennifer Aniston.

Then came roles in comedies Horrible Bosses, The Change-Up, Identity Thief and This Is Where I Leave You, before he switched back to dramatic roles in The Gift.

But it was his Netflix show Ozark, which he starred in and directed, that brought more fans and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

He has since directed and produced a number of projects, and has his own production company Aggregate Films, as well as a very successful podcast, SmartLess, alongside longtime friend and costar Will Arnett and Sean Hayes.

He was recently forced to apologise over an interview on the podcast with Charli XCX, in which he repeatedly asked if she planned to have kids, then suggested she might once she met the right person, even though she just got married.

Among the couple's closest friends is Jennifer Aniston.

Aniston and Bateman first met in their 20s, and are so close they refer to each other as "chosen family".

Bateman has also described her as 'co-mum' to his and Anka's two kids.

Anka later moved from acting to producing, and is credited as a co-producer on 19 episodes of the series The Morning Show.

But she mainly stays out of the spotlight, although she did agree to chat about Bateman to GQ in 2013.

"He's not selling a six-pack. He's not selling an image. He's the 'Everyman's guy'," she said, adding he "became emotional" when he learned he was going to direct the 2013 film Bad Words.

"He's the most sensitive, generous man without being fragile, which is interesting to me.

"We disagree all the time. I think he secretly likes it. I think he likes that it doesn't bore him, that we're not just agreeing on everything."

She also disclosed his motto in life: "It's not going to work out the way you think, but it'll work out the way it should".

During the same interview, he said his wife took a step back from her career to raise their family.

"She on purpose slowed things down to have a couple of kids," he said.

"And by the time she wanted to make a more concerted effort to get back into the workplace, I think her passion for it had waned a bit."

In 2017, Anka and their children were by his side to watch as he received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Two years later, when accepting the 2019 Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series for Ozark, he said his career "wouldn't be possible" without his wife.

"Amanda, Franny and Maple, without you, none of it would be enjoyable and it probably wouldn't be possible," he said, per People.

"I love you more than I even tell you I do."

The couple lives in a Beverly Hills home they purchased in 2013, but they have been busily buying up neighbouring homes; first in 2018 and again in 2025.

They can certainly afford it, with Bateman's net worth now about $84 million.

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