Budiey
In 2012, one adorable, albeit incredibly foulmouthed, teddy bear took the world by storm. With his classic, furry good looks, unparalleled swagger and penchant for pot-fueled humor and sexually charged antics, an unlikely leading man catapulted Universal Pictures and Media Rights Capital’s small comedy about a stoner dude and his best friend to its status as the highest-grossing original “R”-rated comedy of all time.
This summer, SETH MACFARLANE returns as writer, director and voice star of Ted 2, the follow-up to the blockbuster that launched the career of the world’s most outrageous bear. Joined once again by MARK WAHLBERG (Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Other Guys) as John Bennett, the thunder buddies for life are entering into uncharted territory.
It’s time to legalize Ted.
In the years since we last saw John and Ted, they’re both still living the dream in Boston. Although John is now a bachelor, Ted has settled down with Tami-Lynn, the trashy woman of his dreams. As marital problems begin to affect the newlyweds, Ted and Tami-Lynn decide to have a baby in order to save their marriage. Their hopes are crushed when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts declares Ted to be not a person, but property, and therefore ineligible to adopt. He is fired from his job at the grocery store and summarily informed that his marriage has been annulled.
Angry and dejected, Ted channels his frustration and asks his best pal to help him sue the state and win him the rights that he deserves. They enlist a young, medical-marijuana aficionada named Samantha L. Jackson (AMANDA SEYFRIED of Mamma Mia!, Les Misérables) as their lawyer and head to court. But when Ted loses his case, the three must venture on a road trip to New York in a last-ditch effort to persuade legendary civil rights attorney Patrick Meighan (Oscar® winner MORGAN FREEMAN of The Shawshank Redemption, Wanted) to take on their appeal. If they win, they will prove that Ted is not just a beer-swilling, pot-infused stuffed teddy bear, but actually a person who deserves the same freedoms as any other beer-swilling, pot-infused American.
MacFarlane directs the comedy from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborators, and Ted 2 executive producers, ALEC SULKIN & WELLESLEY WILD (Ted, A Million Ways to Die in the West, TV’s Family Guy).
Returning cast members to the Ted series include JESSICA BARTH (Family Guy, TV’s Parks and Recreation) as Tami-Lynn, Ted’s fellow cashier and now blushing bride; GIOVANNI RIBISI (Selma, Avatar) as Donny, Boston’s favorite psychopath who has hatched a new plan to kidnap Ted; PATRICK WARBURTON (Family Guy, TV’s Rules of Engagement) as Guy, John’s fight-club-loving friend and co-worker; BILL SMITROVICH (Iron Man, TV’s Without a Trace) as Frank, Ted’s odd supervisor at the store; and Flash Gordon himself, SAM J. JONES, as John and Ted’s childhood hero. As well, renowned film and theater actor PATRICK STEWART (X-Men series, TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation) returns to serve as the comedy’s narrator.
Joining Freeman in the cast who new to the series are JOHN SLATTERY (TV’s Mad Men, Iron Man 2) as Shep Wild, the hotshot lawyer hired to represent the case against Ted; MICHAEL DORN (TV’s Castle, Star Trek: The Next Generation) as Rick, Guy’s new boyfriend; and JOHN CARROLL LYNCH (Shutter Island, Gran Torino) as Tom Jessup, the CEO of the toy company who is in cahoots with Donny to kidnap Ted.
Leading off the numerous cameos are New England Patriots’ quarterback and Super Bowl winner TOM BRADY as Ted’s potential sperm donor and DENNIS HAYSBERT (Think Like a Man Too, TV’s 24) as Ted and Tami-Lynn’s fertility doctor. They are joined by a who’s who of comedy stars, whose appearances we won’t spoil.
Rejoining MacFarlane in the role are fellow Ted producers SCOTT STUBER (Identity Thief, Safe House), JASON CLARK (A Million Ways to Die in the West, TV’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey) and JOHN JACOBS (Family Guy, Beverly Hills Chihuahua).
Ted 2’s behind-the-scenes creative team is led by director of photography MICHAEL BARRETT (Ted, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan), production designer STEPHEN LINEWEAVER (Ted, Blades of Glory), editor JEFF FREEMAN (Ted, Paul Bart: Mall Cop), costume designer CINDY EVANS (A Million Ways to Die in the West, August: Osage County), visual effects supervisor BLAIR CLARK (Ted, The Smurfs) and composer WALTER MURPHY (Ted, Family Guy).
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Thunder Buddies for Life:
Ted 2 Begins
In summer 2012, the world fell head over heels for the charms of Ted. To the tune of almost $550 million in global ticket sales, audiences came in droves to laugh alongside the filthy bear and his best friend, John. Bluegrass Films’ Scott Stuber, who produced the comedy alongside MacFarlane, Jason Clark and John Jacobs, shares why our hero has so much appeal: “The genius of Ted is that he can say things that a normal person can’t…and would probably get punched in the face for. But since he’s a teddy bear, he can get away with it.”
After Ted’s phenomenal success at the worldwide box office and in-home entertainment, it was natural that conversations among the filmmakers, Universal Pictures and MRC would turn to a sequel. For MacFarlane, however, it was a not given that another chapter would automatically move forward. He explains: “I actually hadn’t planned on making a Ted 2, but any time something does well, that always comes up. There’s no reason to do it if you’re going to repeat the same movie. It’s not satisfying for the audience, and it’s really boring for us.”
Still, MacFarlane admits that he has a great deal of fondness for the characters and the genre lends itself to limitless ideas: “It’s a little easier with a comedy, because comedy is generally character-based, as opposed to premise-based, and in a way you treat it like a TV series. You have these characters that can be put in any situation, and we felt that Ted and John could sustain a totally different story. They were very strong in and of themselves, and so it was conceivable to do a sequel that would be worthwhile. So, it was fun to go in and figure out what we could do with these characters that would be completely different from what we did in the last movie.”
