Michael Muller/Contour by Getty Images

The creator of the late, great seriesadmits he was reluctant to audition Jason Bateman for the role of Michael Bluth. "I think he had done, like, 13 failed pilots," says Mitchell Hurwitz, "and when I saw his name on the sign-in sheet, I thought, Oooh, no, I don't want to read Jason Bateman here. I want to do something really special here and take a risk." Then Bateman nailed it. "He was dry and spot-on and subtle and had such a developed sense of humor."

It does not come as a surprise that Bateman is funny. His peers clamor to offer comments about this, about him, and, please know, this is unheard-of. "Am I too late?" Hurwitz asks in a breathless e-mail. "You don't get to praise Jason face-to-face. He tricks you into talking about yourself. So please let me get something on the record so he knows how much I love him."

Charlize Theron, his love interest in both last summer's Hancock and a story line of Arrested, e-mails while on vacation to say that his acting made her "pee my pants laughing." Ellen Page takes a break from a Canadian hike to call and establish that "he has a dirty sense of humor, but he gets away with it because he's so adorable." Jennifer Garner e-mails: "He happens to be an excellent actor who is also hilarious." And Portia de Rossi refers to him as "one of the most naturally funny people I know, and, believe me, I know some naturally funny people." She's calling from Ellen DeGeneres' dressing room.

"No one takes the piss better than J.B.," says his good friend and Arrested Development older brother, Will Arnett. "I can be feeling on top of the world, my clothes nice and pressed, and he comes out and asks, `Hey man, do they make that in a men's?' "

Bateman at 40 is 98 percent handsome, one percent crow's-feet, one percent freckles, with a seal-pelt-like head of hair that he credits for doing most of his work for him: "Well, shit, if I can part my hair, I don't have to act as much: `The guy is a dork.' Now I just need to talk." This month, he will appear with Russell Crowe in State of Play as a bisexual club promoter with an OxyContin addiction ("Got it!"), and he's busy shooting the comedy Couples Retreat with Vince Vaughn and gearing up for the Arrested Development movie. On the show, he could get the audience on his side by engaging the tiniest muscle in his forehead, or flexing his Adam's apple. His movie roles, too, showcase his kind of slow-burn sarcasm and minimalism. (Has any guy ever established himself to be a bigger asshole in fewer words than when he offered, all matter-of-fact, "Cold feet" in Juno?) He started working in Hollywood at age 10 on Little House on the Prairie. Then came Silver Spoons, the underappreciated It's Your Move, that Valerie Harper show...and then not much in his twenties and early thirties.

He had to squeeze in a deferred adolescence sometime—the one he didn't have time for as a family breadwinner. His father managed his career and his sister Justine's (she played the beautiful, ditzy sister on Family Ties). His mother, a former flight attendant, became his set-sitter. "My parents weren't making as much money as I was making," he says, straddling a bench in the Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. "Who does? It's a huge amount of money." And it was hugely stressful to earn it. "When you're a child actor, if you don't have a C average, you lose your work permit, you're off the show, and I think they can sue you, because you are shutting down a television series," he says. "So anytime there was a major grading period, I have very vivid memories of just stomach-churning and tears and knowing that if I don't pass these tests.... We were living hand-to-mouth. Or Los Angeles hand-to-mouth. Miss a payment on the mortgage, and you're gone."

Michael Muller/Contour by Getty Images

So who does that to a kid? "Obviously, in hindsight, it was a challenging way to be brought up," he allows. "Having said that, I am very, very happy with who I am and my relationship with my parents. Who hasn't had an atypical upbringing?" He tends to ask and answer his own questions, and they're probably the same questions some shrink posed to him: "Was I the ideal age to be presented with a huge challenge like that? I was probably a little young."

Which explains why he was a little too old when he began "playing as hard as I had been working. That involved anything you can imagine. How many clubs can you go to? How many drinks can you have? How many superhot chicks can you go home with? After a while, it's not cute. After 30, it's really not cute." At times, he considered selling everything he owned and heading to the international terminal at LAX to choose a city where he could start over.

"So many people who had teenage careers end up the subject of some VH1 show. What happened to him is miraculous," says director Jason Reitman, who cast Bateman in Juno. "He figured out who he was as an adult, and who he was was a spectacularly self-aware, funny guy."

He's also a sincere guy, especially when he's talking about his wife, Amanda Anka, a voice-over actress and the female voice of NBC's prime time. They married in 2001 but had known each other since high school (her father is the singer Paul Anka). "Once I got my shit together, I knew she might be a fantastic candidate for the better half of my life. I only wanted to get married once, so I had to look for someone with longevity, which would be a friend. And a friend that I really want to sleep with, too—then that's the ticket." As for her wanting to sleep with him? "There are pills for that."

The only topic that he's any sweeter on is their two-year-old daughter, Francesca. The merest mention of the Gap ad and billboard featuring the two of them makes his already wide grin stretch about three sizes. "Anyone who has a kid, when friends ask you if you have a picture, you go, `Yeahyeahyeah,' and whip out your phone to show off. This was that times ten. Look up there. She's mine." he says. "And I love her." Neither he nor Arnett have forgotten that when Arnett and his wife, Amy Poehler, were featured in the Gap's 2007 campaign, their billboard was in a higher profile Los Angeles location. "They got the Sunset building," Bateman says. "We got Hollywood Highlands. It's a close second." Not that he minds. "If I can be number two or four or five—in State of Play, I think I'm sixth—it doesn't matter; I just want to be in it. I am trying to keep that ball rolling and not screw things up, and not ever have my name get in the way again. Because that's something you just can't fix."

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