In the new comedy "Horrible Bosses," opening Friday, Jason Bateman plays a cubicle drone whose employer is so utterly awful, so inescapably sadistic that Bateman begins to contemplate murder.

Which raises the obvious question: In over 30 years of doing this, has Bateman ever had a director he wanted to off?

“Hmmm,” he says, giving that one some thought. “Well, I have been very lucky, I guess. I have not yet worked with anyone I wanted to kill. Maybe a couple I wanted to hire a hitman for, but no, so far nobody I actually wanted to personally murder.”

But Bateman is only slightly kidding — about the hit man part, that is. Because he really has been very, very fortunate.

You can sometimes get a peek into an actor’s approach to life and his work by seeing which words crop up most in an interview.

When I spoke to John C. Reilly recently, it was "journey." When I first met Harrison Ford it was "money," "business" and "job."

With Bateman it’s “lucky.” And “grateful.”

He has reason to be, too. For one long decade, back in the ’90s, Bateman worked constantly, and still got nowhere. He made pilots for shows that went unsold. He did TV movies like “Confessions: Two Faces of Evil.” He starred in four different series — and only one of them, “George & Leo,” managed to last a full season.

“You hit those valleys sometimes and it’s really frustrating,” he says of the long lull. “It’s like getting stuck in traffic on the freeway. But there’s not much you can do about it.”

The 'risky business' years

So, at the time, he did what a lot of impatient twenty-somethings would have done: He drank too much, and partied way too hard. His “Risky Business” years, he calls them now.

“He was pretty wild in those days,” Jennifer Aniston told Details magazine in 2009. Still, she said about her longtime friend, “there was something about those dimples and that sweet face made you go, ‘Oh, it’s okay that you just drove up the street backwards in a Range Rover with the door wide open.’ … You feel instantly safe in his company.”

And, as wild as he was at night, Bateman still always made it to the set the next day; if there is one constant about him, it’s that he likes to — needs to — work.

But, paradoxically, that no-nonsense drive only fed his bad behavior, the frustrations of a stalled career pushing him to blow off steam with another round, another joint, another party.

But then Bateman’s wife, Amanda Anka, pushed him to sober up. And then the actor caught a big break — a part in the cult TV comedy “Arrested Development.” It re-energized his career, and led to a burst of film work. “Horrible Bosses” already has the look of a hit; another comedy, the body-switching farce “The Change-up,” opens in August.

“Sometimes there’s this bizarre divide in Hollywood between TV and movies that’s hard to break through,” says “Bosses” director Seth Gordon. “The two worlds don’t always overlap, and it can be difficult. But Jason, I think he’s on the verge of having a real moment. He’s going to be around for a long, long time.”

Bateman has already been working for a long time, though, without much interruption. Born in Rye, N.Y., in 1969 to a flight attendant and a struggling filmmaker, the family moved out to Hollywood in the ’70s. Jason started getting commercials, his older sister Justine began modeling, and by the early ’80s, both were on hit TV shows.

Family matters

There was only one audience Bateman was ever really thinking of pleasing, though.

“My father was a writer/director/producer, so instead of throwing a ball around, our bonding was going to see movies,” he remembers. “And at an early age, I knew if I wanted to impress my dad, it was not going to be by throwing a ball real far. … So I went to an audition at the age of 10, and got something, and that led to ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and ‘Silver Spoons’ and Justine followed pretty closely, with ‘Family Ties.’ … We were both really, really lucky.”

Not that there weren’t family tensions. Although he did stage work, dad Kent Bateman’s only real film credits had been on exploitation pictures like “The Headless Eyes” and “Love Me … Please!” Even when he got TV jobs — directing his own kids’ shows — most of the family’s income came from Jason and Justine. (“I don’t think there are many people who would say that was a healthy situation,” Jason later told USA Today.)

Eventually, Bateman — who by then was in his fourth TV series, “The Hogan Family” — fired his father as manager and took control of his own career. By the time that show ended in 1991, he was 22, rich, independent, and famous. He was also at a tough stage for any young male performer — trying to make the jump from former teen star to adult actor.