When it came to discussions of Ted 2, it was mandatory that the core creative team return. That meant MacFarlane would once again join Ted writers Sulkin and Wild to pen the next chapter. “Making any sequel is always a challenge because you have to come up with something original,” Stuber says. “Seth and Alec and Wellesley wanted to make a better film than the first one and worked hard to mix the comedy with an existential question of who we are as people. To their credit, they created a movie that’s about something. Not only do we continue all the great things audiences fell in love with: the relationship between Ted and John and all that comes with it, but there are also a ton of surprises. We’re proud to have created something original that also includes elements that you love from the first film.”
Sulkin jokes that his working title for the sequel was actually rejected. “My idea was Ted 2: More of Same,” he says, “but I was overruled, and we actually did have to think of a new story.” The writer agrees with Stuber that audiences responded to the strong bond between Ted and John in the first movie, and he wanted the next film to address more about that relationship. “Those were the moments that people loved, when John and Ted were hanging out, so that was a priority. We wanted to make sure we could have a workable story but keep the core of the movie with the two of them together.”
It was an unlikely 19th-century legal inspiration that would move the writing partners to tell the second chapter in Ted’s tale. Wild shares: “Seth was reading a book on the Dred Scott case and came up with this idea: ‘Since Ted is a stuffed animal that came to life, what if he finds out he’s not a citizen? What if he’s not considered a person and just considered property?’ He wanted to explore that and to find out if there was anything interesting there…or if this would just be a boring court case movie with a couple of jokes peppered here and there. We ended up going off of this idea, which was modeled after the case.”
MacFarlane extends a theme from the first movie, offering that as amazing as it would be if a teddy bear came to life, at some point people would start to see it as the norm: “Human beings are very quickly adaptable. Probably fairly soon after Ted came to life, people would be like, ‘Oh well, that happened. Moving on.’ We kept to that idea, and we figured that eventually the subject of Ted’s legal status would come up.”
But the director surmises that this level of comfort would be tempered with instinctual suspicion. He says: “Human beings are inherently tribal. To our own detriment, we have a need to put people into little groups. There probably would be some resistance to let a talking teddy bear into our club, in the same way there’s resistance to let gay people into the club and—at a certain point in time—let black people into the club. Amanda’s character has a line in the movie where she says that in every civil rights conflict, we’re only able to recognize the just point of view years after the fact. We never see it while it’s going on. We always think this time is different.”
Producer Jacobs was pleased that the writers took this route with the story. He says: “Ted and John are Hope and Crosby and have special, magical chemistry. This is the natural theme for the follow-up to the original film, which explored as far as you could possibly go with a love story between a man and his teddy bear. Ted 2 takes us to the next level of who is worthy of not being called an inanimate object or of being given citizenship.”
With the serious throughline as an inspiration for the film, Sulkin admits that it was his love of an inescapable television show that spurred on much of the comedy’s dialogue: “I’ve watched Law & Order ever since it’s been on. I know all the legalese and everything you hear them say over and over again in court, but it’s funnier when it’s this foulmouthed teddy bear involved in a serious legal drama. That was a focal point for me as we were writing the script, making sure that those moments rang true.”
After years of collaboration with MacFarlane on film and television projects, the writers have perfected a simple method when crafting a script. “We have a system where the three of us get together and write the outline, and then Wellesley and I go off separately and divide up scenes,” explains Sulkin. “Literally, it’s ‘I’ll do the evens, you do the odds.’ We’ll write our half of the movie and then send it to each other before we give it to Seth…just so we make sure there aren’t any huge redundancies or overlaps. We’ll smooth it out, and then we come in with Seth.”
A great advantage that the writers have is that their co-star is an animated one. This allows them to stay as current as possible with dialogue and topical jokes. Wild explains: “Because Ted is animated, you can write new lines for him. Because it’s just lip assignments, when his mouth is moving, you can sneak anything in there if the timing is right. Seth is constantly asking for something more contemporary. This allowed us to write jokes right up until several weeks before the actual movie is released.”
When our story opens, it’s been several years since we’ve last seen John and Ted. John has been divorced for six months and is down in the dumps. Ted’s home life isn’t quite the honeymoon he expected, either. In the hopes of saving their marriage, Ted and Tami-Lynn decide to do what many couples consider when their relationship is on the rocks: have a baby.
Clark walks us through where we meet our friends: “We find John, who is lonely because his marriage has dissolved, and Ted, whose relationship with Tami-Lynn has progressed enough that they are getting married. We open up on a big wedding sequence and see that Ted wants to be a full person. He’s moved in with Tami-Lynn and wants to have a baby. Since he doesn’t have his own male appendage, he first wants to find a donor and, secondly, to adopt. As we go on this adventure with Ted, it becomes about him trying to find his personhood. He has all the humanity of a human, but he doesn’t have the label of one; he’s still a stuffed teddy bear.”
Because the state does not legally consider Ted to be human, he doesn’t have our rights and can’t adopt a child. Ted’s crusade to prove that he is a person has now begun. After he loses his first trial, Ted, John and Samantha, their first lawyer, embark on a road trip to New York in the hopes of persuading a legendary civil rights attorney to appeal their case. During this trip, MacFarlane and his fellow writers pay homage to one of their favorite comedies…in what the filmmakers refer to as the “mess around” scene.
So much of the humor in Ted 2 is physical comedy, and it was key that the team honor legendary comic actors of that school. Sulkin explains the inspiration for a pivotal scene: “We wanted Ted to have this ‘mess around’ sequence, which is almost shot-for-shot directly taken from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, with the great John Candy doing the same things that Ted does here. We thought it was a good parallel because Candy was the teddy bear of that movie. He’s lovable, incredibly disruptive and funny. We see Ted in the same way; he tries to do the right thing while trying to be fun. He gets into his music and, of course, it all goes wrong and their car ends up flying off the road and through the roof of a barn.”
This proved to be one of Stuber’s favorite sequences in the script. The producer explains: “One of the first mistakes they make is to let Ted drive. Ted is not paying attention, everyone’s falling asleep and then he drives the car off the road and launches into the side of a barn. They are stuck in the middle of nowhere in a place that happens to be a barn where drug dealers are residing. There’s an enormous Jurassic Park-style pot field that offers this great ‘ahhhhhhhhhhh…’ moment for them, and they get into trouble. When they hit the road again, there’s a series of great comedic moments before they ultimately end up in New York City at Comic-Con.”
