Over a decade ago, Max Burkholder did a table read for Seth MacFarlane's Ted. In a full circle moment, he now stars in the new Peacock prequel series of the same name.
As he joined the Zoom call from his New York City apartment, Burkholder chitchatted about gaming. He mentioned his PlayStation, to which I asked if it was a PS5. He very quickly replied, “Of course!” In some ways, it seemed fitting that Burkholder played a young John Bennett in Ted after he revealed that he reached 100% completion of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in a matter of days.
A long history with Ted creator Seth MacFarlane
It has been a long journey for Burkholder, who's also known for his role in Parenthood.
“[For] a vast majority of my life, I've known him in some capacity,” he said of MacFarlane.
Their collaborative relationship began with Family Guy. Burkholder would voice various “little kid voices,” and that's how he came to participate in the Ted table read.
“I was around the Family Guy offices a lot, because I was doing little kid voices for them, and they needed someone to play the creepy kid at the table read for the first Ted movie,” he recalled.
Years later, Burkholder would reunite with MacFarlane on The Orville. It took MacFarlane a second to recognize him, which Burkholder insists he's not pressed about, but the young actor clearly left an impression on him.
A self-tape audition
Before Ted, Burkholder was going through a lot. He was in college “for a minute,” making a movie called Blush, but ultimately dropped out right before the pandemic. That's when he decided to prioritize his mental health before moving to New York City. He moved to the Big Apple in an effort to act in theater, something he fell in love with during his college tenure and was “starting to get a little momentum going” with before landing his big break.
When it came time to audition for Ted, it came down to a self-taped video. There wasn't a chemistry read with MacFarlane, which is what Burkholder himself expected.
These types of auditions are not Burkholder's cup of tea: “I'm not a cinematographer, I'm not a gaffer. I don't have that skill set, which really helps you out when you're doing self-tapes.”
So, Burkholder does what anyone in his situation would do: Call on some friends.
Boston accents
Amongst those he called was his brother, who has a knack for accents. In this self-tape video, Burkholder's brother was playing the part of Ted, nailing the Boston accent and all.
“My brother is so talented with accents and videos and always has been. He's got a perfect ear for it. So yeah, he was doing the full Ted Boston-dipping-into-Brooklyn-type accent,” Burkholder revealed.
For himself, he went back to an old dialect coach of his. This coach helped him pick up the Boston accent for a role he didn't end up getting. To this day, Burkholder still can channel it like flipping a switch.
Once he sent off his self-tape, it caught fire.
“The tape just kept getting kicked on up the ladder,” he claimed, “which is kind of distressing because it's very unusual.
“Normally, they'll ask for another one or they'll ask you to come in in-person or they'll ask you to do a chemistry read or something like that, and I was getting really nervous,” he continued.
Ultimately, Burkholder got the part. He remembers playing video games and getting a call from an unknown LA phone number When the person on the line asked if he was speaking to Max Burkholder, he got “super indignant.”
Upon realizing he was speaking to Seth MacFarlane himself, Burkholder's tune changed. The phone call left Burkholder standing stock-still for close to a minute before his roommate came home and they celebrated.
“It was one of the top five most joyful days of my life, for sure,” Burkholder said. “Then we went out and got hammered.”
Mark Wahlberg who?
You would think playing a role previously held down by Mark Wahlberg would be intimidating. For Burkholder, that was the least of his worries.
What added pressure to his shoulders was that Ted was his first true leading role.
“It was less about filling somebody's shoes and more about [the fact that this is] the biggest thing that I have ever been at the forefront of. Like, can I hack it?”
This resulted in Burkholder “quaking in my boots” during Ted's first week. Ultimately, the set atmosphere helped him settle into his role.
“I was messing up the accent here and there, but after a little bit I started to settle in, especially because it was such a kind, welcoming, joyful set, which is not always the case,” he recalled. “There was always room to have fun and play around, and that really went a long way towards making me feel comfortable.”
The cast and crew all seemed to have a good camaraderie. Burkholder recalled one day when the whole cast and crew made a day out of scaring his co-star, Giorgia Whigham. They would hide and jump-scare her all day, including one of their wardrobe supervisors (who hid in a trash can with a megaphone and donning an Oscar the Grouch mask).
Improv
That room to “have fun and play around” extended to his ability to improvise. MacFarlane allows for his cast to improvise, and after Burkholder felt comfortable and settled in, he added his own flavor to bits.
“In terms of improv, there was always room for any amount of improv we wanted to do, whether it was like a line of a whole different tangent of jokes,” Burkholder revealed.
He was proud of some of the improv that made it into the show. For example, Burkholder improvised the line in Ted's second episode where John calls a classmate in the bathroom Jesus.
“So as scripted, after I saw, ‘Thank you,' he just says, ‘That's all the thanks I need,' and he just leaves. And then I added in the moment where I call him Jesus and I'm like, ‘I think that's Jesus.'”