“Those transitions are notoriously difficult,” he admits. “And my 20s were filled with distraction and play and partying. But I guess, by comparison, I had a pretty easy go of it. I still enjoyed acting and I was still working. … I did a pilot almost every year.”

Still, for someone as used to working as Bateman — who had pretty much been holding down a full-time job since he was 12 — the lack of progress was incredibly frustrating.

“It’s a really difficult way to make a living,” he says. “I mean, I think it’s the only profession where your ambition and work ethic count against you, because you come across as desperate. Other jobs, you stay late, you impress the boss and get a raise. Our business, you just look needy. It’s a weird business. It’s very unpredictable and always fresh and never boring, but I would not recommend it to anyone.”

A big break

Then, in 2003, came “Arrested Development,” the edgy Fox sitcom about a deeply dysfunctional family. Bateman was cast as the (relatively) sane adult son and, he says, “obviously it was the most important job of my career. So far it’s also been my favorite, but professionally, it was a career-changer — an absolute godsend.”

The show lasted three seasons and only 53 episodes before going off the air in 2006, although talk of a reunion movie started almost immediately. Bateman says he’d do it in a heartbeat, if the studio and creator Mitch Hurwitz can come to terms. “It’s all about his deal now and I hope they give him everything he asks for,” he says frankly. “He is incredibly talented and not easily amused and we were all lucky that he asked us to join him on this adventure.”

The original show put Bateman back in play, and he quickly started racking up credits. He was the juvenile husband in "Juno," and a nervous FBI agent in "The Kingdom." He was George Clooney's bottom-line boss in "Up in the Air," a flack for a murderous corporation in "State of Play," a husband in therapy in "Couples Retreat" and Aniston's unexpected donor in "The Switch."

The parts show a wide range — Bateman is particularly good in “Smokin’ Aces” as a degenerate, drug-addled attorney — but not everyone in Hollywood seems to recognize that yet.

Straight shooter

Most often, as in “Horrible Bosses,” Bateman is still cast as the straight man — the wry, coolly contained hero who lets the other actors get most of the laughs.

“It’s a position I fill often in comedies,” he says. “You need that character to serve as a kind of proxy for the audience, and also to give the other characters the right to be so absurd — the more solid your straight man is, the further you can go with the jokes. I’m flattered that I’m often asked to take that role on. I like the responsibility of it.”

“It’s really unique to have an actor that brings that amount of rigor to the understanding of story,” Gordon says. “One of Jason’s great gifts is being able to be the audience’s surrogate, the grounded person who brings us into the situation. It’s such a treat and such a pleasure to work with someone who knows and can articulate exactly what that job is.”

Still, Bateman would like even more responsibility. Or, at least, a slightly different one, now and then. The surprising chance to not be “the normal one” on screen for a change. The occasion to do something darker, more dramatic.

“Those parts haven’t come my way as much as the other ones,” he admits. “Until ‘The Change-up,’ I haven’t often gotten the chance of being the bigger, louder, flashier character, but it happens there pretty organically, so if the public likes me in that role, maybe I’ll get the chance to do more. Mostly in this business you’re only offered the sort of parts you’ve already done.”

Which is why Bateman is trying to create parts, by starting a production company and taking a bigger role in originating projects.

“Actors are sellers, and I figured out a long time ago that if you wanted to work a lot you had to be on the buying side,” he says. “Look at what — this is pie-in-the-sky, I know — but look at what Ron Howard did with Imagine. My goal right now is to create a company the way George Clooney and Ben Stiller and Tom Hanks have. It takes a lot of work, but I think my ambition and work ethic is appropriate for that and …”

He catches himself, and catches his breath.

“I don’t want to be obnoxious with my ambition, or sound like I expect any sort of entitlement here,” he says quickly. “Hollywood is not in the business of humoring people. You have to inspire them, and prove yourself, and earn it and then every so often you get a part that lets you show a little more of what you can do. So if that opportunity happens, I stand ready, sir.”

“But basically I’m just grateful to be employed.”