Bateman Aims to Remodel His Sitcom Image With ‘A Killing’

Jason Bateman is more than a bit frazzled.

The former teen dream of such sitcoms as “The Hogan Family” and “Silver Spoons” is going slightly bonkers remodeling and redecorating his house.

“My girlfriend of six years finally moved in a few months ago,” Bateman, 23, explains. “Up to that point, I was pretty benign with modeling. I put up some tile, but the woman’s touch is coming in now.”

One of the first things to go was Bateman’s basketball court, which was located in his living room. “My girlfriend moved in and the hoops came down,” Bateman says, laughing. “Paint is going on the wall, the carpet is being pulled up and the hardwood floor is getting shined. Boy, it’s a lot of work.”

The baby brother of Justine (“Family Ties”) Bateman also is in on a mission to change his image as a comedic sitcom actor. He and another former child star, Henry (“E.T.”) Thomas, go dramatic in Wednesday’s USA thriller “A Taste for Killing,” in which they play law-school-bound college graduates whose summer jobs on a Texas oil rig lead to murder.

“It is a different course (for me) because it is dramatic,” Bateman says. He admits when he started acting at 10, he thought he would only be a dramatic actor. “I started on ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ and that is where I first got ‘atta boy’ and a pat on the back for dramatic work. My comedic stuff basically came out of being a boy, a cut-up and a class clown.”

Bateman, who also will be seen later this year as a dying teen-ager in the road movie “Breaking the Rules,” is eager to do another TV series but on his terms. “I want to make the next step if I am going to do another series,” he says. “I have always made the next step as far as TV series are concerned. ‘Hogan Family’ was my fourth and I wouldn’t mind doing a one-camera, one-hour episodic dramatic thing for my fifth. I would like to grow up just a little bit with my aspirations.”