Why Hollywood icon Katharine Hepburn told Jason Bateman to 'stop acting'?

Jason Bateman is looking back at a "painful" lesson he received from Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn early in his career.

The 57-year-old actor, who rose to fame as a teen star for his role in 1980s sitcom The Hogan Family, shared the big screen with Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Quinn in the 1994 TV movie This Can't Be Love.

At the time, Jason was only 25, while the Oscar-winning actress was 86.

As Jason shared major scenes with Katharine in the movie, he recalled an emotional scene that required him to cry.

He said on the Good One podcast, "I was really trying, I was really squeezing it."

But in the mid scene, Katherine stopped him and said, “Oh, stop acting!”

At the moment, the simple advice was difficult to hear. Jason admitted he realized later it was valuable.

"Once I was being real and stopped trying to manipulate the audience and whatnot and be raw, it flowed, it worked," he remembered.

"So it was a really great piece of advice that was painful to hear at the beginning, but ended up being very helpful," Jason gushed.

Jason's acting career went a little downhill in the 90s as his multiple TV shows ended after just one season. However, he was back in action with Arrested Development in 2003.

Jason also recently dipped his toes in producing and directing with Netflix's Ozark. In the series, he also played the lead role.