Boston’s Finest:
Casting the Comedy
When MacFarlane and the producers came to Wahlberg with the idea for Ted 2, it didn’t take long for the performer to come aboard. “The first movie was the biggest original “R”-rated comedy of all time for a reason,” Wahlberg offers. “It encompassed this amazing humor but also has so much heart. In Ted, you’re rooting for John to become successful at maintaining his relationship with Ted, and the reason why I was excited about making Ted 2 was because I knew I’d be working with Seth. This is the first time I’ve ever done a sequel to a movie, because I knew Seth would take it to another level. As long as there were places for the characters to go and things for them to do, then people would want to see it.”
Wahlberg agrees with his producers that John and Ted are the ultimate thunder buddies. He walks us through where we find the lifelong friends: “In the first movie, John was walking that fine line of maintaining his relationship with his best friend but also becoming more mature—the man that his girlfriend and future wife wanted him to be. Now that it is several years later and John is a divorced, single guy again, he doesn’t want to get involved in another relationship because he doesn’t want to get hurt or expose himself in that way.”
While John has a “been there, done that” attitude, it is Ted’s turn to try to keep together a relationship that’s crucial to him. Explains Wahlberg: “Ted is doing everything he can to hold on to Tami-Lynn. He wants to be a responsible adult and a father, and that poses many different and interesting challenges along the way. As John and Ted work together to sue the state for Ted’s personhood, we see that they have a real cause for which they’re fighting. People are going to root for Ted to succeed.”
Wahlberg admired the writers’ ability to weave in a legitimate, emotional story but still keep all the elements of a raucous comedy that fans of the first film expect. He reassures: “Even though Ted and John have both matured somewhat, they’re still hanging out as often as possible and getting into trouble together. Because of the success of the first one, we were able to push the envelope but also balance the heart and humor.”
MacFarlane appreciates his leading man’s dedication to the world of Ted: “Mark is brilliant at everything you ask him to do. His attitude is always, ‘If it works for you, I’m in.’ He’s a fantastic dramatic actor; he’s a fantastic comedic actor, and that includes both subtle verbal comedy and physical comedy. There’s nothing the guy can’t do.”
Jacobs adds to the accolades and sums up the cast and crew’s feelings about their human star: “Mark has been incredible. To do the things that he’s done shows his range beyond anything he’s ever done. As John, Mark’s got to be a guy’s guy, emotional and funny, and at the same time he interacts with something that’s not there. He just uses his imagination and goes off Seth’s voice.”
Cast opposite Wahlberg is Amanda Seyfried as Samantha L. Jackson—say that twice—an eager young attorney who takes on Ted’s case pro bono. Indeed, hers is a character that MacFarlane likens to Dorothy Lamour of the classic Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedies. The actress shares: “I did A Million Ways to Die in the West with Seth, and he’s a loyal guy. When he likes somebody he brings them back; his life is his work. I was prodding him about it over the course of six months after we finished filming, and one day he called me. As a joke, I asked, ‘What am I playing in Ted 2?’ He called me months later and asked, ‘What are you doing in June?’ and offered me the role of the new love interest.”
Seyfried describes her character: “Samantha is fresh out of law school and is trying to find her footing in this firm. Her uncle hired her to come in as a junior attorney, and she works very hard. She’s sincere but likes the occasional joint, okay daily, and she has her own offbeat way about her. When Ted and John first come to meet her in her office, she’s all over the place and they’re thinking, ‘How’s this scatterbrained stoner going to win our case and get Ted’s personhood back?’”
Stuber expands upon why the guys have their doubts: “The first time they meet Samantha, they’re not sure if she’s the right person. She’s a little young, and they don’t know if she can handle the case.” For John and Ted, however, the love of 420 trumps all. “But when she pulls out a bong and takes a rip, all of a sudden she’s the perfect lawyer. There’s a fun dynamic amongst the three of them, and she takes on Ted’s fight because she believes that he is someone who is worthy.”
Sulkin explains the rationale for John’s new love interest: “We knew that we didn’t have Mila Kunis for Ted 2, and we wanted to serve that in the story and make it part of John’s emotional journey. John starts off in a very sad place because things didn’t turn out the way that he expected with the woman he married, which a lot of people can relate to. Then, once the legal part of the story begins, we’re introduced to Samantha and realize this could be another great love interest for him. She’s a cool chick, whereas Lori was always getting on John about smoking pot or this or that. Samantha is much more easygoing and more John’s speed. We hope that from the moment the audience meets her that they’ll be rooting for these two to get together.”
Returning to the cast alongside MacFarlane and Wahlberg is Jessica Barth in the role of Tami-Lynn, Ted’s co-worker at the grocery store who has gone from dating the bear to being married to him. “At first everything was great, but after a few years into the marriage, they’re struggling financially and emotionally and have some pretty heated arguments,” explains Barth. “They think that having a baby will bring them together.”
When Ted is denied personhood by the state, Tami-Lynn becomes one of his fiercest advocates. “Ted and Tami-Lynn are both super loyal,” supplies the performer. “That’s their core. They’re honest and authentic, and there’s no pretending with either of them. Obviously they have their issues, but they love each other very much. Tami-Lynn has a heart of gold. She may not be that eloquent, but that’s what I love about her.”
Also reprising his role from the first film is Giovanni Ribisi as the Ted-obsessed Donny, who can’t get it out of his head that he and Ted will never be best friends. The actor walks us through his murderous role: “Donny has a fascination with Ted. He is his No. 1 fan, and it’s just gone overboard. That would probably be putting it lightly. In this film, he resurfaces from the shadows of the gutters of Boston, still on his mission to find companionship with Ted. He’s got a job as a janitor at the company that originally made Ted 30 years ago. Donny finagles his way into a meeting with CEO Tom Jessup and convinces him to get on board with a plan to go after Ted and make multiple Teds, which could make the company billions.”
His producers appreciated the actor’s attention to psychosis. “Giovanni is an amazing actor,” commends Clark, “and everything he does as a villain elicits immediate glee. He’s returning in this chapter and maintaining his villain-y intent. He’s gone through all of the court requirements and is back on the street…but he hasn’t lost his lust to have a Ted. So Donny goes after Ted, because at the story’s crux, if Ted is a person, it’s kidnapping. But if he’s not, it’s just stealing a $59 teddy bear.”