Not all improvised lines made it in, though. Burkholder is proud of a bit revolving around a “Clive Hitler” in the phonebook that was cut.
“There's a moment that I improvised that didn't make it in where I'm going, ‘Clive, Clive, Clive, oh, Clive Hitler… Wild that that's never come up. Okay, let's call him,'” Burkholder played out for me in his Boston accent.
Is Ted a long-term role?
Tom Holland is 27 and playing a teenager. As Max Burkholder himself puts it, “I'm 26 playing 16.”
That's not to say that he can't see himself continuing to play John Bennett in future Ted seasons. “I think I've still got a few more years left where I can play a high schooler or a young college student,” he confessed. “I've got the baby face. I know it.”
Ted Season 2 hasn't been confirmed. If it is, Max Burkholder would be “hyped.”
Story ideas
Even if it hasn't been confirmed, that didn't stop Burkholder from listing dream stories for John and Ted. When I spoke to him at the Ted press junket, Burkholder simply said he wants John to get laid in the second season. While he still believes it has to happen, he's open to John continuing to stay a virgin for a while.
“Or [maybe] that's his series arc and he's a virgin until he's 22 in the final season, you know? Some crazy historical event always gets in the way,” Burkholder theorized. “It was the O.J. [Simpson] chase in Season 1, who knows what it'll be in Season 2.”
Other possible ideas are a road trip, with shenanigans, of course — “Obviously, there's always shenanigans,” he cheekily said — once John gets his license in the series, and exploring the freedom that is attained as you go through high school.
“Something just centered around on the idea of senior year in high school usually being the time when everybody starts tasting a little bit of freedom for the first time [with] a greater lack of supervision, a greater sense of mobility and movement and you're able to go places and you're able to do things,” he explained.
One of his specific ideas is John turning 18 and “triumphantly” renting an adult DVD on his own for the first time.
The Mandalorian is making his way to the big screen soon. Perhaps a Ted and John road trip could be a supplementary movie on Peacock in between seasons. If they went this route, Burkholder would be game.
“Yeah, 100%. It's so fun and people seem to love it. There wasn't a day on set where, at least at some point, I wasn't busting a gut laughing,” he said of doing a potential Ted movie. “So being able to continue doing it, whatever the medium, in whatever capacity, whether it's a movie, whether that would be on streaming or theatrical, it's a really fun part, and any opportunity I have to do it more would be welcomed.”
Where does John Bennett go from here?
When we meet John Bennett as played by Mark Wahlberg in the movies, he's a total loser. He spends more time smoking with Ted than working at his dead-end job.
However, Max Burkholder's iteration of the character is still youthful. He's still an endearing kid with dreams and aspirations.
As for those dreams, in Burkholder's head canon, John wants to be a broadcaster. He threw that in during our conversation, to which I was confused whether or not that was teased.
“I pulled that out of my ass, but I feel like if he had a dream job, it would be something like that,” he said with a smile. “His actual first dream job would probably be something like a race car driver, hockey star, something like that. And then as he gets more reality checks growing up, it's like, ‘Well I like sports. Maybe I could do something with that.'”
But what causes such a seismic shift in John's life? Burkholder has some ideas as he himself reaches a similar crossroads in his life.
“He's in [his] junior year in the first season. In any future capacity, he'd be getting a little older,” he began explaining. “I think the moment when people realize that they've sort of lost the opportunity to direct their life and either decide to change that or just sort of settle in, is around how old I am now, like mid-20s. I feel like mid-20s is the part [when] you have your quarter-life crisis, you're like, ‘Do I wanna take charge of where things are going, or do I just kinda wanna let things just happen as they may?'
“So I think it would be something in the mid-20s, maybe he loses the girl he believes to be the love of his life at the time, or, he gets fired from his dream job as a sportscaster, something like that, an event that [leaves him] like, “F**k, I might as well just hang out with my f**king teddy bear for the rest of it,” he concluded.
What's next for Max Burkholder?
Max Burkholder is still enjoying the Ted high. A second season is still an unknown, but he knows going forward, he wants to vary his roles.
“Going forward, I'm going to do as many different types of things as possible,” Burkholder said. “This was my first sort of foray into comedy professionally, but I still love dramatic stuff. I would love to do some sci-fi or some fantasy — those are two of my favorite genres. I want to do it all.
“That's the fun of the job is that everything's so different. So I just want to do everything as of now, nothing in particular coming up. You know, the [SAG-AFTRA] strike lasted for a long time, we got a good deal, thankfully, but it also meant that it was very difficult to get stuff far forward in the future,” he continued.
While he wants to do everything he can, he also acknowledges times are slow. He still kept his head up and seemed ready for whatever was next. “Auditions are slowly rolling back out now, which is nice, but yeah, nothing confirmed as of yet,” he concluded our chat.
Luckily, Ted proved he could lead a series. Hopefully, this is the launching part of a long career for Max Burkholder.
Ted is streaming on Peacock.
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