Jason Bateman has been a popular star since he was a child and became a familiar face on our screens in the following decades. He has an enviable TV and movie track record but does he speak Spanish or any other foreign language?
It’s thought that Jason Bateman does not speak Spanish, nor can we find evidence of him speaking any language other than English. The closest thing to Bateman speaking another language is his use of slang in “Ozark”, some of which he explains in a fun YouTube video alongside his co-stars from the series.
For more about Jason Bateman’s family background and a look at some of the slang from “Ozark”, keep reading..
Family
Jason Bateman was born in Rye, New York on 14 January 1969, the younger of two children in a show business family. His sister, Justine Bateman, was also a sitcom star in her youth, starring alongside Michael J Fox in “Family Ties” between 1982 and 1989.
His father, Kent Bateman, was an American movie producer, working for Ealing Films. His mother, Victoria Elizabeth, was originally from Shrewsbury in England and worked as a flight attendant for Pan Am.
There is no obvious source of a foreign language in Jason’s immediate family. As such, it’s probably safe to assume that the Bateman family spoke English at home and continued to do so throughout his upbringing.
While Bateman has portrayed a vast number of different roles across his four decade career, speaking Spanish extensively has not been a requirement in any that we can recall.
Ozark Slang
Although he seemingly doesn’t speak Spanish (or any language other than English), Bateman did have to learn a lot of new slang for his role in “Ozark”.
The Netflix series follows Bateman’s character Martin “Marty” Byrde, a financial advisor who is indebted to a Mexican drug cartel after a money laundering scheme goes awry.
His scheme to repay the cartel is to set up another, bigger laundering operation in central Missouri, in the Lake of the Ozarks region. Marty and his family are forced to interact with numerous local criminals and the region’s unique dialect is a character in its own right.
Vanity Fair uploaded a YouTube video of Jason Bateman, along with costars Laura Linney and Julia Garner, explaining some of the series’ wide array of local and criminal slang. While it’s all English, much of it seems as difficult to remember as learning a different language.
Ozark slang aside, Jason Bateman has only provided us with evidence that he speaks English and no other language. While he might one day surprise us with a vast knowledge of another language in an interview or a movie role, for now we have to take him at face value and assume that he does not speak Spanish.