Producer Jacobs was just gobsmacked by their villain: “Giovanni is one of the best actors I’ve ever seen. He will go to any lengths to make his part real and be scary. Part of the reason that he was so funny in Ted is that he literally becomes this character. He breathes, sleeps and smokes it.”
Fellow returning cast members include the fight-club-loving Guy, John’s co-worker at the rental-car dealership, played by Patrick Warburton; Bill Smitrovich as Frank, Ted and Tami-Lynn’s overly patient supervisor at their grocery store; Sam J. Jones, who is synonymous with Flash Gordon; and Patrick Stewart as the film’s narrator.
Cast members new to the series include Academy Award® winner Morgan Freeman as Patrick Meighan, Ted and John’s attorney who is willing to take their case to the highest court in the land. Stuber walks us through this character’s purpose in Ted 2: “The idea was that they needed to lose this case in Massachusetts and, inevitably, there’s going to be one great lawyer in America who can take this case on. That person is Morgan Freeman’s character, and he happens to reside in New York City. Once Ted, Samantha and John realize that they need him and decide to appeal the case, the three of them jump in a car and drive from Boston to New York.”
MacFarlane offers what the beloved actor’s involvement meant to the production: “It was a huge coup for us to get Morgan in this movie, and particularly for that part. His character is a fictitious civil rights attorney who’s the most preeminent one in the country. We needed somebody who, when you open that door to his office and he stands up, you know instantly that this is the wizard at the end of the yellow brick road.”
Mad Men’s own John Slattery was brought onto the comedy as Shep Wild, the suave attorney who is fighting the odd fight to make sure Ted stays property. Seyfried introduces us to his character, Samantha’s nemesis: “Shep Wild is the big, sexy, silver-fox lawyer who has never lost a case in his career. He represents the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and we meet him in the scene where we first go head-to-head with him in court to try to fight for Ted’s personhood.” She loved Slattery’s interpretation of the role. “John plays Shep as a snake, a really charming asshole. He’s just perfect and made filming so fun.”
Curiously, the sly attorney shares something in common with many of the other characters in the Ted 2 universe. Screenwriter/EP Wild explains: “We basically named all the characters in the movie after people we know. Shep Wild is Henry Shepherdson Wild: my dad. He’s not anything like John Slattery, but we just said, “How about my dad’s name?’ Now my dad’s immortalized in the movie.”
The cameos in the film are too many to mention—and too worth being surprised by outside of this document—so know that it will take a sharp eye, no cheating at IMDB, to catch them all.
Starships and Pot Merry-Go-Rounds:
Design and Locations
The filmmakers’ desire to create a world in which to place a talking teddy bear was established in the first comedy, and production returned to the city of Boston to film Ted 2. “In Ted, Boston is a character in the movie, and John and Ted are Boston dudes,” says Clark. “It’s a little ecosystem, a personality all its own, and Bostonians understand it. When you take Mark and put him in this actual place where Ted is the only thing that’s outside this reality, it becomes very real. When people see these two guys at these classic Boston locations, it allows us to ground the movie and the comedy.”
Wild reflects that, in order to be accepted in this town, Ted had to have vocals that were pitch perfect: “Ted’s voice just kills me with the Boston accent. People in Boston are very, very particular about others doing Boston accents, and actors in movies have done terrible versions of that accent for years. But with Ted, it’s like, ‘Yeah, we approve; it’s authentic.’”
The production took advantage of a number of key locations known to locals and tourists alike, including Boston Common with its swan boats, Seaport Boulevard and Boston Harbor. Additional locations included Marriott’s Custom House in McKinley Square, which is the site of the courthouse where Ted is on trial for his personhood. Built in 1834, it has now been repurposed as a hotel.
Just past the Tobin Bridge and across the city from Boston’s Mystic River is the once-struggling industrial city of Chelsea. Originally a working-class community, Chelsea has seen itself gentrify over the last several years, but still retains its mix of warehouses and residences. What better place than for Ted and Tami-Lynn to share their starter apartment.
Union United Methodist Church, home to one of the country’s oldest African-American congregations, is the setting for Ted and Tami-Lynn’s wedding in South Boston. Also in the neighborhood is The Eagle bar—recently named Boston magazine’s 2014 Best Dive Bar—where John and Ted regularly get their sip on. As well, The Milton-Hoosic Club in Milton, Massachusetts, serves as the locale for the wedding reception where John and Ted perform their signature “Thunder Buddies” song.
Further afield from Boston is the Woburn Public Library. Opened in October 1885, The Converse Memorial Building, in which the Malden Public Library is located, was designed by Henry H. Richardson and built by Converse (of the famous shoe line) and his wife in memory of their eldest son, Frank, the assistant cashier of Malden Bank, who was tragically murdered during the first armed robbery of a U.S. bank in 1863.
It is this exquisite setting that stands in as the law library where John, Ted and Samantha research their case, smoke a lot of dope and pay homage to The Breakfast Club in a song-and-dance sequence. As well, the 1950s-era Mill Pond Diner in Wareham, Massachusetts, is one of the stopping points on the road trip from Boston to New York City.
One of the cast and crew’s favorite locations was the “Tom Brady Mansion,” which was filmed at a private home in Norfolk. “Tom Brady’s an icon,” acknowledges Stuber. “He and Mark are two of Boston’s favorite sons. We were shooting in a neighborhood where it was like Disneyland to the locals. They had a dream come true: Tom and Mark out on the front lawn.” Still, Stuber says, time was tight. “We only had three hours to film his scene. It was during training camp, and he was gracious and just a pro to come in and do that for us. He had great timing and was terrific. Everything went smoothly, and Tom jumped back in the car and got back over to Foxborough.”
Some of film’s biggest scenes and sets were filmed at Appleton Farms in Hamilton and Ipswich. Established in 1638 by a land grant to Samuel Appleton, the farms are approximately 1,000 acres and represent one of the oldest continuously operating farms in the country—established and maintained by nine generations of the Appleton family.
