[2] Her acting work included Family Ties, Satisfaction, Men Behaving Badly, The TV Set, Desperate Housewives, and Californication.

She regularly makes guest appearances on USA television including Fox News and Today and is the author of the books Fame: The Hijacking of Reality (2018) and Face: One Square Foot of Skin (2021).

Bateman stated that she was informed by the series' line producer Carol Himes, "You're under contract to Paramount Studios.

Bateman returned to TV with the 2003 Showtime mini-series Out of Order, alongside Eric Stoltz, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy.

In the third-season Arrested Development episode "Family Ties," which was broadcast in February 2006,[7] her character is initially believed to be Michael Bluth's sister, but she turns out to be a prostitute taken advantage of by his father, and pimped by his brother.

Other films include The Night We Never Met, with Matthew Broderick, and The TV Set, with David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver.

She acted in John August's Remnants, Illeana Douglas' IKEA-sponsored Easy to Assemble[9][10] (for which in 2010 Bateman was among the winners of the Streamy Award for Best Ensemble Cast and was nominated for a Streamy Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Web-Series),[11] and Anthony Zuiker's digi-novel series Level 26: Dark Prophecy, in which she plays a tarot card reader.

[21] Bateman co-produced and co-presented with fashion maven Kelly Cutrone on their internet talk show Wake Up and Get Real (WUAGR).

[26] She served on the national board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild until July 2009, when she resigned just before the end of her initial three-year term.

[32] Bateman earned a degree in computer science and digital media management from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2016.

[37] In 2025, Bateman called the behaviour of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle "repulsive" for showing up at a food bank during the January 2025 Southern California Fire in the Pacific Palisades, a section of Los Angeles.