For A Hot Second, Jason Bateman Accidentally Won An Emmy In A Technical Mishap

Due to our new COVID reality, the Emmys had a daunting task ahead of it when it decided to soldier forward and continue on with this years awards. While Jimmy Kimmel took the reins of the Primetime Emmy Awards show, which managed to scale down as rewards were presented virtually, the Creative Arts Emmy were an entirely different beast.

Spread out over five nights of four one-hour online streams before concluding with a two-hour telecast that aired Saturday night on FXX, the Creative Arts Emmy managed to chug along without any major problems until the last stretch. During the award for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series, Jason Bateman was accidentally named by an announcer as the winner for his work on The Outsider, but the title card actually said Ron Cephas Jones. Turns out Jones was the real winner for his spot on This Is Us, which forced the virtual show to quickly scramble to fix its mistake.

You can see a video of the mix-up below:

— Patrick Gomez (@PatrickGomezLA) September 20, 2020

So for a brief moment, Bateman was an Emmy winner, and then he wasn’t. But we’re sure the actor took it in stride, especially with bigger things on his plate. Bateman made the decision to fire up production on the fourth season of Ozark, which will have difficulties of its own as the set adapts to new COVID safety protocols. The decision has already caused Bateman to make one personal sacrifice: No longer directing the first two episodes as he’s done for prior seasons.

“[A]s we were looking through the protocols, the guidelines, all the complications with COVID, [and] the producer side of me made me think it’s just not responsible to have one of the actors direct the first two,” he told IndieWire. “Given that we’re still going to be getting our perimeter safe. Because if one of the actors gets sick, we all have to go home for weeks.”

However, should a crew member get sick, Bateman can “[make] sure their salary is protected” as the show continues with, hopefully, just a minor shutdown.