For his part, production designer Stephen Lineweaver needed a location where the car that Ted is driving on the trio’s road trip flies off a ravine and crashes into the side of a barn. When they climb out of the barn, Ted, John and Samantha are surrounded by acres and acres of luscious weed fields. Discovered on the property by drug dealers, they are pursued in a rollicking car chase through the fields.
It was an exhaustive process to get it right, and the team ended up looking at more than 300 barns before they decided to build their own. Recalls Lineweaver: “Originally, we thought we were going to use a real barn, but then we realized that it was a much bigger event. The car needed to shoot 100 feet in the air and fly into the side of the barn. What dictated location is that we needed a cliff to shoot the car from somewhere. It was amazing how hard it was to find this location in eastern Massachusetts, as there are not a lot of cliffs and hills where there are farms. We looked long and hard for this and came upon the perfect location. The trees and the cliff were in the right place. It was remote enough so that you can believe that there was a field of pot this big. We then went about the business of building a barn and bought a barn kit; it’s the easiest way to do it.”
The art department then went to work on aging the barn. They weathered the wood, pulled boards out, took an ax to some of the boards, and eventually it looked like the barn had been there 100 years. Creating the pot fields, however, was another challenge. “How do you drive through a pot field when there are no pot fields?” asks Lineweaver. “And how do you drive through it continuously?”
The art department used a combination of thousands of bamboo plants and fake handmade pot plants, their leaves and buds made from silk and moss. Wahlberg notes: “They created these amazing fake pot plants with these huge buds and the pot leaves hanging off.” What does one naturally do with fake pot? Trick a friend, of course. Laughs the actor: “They’re very realistic, to the point where I took a bunch of them and stuck them in a bag and told my friend that I had some weed for him. He was so excited when he saw the weed. He held it and he smelled it and everything. He couldn’t tell that it was fake until he brought it home to his girlfriend.”
For the car chase through the marijuana fields, production created two giant spinning turntables (affectionally referred to as the “pot merry-go-rounds”) with plants on them that could continually wash Ted and John’s car with pot plants—as if they were going through an enormous field. The car remained stationary while cinematographer Michael Barrett’s cameras were overhead and on the side of the car. “The actual pot field they drive through is only so wide in a field, but visual effects [led by visual effects supervisor Blair Clark] put other plants in,” says Lineweaver. “It’s amazing how many departments were involved, and the sweat we all went through to get there.”
A stage in Woburn served as the locale for the interior sets of Samantha’s office, John’s apartment, Ted and Tami-Lynn’s place and a number of the courtroom scenes.
Production then moved to New York City to film exterior scenes at the New York Public Library, Bryant Park, Midtown West and New York Comic-Con at the Javits Center. The exterior scenes at Comic-Con set off the climax of the movie, and the interior Comic-Con set was being readied at the FOX stages in Los Angeles. The art department re-created the floor of Comic-Con on a massive, 28,000-square-foot set.
“Comic-Con gave us all an opportunity to do some cool things,” notes Lineweaver. “The challenge was to sell the size, so we got the biggest soundstage we could find. It became a process of how to bring all these vendors and brands and competing companies together and do the set justice, visually excite everybody and make it look like it never ends.”
This build would become a mind-boggling feat of coordination for the production design department, but they were able to bring in vendors with their extraordinarily expensive booths and video screens and set up over the course of three days. Clark explains that it actually flipped the role of a traditional film design: “This gave us the opportunity to find the sets in there. It wasn’t until we actually had all the booths up that we could look through and say, ‘Oh my God, that’s a great shot. We should do something right there.’ We had things like an 18-foot Bumblebee from Transformers, a two-story Black Sails booth and an incredible Godzilla booth.”
Perhaps Ted 2’s crown jewel prop at Comic-Con was a replica of the Star Trek Enterprise. In a key scene in which Enterprise is about to crash down, one of the characters gets crushed himself. “Manufacturing the Enterprise was a process,” explains Lineweaver. “Seth has a perfect model of the Enterprise, which is about two-and-a-half feet. The Enterprise model for our Comic-Con set was 18 feet.”
Lineweaver’s art director borrowed MacFarlane’s model and took it up north to a designer who coordinated its digital reproduction, and then had it blown up by a man who actually makes giant models. Laughs Clark: “We’re all nerds on this movie, and it was fun to have an 18-foot Enterprise built for a big stunt.”
MacFarlane was quite in awe of the final set piece. He says: “I think it was roughly the size of the one that they used for the show. They had a big model that they would just move the camera around in various ways, and this one was about that big. And they built it in record time. I had a little model of the Starship Enterprise, and I gave it to our production designer, and they scanned it and made it 100 times bigger. It looked very cool.”
As the production team was re-creating an event that many people know so well—filled with beloved characters and brands—Stuber advises that Comic-Con was a tricky situation to make perfect: “We had excellent media and brand partners who were terrific and helped us to create something that felt real and magical. The people in the know will feel like they’re exactly in the right place, whether it’s San Diego Comic-Con or New York.”
Stuffy Pass and Motion Capture:
VFX of the Comedy
With their breadth of knowledge, and the learning curve of the first film behind them, the production team brought back as many of the original VFX crew from Ted as they were able to, led by Blair Clark, who cut his teeth at ILM as a model maker on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and at Tippett Studio as an animation supervisor on Armageddon and as a visual effects supervisor on Hellboy. As a VFX supervisor on animated comedies from The Smurfs to Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Clark brings a wealth of experience back to Ted 2.
“When you create a character in CG, the first few shots take the longest because you’re discovering the character and performance while you are creating the CGI,” explains producer Clark. “From the experience of the first Ted movie, our VFX team understands who the character of Ted is. So now, instead of it being the first shot on Ted, it was like the 601st shot.”
As Ted is, well, a stuffed bear, it’s not that his performances are difficult. Still, the VFX team must ensure that Ted reacts perfectly to everything—including how he looks over his shoulder or how he does a double take. Very much so, there’s a rhythm to his performance. “What’s incredible is that when you make a comedy, you don’t want to burden the movie and slow down the process with technology,” continues the producer. “So how do you create a simple way for the actors to know where Ted goes? He’s two-and-a-half feet tall, and you don’t want people walking through him by accident when you animate him. So we do a process that we call the ‘stuffy’ pass. The stuffy is basically a toy Ted, like the one you can buy at the store. We take the stuffy, and we have the visual effects supervisor mime Ted’s performance while Seth gives the dialogue from behind camera.”
