1 of 6 | Max Burkholder (L) and Ted star in “Ted” Season 2, premiering Thursday on Peacock. Photo courtesy of Peacock
Max Burkholder, 28, plays high school senior John Bennett on Ted, returning for Season 2 Thursday on Peacock. Though nearing his 30s, Burkholder has no qualms about slipping back into high school.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Burkholder joked that he would keep playing high school teenagers until he is middle-aged. It is customary for film and television to hire 20-somethings to play teens.
“I think it would be really funny if I kept playing high schoolers until I’m in my 40s or 50s and then immediately jump from playing high schoolers to my own age or older,” Burkholder said. “I think that would be a really funny way for my career to go.”
An actor since he was 3, Burkholder played teenager Max Braverman through his actual teenage years on NBC’s Parenthood. On Ted he plays the character who grows up to be played by Mark Wahlberg in the Ted movies.
“I think Max was/is a lot smarter than John was/is for sure,” Burkholder said. “By the time we end the last season of Parenthood, Max Braverman is a lot further ahead maturity-wise than John is at the end of the second Ted movie, I think.”
John is friends with a teddy bear he wished to life on Christmas when he was 8. As they grew up together, Ted (voice of Seth MacFarlane) became just as foul-mouthed and sexually interested as human teenagers.
The show pinpoints John’s senior year as around 1994, judging by a period-accurate Cosmopolitan magazine seen on screen. Though 1994 was a monumental year culturally, it all feels like history to Burkholder prior to his birth.
“Certainly I like Pulp Fiction,” he said. “It’s a good movie and all the other stuff that came out in recent years behind that, but I would say I’ve got the same level of appreciation for 1994 as I do for most years pre-November 1997.”
Burkholder said John and Ted get into similar trouble in Season 2 as they did in Season 1. Their interests remain consistent.
“There’s going to be some trouble with weed and drugs for sure,” he said. “There’s going to be some trouble with alcohol that happens, 100%.”
When John and Ted smoke bongs, they are using a 0.001% THC marijuana, Burkholder said.
“It is real fake weed,” Burkholder said. “It really is smoking and bubbling. It’s a real bong. It just has no effect.”
The trailer for Season 2 shows some of John and Ted’s new misadventures. In one scene, John calls a phone sex line from the school phone.
900 and 976 numbers gave way to webcams in the 21st century. Still, Burkholder remembers seeing phone sex commercials while watching Family Guy reruns on late night Adult Swim.
“I didn’t fully understand it, being 8, 9 years old, being up at 12:30, 1 in the morning and seeing a commercial come on for a phone sex line,” he said. “Yeah, a little bit before my time.”
John also plays Dungeons & Dragons in another clip. Burkholder teased that John is not a fan, however, Burkholder is the dungeon master for his own real-life role playing group.
“[John] finds, at a certain point, the whole thing a little bit tiresome,” Burkholder said. “Two nights ago, actually I had my players over to have a session furthering our campaign. They ended up inventing raves in a fantasy world.”
Another scene in the trailer shows John shoveling snow. Ted is set in Boston, Mass. but films in Universal City, Calif. with shredded paper for snow.
“It ends up always being one of the hottest days whenever we have to be in the snow,” Burkholder said. “I was sweating through my puffer jacket.”
John and his family speak with Boston accents in the show. Burkholder worked with a dialect coach for both seasons so that the accent itself wouldn’t be one of the show’s jokes.
“We worked hard to make sure it wasn’t a Wahlberg impression and it wasn’t a caricature,” he said.
In his 25-year acting career, Burkholder has worked with MacFarlane several times. As a child, he did voice roles for Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad.
By the time he appeared in an episode of the live-action sci-fi show The Orville, Burkholder had grown significantly.
“From 13 to 19, I look largely the same but I grew a little bit,” Burkholder said. “He could be forgiven for not immediately recognizing.”
Burkholder’s first role was in the Eddie Murphy comedy Daddy Day Care. He said at 3 he did not understand that they were making a movie.
By 6 or 7, Burkholder understood the job and knew he liked it, even though it conflicted with regular childhood activities.
“I was getting pulled out of school for auditions and to work and stuff like that,” he said. “You realize pretty quickly that you’re doing something different.”
Whether or not he gets his wish to keep playing a teenager for 25 more years, Burkholder hopes there are more seasons of Ted. He said Season 2 leaves room for a third.
“If it were up to me, it would be setting up a third, fourth and fifth,” he said. “But that decision lies a little bit above my pay grade.”
