Mila Kunis Reveals She Got Older After Her Role in the Comedy Movie Ted. Family man creator Seth MacFarlane made his live-action directorial debut with Ted in 2012 and the film was a box office success that is remembered as a classic of its time. The comedy featured Mark Wahlberg in his hometown of Boston as John Bennet, a slacker with a live teddy bear named Ted (MacFarlane) as a best friend and bad influence. Kunis starred opposite Wahlberg as his girlfriend Lori, though she didn’t return for the 2015 sequel Ted 2.
Kunis has been working with MacFarlane for a long time on Family manplayed Meg Griffin since 1999. Because many of the Ted cast was worked out by Family man regulars, including Patrick Warburton and Alex Borstein, you might think Kunis was just an internal roster, or was considered from the start. However, this would be an oversimplification of how Kunis became Ted‘s Lori, who perseveres as one of the heroes and main characters of the story.
While appearing on the podcast Sad Happy ConfusedKunis explains that she was not the first actor to be considered for the role of Ted‘s Lori. MacFarlane had consulted with Kunis while he was looking for the female lead, but hadn’t initially asked her to play it. The casting had been difficult, and by the time she was offered the part in late 2010, she says enough time had passed for her to age in the role. Read her full response below:
“He cast it for a while before Wahlberg signed up, but even once Wahlberg signed up, he was casting other women. And he kept coming up to me during shoots and saying ‘who else?’ Because it took a while for a talking bear movie to be made. And I kept throwing out names like ‘what about that person? She’s a great actress’ And then all of a sudden I started getting older and older and older. And in Hollywood now I can face Mark Wahlberg, magical… But at that point I had already cast with him for a year.”
Why Kunis Could Play Wahlberg’s Love Interests
Kunis was 27 years old when she was cast Ted and played opposite a then 39-year-old Mark Wahlberg. As Kunis says, she had only aged about a year from the time she insisted that other actors play Lori in order to actually get the part. A year is a short time for non-actors, but Kunis notes that Hollywood’s perception of an actor’s age is distorted. Kunis, now 39, doesn’t seem to mind being called up to play Lori, no matter what it meant at the time about her age or state of her career. She talks lovingly about the Ted experience, and fans of the film love Kunis’ performance.
The female love interests of male actors, as in the case of Ted, are typically ten years younger than their counterparts, which is hardly a reflection of reality. Female actors have come out about the fact that they get fewer opportunities as they get older despite gaining more experience, and this propensity for casting is a factor in that offense. Ted is a raunchy comedy film made by actors known as friends outside of work and therefore may not be the best tool for exploring the dynamics of age in relationships or in Hollywood. Still, it’s an example of a casting trope that can also give a malleable audience a misunderstood perspective of what the real world is all about when it’s been established as the structural norm in movie-making for decades.
Source: Happy Sad Confused