In fact, a great deal of technical knowledge is gained from the stuffy pass. With the puppet on camera, the cast and crew hear the dialogue from where Seth is standing. This allows the actors to reference Ted’s eyeline, where he’s looking, where he walks, how fast he walks and where he goes. As well, this stuffy provides great reference for the extensive animation team, who are able to note how fast the VFX supervisor wants them to move the character of Ted, how the light interacts with his fur and what lighting he’s in—as his fur interacts with the various light.
Once MacFarlane’s team had that pass, they then shot the scene with no stuffy in the sequence, and cast and crew were able to remember the marks, eyeline and light references. DP Barrett’s camera crew now knew how fast to move the pan and how high or low to be, and the actors were more comfortable with where to look. The stuffy pass was then given to the animator, as well as the empty plate with no Ted, and they rendered Ted into that plate.
For his part, MacFarlane created his performance using two techniques. The first was dialogue, as the voice of Ted, which he did on the set with the other actors. This way, if there were overlaps in conversation, the team was able to capture those moments so the comedy feels natural, not stilted. As well, MacFarlane conducted sessions in which he wore a Moven, which is a motion-capture suit that records his movements as he mimics the actions of Ted. Therefore, if the production team needed a shrug or any sort of affectation, the actor/director could match that to his dialogue, and the team captured that in the moment. It also gave the animators MacFarlane’s actual physical movements as another asset they needed to create Ted’s performance.
In addition to the stuffy, the VFX department used the eyeline tool, which is simply two fake eyeballs on a stick, in static areas such as a set, couch or park bench. After the stuffy pass, this allowed the other actors another tool on where to look when they were in a scene with Ted. Recalls Barth: “There’s a scene in our apartment where Ted and I are having a huge argument, and it was a challenge working with no actor in front of me and just Seth’s voice off-stage. But it was also a great exercise as an actor. I was throwing frying pans and toasters and whatever else I could find, responding to somebody who was not there.”
Seyfried agrees with her co-star: “It was a little hard to get used to in the beginning, but then when you did, it worked. It’s like having an imaginary friend.”
MacFarlane acknowledges that Ted’s absence on set was a creative challenge. He says: “It’s difficult for an actor to act opposite a character that’s not there because so much of what your performance is depends on what you get from the other person. Here, we tried to make it a little easier because I was physically there doing the lines that will be in the movie. They’re at least getting the voice of the character, and not just somebody doing a read-in. Still, they got used to it pretty quickly.”
As Wahlberg has the lion’s share of onscreen time with Ted, MacFarlane and the filmmakers were constantly in awe of how well-adjusted he was to working with simply a voice. Clark commends: “What I noticed about Mark’s performance on set, and what always shocked me on Ted, is the subtlety with which he interacts with an empty space. We hear his performance, but he creates an eyeline and works with the empty space in which CGI Ted will eventually be added. Watching the skill and talent that Mark brings to his performance just makes you believe in John, Ted and the movie more than you know.”
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Universal Pictures and MRC present A Fuzzy Door Production, A Bluegrass Films Production, of a Film by Seth MacFarlane: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried in Ted 2, starring Giovanni Ribisi, John Slattery, Jessica Barth and Morgan Freeman. The live-action/CG-animated comedy’s casting is by Sheila Jaffe, and its costume designer is Cindy Evans. The film’s music is by Walter Murphy, its editor is Jeff Freeman, ACE, and its production designer is Stephen Lineweaver. Ted 2’s director of photography is Michael Barrett, and its executive producers are Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild. The film is produced by Scott Stuber, p.g.a.; Seth MacFarlane, p.g.a.; Jason Clark, p.g.a.; John Jacobs. Ted 2 is written by Seth MacFarlane & Alec Sulkin & Wellesley Wild. The comedy is directed by Seth MacFarlane. © 2015 Universal Studios. www.legalizeted.com
ABOUT THE CAST
MARK WAHLBERG (John) earned both Academy Award® and Golden Globe nominations for his standout work in the family boxing biopic The Fighter and Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed drama The Departed. Wahlberg has played diverse characters for visionary filmmakers such as David O. Russell, Tim Burton and Paul Thomas Anderson. His breakout role in Anderson’s Boogie Nights established Wahlberg as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents.
Wahlberg’s remarkable film career began with Renaissance Man, directed by Penny Marshall, and The Basketball Diaries, with Leonardo DiCaprio, followed by a star turn opposite Reese Witherspoon in the thriller Fear. He later headlined Three Kings and The Perfect Storm, with George Clooney, and The Italian Job, with Charlize Theron. Wahlberg then starred in the football biopic Invincible, with Greg Kinnear, and Shooter, based on the best-selling novel “Point of Impact.” He reunited with The Yards director James Gray and co-star Joaquin Phoenix in We Own the Night, which Wahlberg also produced. Most recently, Wahlberg collaborated with Pain & Gain director Michael Bay for Transformers: Age of Extinction and starred in Rupert Wyatt’s The Gambler. Wahlberg’s additional credits include 2 Guns, with Denzel Washington, Lone Survivor, The Lovely Bones, The Other Guys, Contraband and Ted.
An accomplished film and television producer, Wahlberg produced The Gambler, Lone Survivor, Broken City, Contraband and The Fighter, which received an Oscar® nomination for Best Picture. For television, Wahlberg executive produced HBO’s Entourage through its impressive eight-season run. In addition to Entourage, Wahlberg executive produced HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, How To Make It in America and In Treatment, as well as A&E’s Wahlburgers. For his work in television, Wahlberg has received a BAFTA, two Peabody Awards, six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, six Golden Globe Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award for Boardwalk Empire in 2011.
A committed philanthropist, Wahlberg founded The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001 to benefit inner-city children and teens.
AMANDA SEYFRIED (Samantha) has established herself as one of Hollywood’s most captivating young leading actresses. This year, Seyfried added to her success in the off-Broadway production of Neil LaBute’s The Way We Get By, in which she portrays Beth, opposite Thomas Sadoski’s Doug. Directed by Leigh Silverman, the production opened on May 19 at Second Stage Theatre in New York.
