Jason Bateman Was Too Busy Being a Child Star to Graduate High School

Jason Bateman is a versatile star who has appeared in such high-profile movies as Hancock, The Switch, and Horrible Bosses. His status in Hollywood rose even higher after his work in hit series like Arrested Development and Ozark. Bateman is no flash in the pan and has been hard at work in Hollywood for decades. In fact, his career started when he was just 10 years old after he was cast in a series of TV commercials before landing his breakout role in the beloved series Little House on the Prairie, becoming a bonafide child star.

Soon, Bateman was focusing so hard on his acting career that he had little time for anything else — even admitting in an interview with his Horrible Bosses co-star Jennifer Aniston that he didn’t graduate high school because of his work.

Jason Bateman started his career as a child star in TV commercials

Bateman was born in New York in 1969. His family moved to California when he was young, and that was where Bateman got his start in the entertainment industry. As he told Variety, it all began when a neighbor invited Bateman to attend an audition with him to see how the process worked. “They were looking to cast a 10-year-old for a part, and he put some sides in my hand to make it look like I knew what I was doing,” Bateman told the publication.

“Then my dad took some pictures of me and sent them into an agency…I looked like a kid who could sell hamburgers, so they brought me in, gave me some copy for a burger commercial and said, ‘Great,’ and signed me up. I did a year’s worth of commercials after that,” Bateman revealed.

What did Jason Bateman say about not finishing high school?

Not long after, Bateman landed the role of James Cooper in Little House on the Prairie. He acted on the show for years, earning acclaim and establishing his versatility and talent. He went on to act in a number of other television shows, including the popular series Silver Spoons. Bateman became such a busy actor, in fact, that he didn’t graduate high school.

He revealed in a WIRED interview with Jennifer Aniston that he doesn’t have a high school diploma, shocking his fellow actor. “I was doing…interesting story,” he said. “I was doing Teen Wolf 2 during finals of my senior year…and the workload was such that I couldn’t take two of my four finals, so they didn’t give me my diploma.” Bateman joked that years later, the school would “hit him up” for an alumni contribution, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t able to graduate.

Jason Bateman opened up about taking a break from acting

By the time he was an adult, Bateman was already a veteran of the entertainment industry. It was natural, therefore, that he would want a break. During preparations for his hit series Ozark, he became invested in the idea of directing rather than acting, admitting that “acting changed for me a while ago when I started to become disenchanted with pretending to be other people. I’m not interested in tricking you into thinking I’m somebody else. My challenge with acting has now changed into a different goal: to give me another hand on the wheel, along with directing, to steer the audience through the story” (via AP News).

Bateman’s work in the series, both as an actor and as a director, earned him widespread acclaim. These days, he’s one of Hollywood’s top power players, a star who has become a fan favorite “everyman.”