TORONTO FILM FEST '07: Main
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Jason Bateman in The Kingdom Frank Connor/Courtesy of Universal Studios.

Jason Bateman just isn't the guy you expect to see wearing fatigues in the middle of Saudi Arabia, investigating a terrorist attack. And yet the makers of The Kingdom recruited the former Arrested Development star for an elite team of FBI investigators, joining Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, and Jennifer Garner as they navigate a political minefield involving Islamic extremists, government bureaucracy, and harrowing violence in the latest from Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg.

Luckily for us, Bateman kept his trademark sardonic humor in the locked and ready position both in the film and when Premiere sat down with him to discuss his recent forays into the action genre and his desire to see the Bluth family get together one last time.

Is this the first time you've ever been shot at in a movie?
In a movie? I think so. On TV there were a couple of very cheesy "movie of the weeks" that I did where I got shot at. But the one gunshot that I took that I really remember was on Little House on the Prairie when I was about 10. It was the first time I got shot, and I did some incredibly embarrassing, life-scarring death move where — you know how they put a little squib on you? So when the squib went off I took it upon myself to kind of clumsily hurl myself against a wall and drag down the wall, and I think I may have even skittered a little bit on the ground. But I really felt like I was doing great acting work. And Michael Landon was directing that episode, and I'll never forget him just kind of half-chuckling as he yelled "Cut," and he came over and took me aside privately, and he said, "I'm gonna need you to just go ahead and just drop out of frame. Just lay down. I don't need you to go against the wall or anything, and I don't need you to quiver on the ground." It was just very, very embarrassing. Yeah, so I was shot at, but not struck in this movie.

Your character goes through a pretty harrowing ordeal when he's (mild spoiler) kidnapped by Islamic extremists. How tense was that to shoot? Did you have a safe word or anything?
No, I wasn't really being roughed up that much. I was being carried and being dragged. The dragging — I got some linoleum burns on my back. Carpet burns or whatever, that was about the extent of the pain. Otherwise, I was just kind of duct-taped around the wrists, which I could easily pull apart, and some around the mouth I could take off. It was just me having to, in the last 15 seconds before we rolled, get myself into the place of, "Oh my god, you're taped up and you're about to get your head chopped off," you know? But, again, you get yourself too far into that place and then you're overacting. It's all crap, it's all stupid acting. They yell "Cut," and you're back cracking jokes again and eating craft service. It's not that difficult. The difficult part was being covered in all that fake sweat and blood — it's icky, and it gets in your underwear, and the shower takes a half hour when you get home. It's awful.

Despite the subject matter, there are times when you and the other actors seem to have a relaxed camaraderie. Was the set that way as well?
It was very loose. The brass can take credit for that. Pete Berg and [producers] Michael Mann and Scott Stuber — everybody just kept it very, very light. And Jamie Foxx is just one of the nicest people on the planet, as are Chris and Jen — so, yeah, it was very, very easy, and it needed to be. We needed to keep each other laughing as we sweated out 10 pounds of body weight a day. And Pete's just a blast, he's one of us, loves doing what he does. The crew loves him. He's not a yeller. It was a dream.