In October, Seyfried will star as Mary in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Peter Pan” film, Pan, for director Joe Wright. The cast includes Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara.
Recently, Seyfried wrapped production on Gabriele Muccino’s Fathers and Daughters and Jessie Nelson’s Love the Coopers, for CBS Films, which is set for release in November.
In 2013, Seyfried lent her voice to 20th Century Fox Animation’s Epic, with Beyoncé Knowles, Christoph Waltz and Colin Farrell. She starred in Millennium Entertainment/Radius Films’ Lovelace, a drama directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film tells the true story of Linda Lovelace (Seyfried), the world’s first adult film star, who is abused by the industry and her coercive husband.
In 2012, Seyfried starred in Universal Pictures’ film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” in which she played Cosette, opposite Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Eddie Redmayne and Russell Crowe. Tom Hooper directed the film, which was released on December 25, 2012, and grossed more than $440 million worldwide.
In 2010, Seyfried starred alongside Channing Tatum in the box-office hit Dear John, the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks (“The Notebook”) best-seller. In the film, Seyfried played a young woman who meets and falls in love with a soldier (Tatum) while he’s on leave. Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) directed the film from a script by Jamie Linden. Dear John grossed more than $100 million worldwide, and is the highest film opening to date for Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems.
In 2008, Seyfried starred in Universal Pictures’ hit film Mamma Mia!, highlighting her vocal skills as Sophie, the daughter of Donna (Meryl Streep). The film, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, was released in July 2008 and has grossed more than $600 million worldwide.
A Pennsylvania native, Seyfried started her career as a model at age 11. She soon turned to acting and landed her first contract role in 2000 as Lucy Montgomery on As the World Turns. Seyfried’s big break was in 2004’s Mean Girls, the Paramount Pictures hit in which she co-starred with Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert. Together, they won the Best On-Screen Team Award at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards. Her additional film credits include A Million Ways to Die in the West, Letters to Juliet, In Time and Chloe.
Seyfried is Givenchy’s Very Irrésistible ambassador and the global spokesperson for the luxury skin care and makeup brand Clé de Peau Beauté. She resides in New York.
Winner of the ShoWest Newcomer of the Year Award in 1999, GIOVANNI RIBISI (Donny) has established himself as a popular screen presence capable of playing a wide variety of roles.
Ribisi has just signed on to appear in Annapurna Pictures’ next feature, The Bad Batch, opposite Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Suki Waterhouse and Jason Mamoa.
Last year, he wrapped production on several films, including Meadowland, starring opposite Elisabeth Moss, Luke Wilson, Olivia Wilde and Juno Temple, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival; and Results, opposite Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Last summer, he re-teamed with Seth MacFarlane for the comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West. Ribisi was also seen in Paramount Pictures’ critically acclaimed Selma, with David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey and Tom Wilkinson, which was nominated for Best Picture and won for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards®.
In 2012, Ribisi was seen in Universal Pictures’ Ted, directed by MacFarlane, about a man who wishes his teddy bear to life. The film went on to make more than $545 million worldwide, making it the No. 1 highest-grossing “R”-rated original comedy of all time.
Ribisi’s most recent films include Universal Pictures’ Contraband and GK Films’ The Rum Diary, based on Hunter S. Thompson’s novel. Ribisi was also seen as part of the ensemble feature Gangster Squad, opposite Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling. In 2009, he was seen in James Cameron’s Avatar, winner of three Academy Awards® and two Golden Globe Awards, which has gone on to be the highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office.
Among his best-known films are Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain and David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Ribisi’s other credits include The Dead Girl, Perfect Stranger, Flight of the Phoenix, Boiler Room, Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Other Sister, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, SubUrbia, Heaven, First Love, Last Rites, That Thing You Do!, The Mod Squad, Masked and Anonymous and The Big White. Ribisi received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his performance in Sam Raimi’s The Gift.
In addition to his numerous film credits, Ribisi has an impressive list of television guest-starring roles on his resume. In 2007, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for My Name Is Earl. He also made guest appearances on The X-Files and Friends.
Ribisi and his twin sister, Marissa, were born and raised in Los Angeles, where he still resides. Beginning his acting career at age nine, he studied theater under the prestigious acting coach Milton Katselas.
JOHN SLATTERY (Shep Wild) is a Primetime Emmy Award-nominated actor with countless television, film and stage credits.
Slattery received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Roger Sterling in the critically acclaimed AMC series Mad Men. The series became the first basic cable program to win Outstanding Drama Series at the 2008 Primetime Emmy Awards and went on to win in 2009, 2010 and 2011. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series—Drama in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and was nominated in 2011. Mad Men’s seventh and final season premiered on AMC on April 5 and its finale aired on May 17.
Up next, Slattery will reprise his Iron Man 2 role as Howard Stark in Walt Disney Pictures’ Ant-Man, which is set for release on July 17. On July 31, he will appear in Netflix’s highly anticipated reboot of Wet Hot American Summer. He recently wrapped production on Thomas McCarthy’s new feature film, Spotlight, in which he plays Ben Bradlee Jr., opposite Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams. The film centers on the Boston Globe’s 2001 investigation that exposed a decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic priests throughout the Boston Archdiocese.
Previously, Slattery was seen in Bluebird, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and was released by Factory 25 in February 2015. The film followed the dramatic events in a Maine logging town and starred Amy Morton (TV’s Chicago P.D.) along with Adam Driver (TV’s Girls) and Margo Martindale (TV’s Justified).
Slattery’s previous film credits include Universal Pictures’ The Adjustment Bureau, with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt; Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed Flags of Our Fathers; Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War; Terry George’s Reservation Road; Mike Newell’s Mona Lisa Smile, opposite Julia Roberts; McCarthy’s The Station Agent; Joel Schumacher’s Bad Company; Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic; and, most recently, Brian Savelson’s In Our Nature, alongside Zach Gilford, Jena Malone and Gabrielle Union.
