While some may find Seth MacFarlane's Ted series offensive, its lead actor, Max Burkholder, isn't one of them. The new season of Ted is here, and it ups the ante from the last.
However, Burkholder still doesn't think they go too far, as he told ClutchPoints ahead of Ted Season 2's premiere on Peacock on Mar. 5.
“You can say that, yeah, he pushes it too far, and it's shocking, but you go and see some stand-up [comics], especilaly the people who fancy themselves as ‘edge lords' and really [are] trying to push the envelope, that's where you find stuff that's shocking just to be shocking,” Burkholder said. “Seth's stuff, whether it's Family Guy, American Dad!, or anything like that, yeah, there's stuff that's ‘shocking' or ‘taboo,' but it's always smartly written. It's clever, and the joke isn't necessarily at the expense of whatever group or what have you if being talked about.”
The art of this kind of comedy is “getting away with” whatever it is you're saying or writing, as Burkholder explained, citing an interview Anthony Jeselnik did where he cited Andy Warhol's famous quote, “Art is getting away with it.”
Like him or not, MacFarlane has made a career out of getting away with it.
Has Max Burkholder fully found himself in his Ted character?
During our last chat, Burkholder talked about needing some time to get his feet under him before Ted Season 1. After all, he was assuming a role from Mark Wahlberg, whom he has yet to meet.
Luckily, he was ready to go for Season 2. It was filmed on the same soundstage and sets as the first, and he was surrounded by his on-screen family, Alanna Ubach, Scott Grims, and Giorgia Whigham, which helps.
“Second time around really did feel like slipping into old clothes,” Burkholder said.” It really did. It felt like coming back home for sure.”
How he grew even more comfortable in the role
Now, some of this may be due to the intentional lack of character development for his character, John Bennett. If you've seen the Ted movies, you know that the character is still stuck in his degenerate ways in his 30s. It wasn't much better in his teens, even as he heads into his senior year of high school.
“From the beginning of Season 1 to the end of Season 2, there's not a lot of spin that gets put on that ball because we know where we're ending up in the first movie,” Burkholder explained. “The distance to be covered between those two [is] not that huge, especially in terms of maturity. I feel the whole point of the first movie is that he's this immature guy.
“I would say, in terms of what difference there was, especially after watching all of Season 1, I really came to an understanding of, Oh, we're acting this [in] live-action for sure, but the DNA is the same as Family Guy or American Dad! or, likely, the upcoming animated [Ted] series,” he continued.
In many ways, Ted is like a live-action Family Guy, complete with the famous cutaway gags. Knowing this helped Burkholder “not be so concerned with keeping things grounded in this season.”
It could have even improved Burkholder's performance, as he felt freer than ever to “lean into the silliness of it” even more than his first go-around.
Has Max Burkholder been recognized in public yet after Ted went viral?
If you scroll long enough on social media, it's hard not to land on a clip from Ted Season 1. Of course, the movies were popular, having grossed more than $764 million worldwide at the box office, but the show went viral.
Burkholder, a New York resident, was recognized in Washington Square Park, which is a stone's throw away from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Naturally, he was recognized recently before our chat.
“I was hanging out with my dog and this dude [was] clearly exactly our target demographic,” he recalled, setting up the story. “The guy [was a] freshman or sophomore NYU kid, [and he] was like, ‘Oh my God. That's the guy from the ‘Indian kid' clip!' And I'm like, Yeah, nothing about this interaction is shocking at all.”
Fans sliding into his DMs
Unlike John Bennett, Burkholder has become more popular thanks to his role in Ted. He called the “overwhelmingly positive” response to Season 1 “incredible.”
“Coming across it [on social media] is a surreal experience that I think a lot of actors can identify with — just scrolling through Reels or TikTok or YouTube Shorts and coming across a clip of yourself or a friend or a family member; it's always a little bit wild,” said Burkholder.
He also revealed that he's been getting more DMs from fans. The most prominent thing sent is questions about Ted Season 2, more specifically, when it was coming.
Sadly, if you were someone who sent one of these DMs, Burkholder saw them, but he didn't respond. Why? You've got to do your homework to find out.
“I've gotten a bunch of DMs being like, ‘When is Season 2 coming out? I have not responded to them. But I'm just like, Come on, dude. It's one of my only posts,” he quipped. “I don't post that much. You had to scroll down slightly farther from the message button to see what [the release date] is.”
His on-screen family is also like a real family
Sometimes, cast members don't get along as well as portrayed on screen. They're actors, at the end of the day. However, it doesn't sound like that is the case with the cast of Ted.
Burkholder typically does junket interviews for the show with Whigham, who plays John's older cousin, Blaire. Ubach and Grimes play Susan and Matty Bennett, his parents. Of course, MacFarlane voices Ted.
He's naturally closest to Whigham, given their age. They hang out and probably “see each other the most” off-camera out of the cast members.
MacFarlane typically works with familiar actors, with Burkholder pointing out Grims and Whigham, who have both appeared in his Orville series. Maybe he will similarly cast Burkholder in roles outside of Ted.
