Mark Wahlberg was much older in comparison to his cast mates when he starred in the Ted movies. The pair of satirical comedy films thrived on exploring the amusing friendship between a mature 30-something-year-old man and his sentient childhood stuffed animal, Ted. Rightly, Mark Wahlberg fit the role of John Bennett altogether due to his inherent raunchy and raucous comical disposition and how old he was during the time of filming for Ted and Ted 2 respectively.
Audiences can recall how hedonistic the relationship between John and Ted became, and it was made funnier by the ways it stopped Wahlberg’s character from maturing into normal adulthood. Their lifestyle disrupted John’s ability to branch out of their relationship and form healthy romantic partnerships with the women in his life. While Wahlberg may have perfectly fit the bill to play this character, the actresses who played his romantic interests, Mila Kunis in Ted and Amanda Seyfried in Ted 2, were a lot younger than their character counterparts who had the patience to put up with the antics of a grown man and his teddy bear.
Mark Wahlberg Was 39 In Ted (& 42 In Ted 2)
John Bennett was 35 during the first Ted film, nearly two decades older than the age he was when he first wished on the star that brought his childhood toy alive. The movies don’t elaborate extensively on the friendship-building years of a young Bennett and his freshly turned teddy (albeit an upcoming Ted prequel series aims to expand on these events in lieu of a Ted 3 film), but audiences are witness to the especially strong bond between the drug taking, foul-mouthed bear and his adult companion that’s been many years in the making. At the time Ted and John are first introduced in Ted, Mark Wahlberg was similarly in his upper thirties at 39 years of age.
The events of Ted 2 occurred three years later, in the timeline of the story and in real life, making John 39 years old and Mark Wahlberg 42 during filming. Again, the closeness in age Wahlberg was to his character added to the hilarity and accentuated the odd connection John shared with Ted. However, Ted 2 followed in the footsteps of the first film by casting an actress below the age of John’s love interests and well below the age of Mark Wahlberg.
Mark Wahlberg Was Much Older Than Mila Kunis And Amanda Seyfried
Although, the ages of Lori (Kunis) and Samantha (Seyfried) are not totally clarified, John’s love interests are assumed to be somewhere in their 30s as well. Lori was known as the harshly uncompromising businesswoman, and Ted’s deuteragonist, who couldn’t stand how Ted diverted John off the path of normal life. It’s easy to place her as a conventionally mature woman in her 30s, even though Mila Kunis was 27 when the first Ted film was made.
Samantha of Ted 2 could have been thought to be younger with her spunky, almost ditsy, personality, but her legal occupation and years put in to pass the Bar Exam place her somewhere near or in her thirties also. Yet, Amanda Seyfried was even younger at 26 when Ted 2’s filming began. Knowing the tendency of Hollywood to cast women younger, especially in the case of Ted and Ted 2‘s content, is almost as funny as the satirical comedies themselves – that being said, Kunis and Seyfried were great additions to the franchise and were integral to its reception.