Jason Bateman Teases Ozark and Helps Jimmy Fallon With His Jason Bateman Impression

This week's SNL host Jason Bateman stopped by The Tonight Show Thursday night and gave a little hint about what to expect when Ozark returns for its super-sized final season.

"The writers, I don't know how they keep escalating the danger without killing us or putting us in jail," Bateman said. "We make as many mistakes as you possiby can without getting killed or incarcerated. So we've got more in store... we're two weeks into shooting. It's gonna be the last year, but we're gonna do 14 instead of 10 episodes and we're gonna split them up in two, so it'll be seven and seven. So it really will be like Season 4 and Season 5, but they're shorter. But we do land the plane in a very satisfactory way."

On the audience appeal of Marty Byrde, Bateman offered: "He has got incredible hair... He's us, hopefully. He's a middle-aged dude trying to get on with it with his kids and his wife and keep them alive and be a provider, and then he's probably a little bit dumber than he thinks he is, so he backs into some bad decisions, but he thinks they're good decisions. Then he's gotta pay the price for cutting corners and stuff like that."

Earlier in the week, Jimmy Fallon played a 'guess the impression' game with Nick Kroll, and one of the names that came up for Fallon was Jason Bateman. Fallon doesn't normally do a Jason Bateman impression — no one really does a Jason Bateman impression — but he actually did a decent job.

Naturally, with Bateman himself in the studio, Fallon just had to show it to him.

"This is gonna be hurtful," Bateman said before seeing it. "Impressions are not complimentary, Jimmy."

After watching Fallon's relatively subtle impression, Bateman was grateful. "That was very kind of you. You didn't exaggerate any horrible feature. You did the stutter a little bit, right? That's just a little actor trick to make it seem like the lines aren't written. Like, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just thinking about it. Just stutter a couple times, then you can get nominated for stuff. It's just a stutter away, everybody!"

Another tip he gave Fallon: "Always exercising patience with the stupid people I'm surrounded with, right? But so the audience doesn't hate him, I have to show flashes of stupidity just after that. It's a blend."

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.