The shooting days can be “long,” but having a true familial connection helps them go by faster. “You have time to get real close,” he said of the “long” shooting days. “It's real[ly] nice.”
The hardest day of filming
Part of the camaraderie comes from the scenes they've filmed. As for specific scenes that have stood out to Burkholder, he said, “Anything where I have to make extended eye contact with Alana is really tough.”
Ulbach is a master of the craft, not only having a perfect Boston accent, but she also understands the nuances of Susan. Burkholder specifically praised “the things that she can do with her face or just a tiny exclamation of her voice.”
There's a scene in the first season where Susan attempts to have the “birds and bees” conversation with John. It goes as well as you'd expect for these characters.
“I don't know how we ever made [it through] that day,” Burkholder reflected, cringing. “We made [it], which is crazy, but I could not stop cracking up.”
The same can be said of Grimes. They share some scenes in the car in Ted Season 2, and Burkholder couldn't always hold it together while filming them.
How long can the series continue?
Ted Season 2 chronicles John's senior year of high school throughout the eight episodes. By the time Ted begins, John is in his mid-30s, meaning Burkholder's iteration of the character is only about half the age of Wahlberg's version.
Still, it's ultimately up to Peacock and MacFarlane to see how long Ted can go. There's an animated series in the works, which will bring Wahlberg back to voice adult John Bennett.
In short, Burkholder has very little power when it comes to determining the future of the character. In our last interview, he discussed some ideas for John, including a road-trip movie with Ted, and seeing John lose his virginity.
While he couldn't talk specifics, Burkholder did reveal that he “saw dreams come true for this character and just for myself as an actor that I had not seen coming the last time we spoke.” He told viewers to “keep an eye out for that.”
A road trip movie still interests him, with Burkholder throwing the subtitle, John and Ted Take America, off the cuff. If The Mandalorian and Grogu can get a feature film, John and Ted should, too.
The future of the Ted franchise and Max Burkholder
“My guess for myself is that I'm gonna be playing teens and [people in their] 20s until I'm like 50 or 60 years old, and then I'm gonna jump straight to catching up with my actual age,” Burkholder joked. “So, I think I could [play] John for a while.”
At the very least, Burkholder would like to continue playing John through his college years and “early adulthood,” perhaps even into his “early 30s.”
“I think let's go through [the] college years, early adulthood, late 20s, early 30s, until we catch up with Mark Wahlberg in the first movie,” he said, before quipping, “I think by then, I'll have had to get a lot of minor plastic surgery year by year to every so often get slightly closer to looking like Mark Wahlberg until eventually we finish the last bit of John's prequel story the day before it picks up in the movie, and I'm just a dead ringer for him at that point.”
Not meeting Mark Wahlberg could actually be a good thing for Max Burkholder
Jokes aside, Burkholder may have benefited from not meeting Wahlberg. They do share one similarity, as Burkholder explained: they can both “play off of Seth in real time.”
“That really helps sharpen the relationship between [John and Ted],” Burkholder reasoned.
That's not the only thing instilling confidence in him. Burkholder, who can switch between John's Boston accent and his own, has gotten compliments from Bostonians, which is the biggest compliment that he could receive.
How filming Ted compares to other projects Max Burkholder has done
Ted is a unique project. It's on a streaming service, for one, and it also has a big budget due to the CGI elements. Still, they're only doing between seven and eight 30-minute episodes per season.
“I will say, when you're shooting something like this, especially with an animated bear, the production value's really high,” he acknowledged. “There [are] some really big swings happening in the production. And shooting for streaming, it feels wildly different from both movies and network [TV].
“I grew up doing a fair amount of network TV, and it really has a different cadence to it. Not least of all the amount of time between seasons and shooting,” he continued.
Due to the break between seasons (it's been 26 months since the last season dropped), Burkholder needed a refresher before our chat. It's also been a year since the second season of Ted wrapped.
Will there be a Ted Season 3, and what's next for Max Burkholder?
Like everyone in his DMs, the natural question for Burkholder is the status of Ted Season 3. Unfortunately, his hiatus from the character will have to last a little longer.
“No, not yet,” Burkholder said of stepping back into the role since filming Ted Season 2. “Here's hoping, man.”
In our previous chat, Burkholder expressed his desire for a career outside of Ted. Sure, he's had roles in the likes of Parenthood and The Purge, but Ted has raised his profile in a major way.
He's grateful for the role, but he's also clearly not concerned about aging out of the part. Burkholder is also extremely open to continuing to play John, saying it'd be “great” to do so, but his aspirations are to branch out into more “dramatic” work.
Another avenue he's exploring is going behind the camera, something he's already gotten some experience with. He recently directed a short film with his friend, and they're hoping to submit it to upcoming festivals.
Additionally, he's hard at work writing shorts that are heading to festivals. He also teased a secret project coming up in May. Burkholder couldn't say much, but he will be writing, acting, and directing it.
“We'll see if that conviction lasts,” he said, conceding the option of turning back. “It seems like a lot to try and do, even for a short.”
If his track record in Ted is any indication, Burkholder should be able to rise to the occasion. After all, he's made that Boston accent appear natural.
Ted Season 2 is streaming now on Peacock.