Slattery directed five episodes of Mad Men. In 2014, he helmed his first feature, God’s Pocket, based on the Pete Dexter novel from a script Slattery adapted and co-wrote with Alex Metcalf. The film starred the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, Christina Hendricks and John Turturro. God’s Pocket was released in the U.S. on May 9, 2014, by IFC Films, after premiering at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. It was also released in the U.K. on August 8, 2014.
Slattery is instantly recognizable from his roles on numerous television shows over the years, including Desperate Housewives (for which he was nominated as part of the ensemble cast for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble) and the fourth season of the hit series Arrested Development. Slattery’s additional television credits include Homefront, Ed, HBO’s K Street and the drama series Jack & Bobby. He has also been seen in highly memorable guest appearances on Sex and the City, Will & Grace, Judging Amy and 30 Rock.
For the stage, Slattery has appeared on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole, for which he was nominated for a Drama League Award; the Broadway revival of Betrayal; and opposite Nathan Lane in Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor. His off-Broadway credits include the original production of Three Days of Rain, which earned him the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination.
Slattery is a Boston native who currently resides in New York City with his wife and son.
Growing up in Philadelphia, JESSICA BARTH (Tami-Lynn) always dreamed of having a successful career in acting. Barth’s breakthrough performance in Ted, which became the highest-grossing “R”-rated original comedy of all time at the worldwide box office, made such an impact that her character was brought back for the sequel as a leading role. In Ted 2, all of Barth’s scenes required her to act with no live co-star as a point of reference, but her emotion shined throughout, making her scenes with a teddy bear as her husband seem real.
Barth also recently wrapped production on the supernatural indie thriller Tell Me Your Name. She stars as Tanya, the aunt of a troubled girl who is overtaken by a malevolent force while trying to reach her deceased mother during a séance. As her closest family member, Tanya must find a way to exorcise the spirit within the girl.
Barth’s prior films include The Waterhole; Get Smart, opposite Steve Carell; and Next, with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore. On television, Barth appeared in hugely successful comedies such as Family Guy, Parks and Recreation, That 70’s Show, and How I Met Your Mother.
Prior to her career in television and film, Barth worked as a theater actress and waitress to put herself through college and theater school. She received additional training at the University of British Columbia and the prestigious summer stock program at Vassar College in association with New York Stage and Film.
Academy Award®-winning actor MORGAN FREEMAN (Patrick Meighan) is one of the most recognizable figures in American cinema. His works are among the most critically and commercially successful films of all time. Freeman ranks second among the world’s top-grossing actors of all time, with his films having earned more than $4 billion in cumulative ticket sales. Whether a role requires an air of gravitas, a playful smile, a twinkle of the eye or a world-weary yet insightful soul, Freeman’s ability to delve to the core of a character and infuse it with a quiet dignity has resulted in some of the most memorable cinematic characters committed to film.
Freeman won an Academy Award® in 2005 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Million Dollar Baby. Freeman also received Academy Award® nominations in 1988 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Street Smart, in 1995 for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Shawshank Redemption and in 2010 for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Invictus. In 1990, he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture—Comedy/Musical for his performance in Driving Miss Daisy.
Freeman was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2012 Golden Globe Awards. In 2011, Freeman received the 39th AFI Life Achievement Award.
In 2008, Freeman was bestowed the coveted Kennedy Center Honors for his distinguished acting career, and, in 2000, was honored with the Hollywood Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award at the Hollywood Film Festival.
In 2009, Freeman won the National Board of Review award for Best Actor for his performance as Nelson Mandela in the acclaimed film Invictus. In addition to his Academy Award® nomination for Best Actor, he received a Golden Globe Award nomination and a Broadcast Film Critics Association nomination for the role. The picture was produced by Revelations Entertainment, the company he co-founded with Lori McCreary in 1996 with a mission to produce films that reveal truth. Since its inception, Revelations has continued to be a frontrunner in the field of digital technology. Other Revelations features include The Code, The Magic of Belle Isle, Levity, Under Suspicion, Mutiny, Bopha!, Along Came a Spider, Feast of Love, 10 Items or Less, The Maiden Heist and The 16th Man, part of the Peabody Award-winning ESPN “30 for 30” documentary series.
Through Revelations Entertainment, Freeman serves as an executive producer with McCreary on CBS’ Madam Secretary, starring Téa Leoni, which debuted in September 2014 and was renewed for a second season.
Freeman hosts and is an executive producer for the two-time Primetime Emmy Award-nominated series Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman. In its sixth season on the Science Channel, the show is produced in conjunction with Revelations Entertainment.
Freeman will next be seen in Focus Features’ London Has Fallen, Paramount Pictures’ Ben-Hur and Dutch FilmWorks’ Momentum. Most recently, he starred in Last Knights, Lucy, Dolphin Tale 2, Transcendence, The Lego Movie, Last Vegas, Now You See Me, Oblivion, Olympus Has Fallen and The Dark Knight Rises.
Freeman narrated the Science Channel program Stem Cell Universe, the IMAX documentary Island of Lemurs: Madagascar and the historical documentary We the People. Past narrations include two Academy Award®-winning documentaries: The Long Way Home and March of the Penguins.
Freeman’s past acting credits include Dolphin Tale, Born to be Wild 3D, The Dark Knight, The Bucket List, Glory, Clean and Sober, Lean on Me, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Se7en, Kiss the Girls, Amistad, Deep Impact, Nurse Betty, The Sum of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, Coriolanus, Attica, Brubaker, Eyewitness, Death of a Prophet and Along Came a Spider.
After beginning his acting career in the off-Broadway productions of The Niggerlovers and the all African-American Hello, Dolly!, Freeman segued into television. He played several recurring characters on the long-running Children’s Television Workshop classic The Electric Company in 1971-76. Looking for his next challenge, he set his sights on both the “Great White Way” and silver screen simultaneously and quickly began to fill his resume with memorable performances.
In 1978, Freeman won a Drama Desk Award for his role as Zeke in The Mighty Gents; he was also nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
His stage work continued to earn him accolades and awards, including Obie Awards in 1980, 1984 and 1987 and a second Drama Desk nomination in 1987 for the role of Hoke Colburn, which he created for the Alfred Uhry play Driving Miss Daisy and reprised in the 1989 movie of the same name.
In his spare time, Freeman loves the freedom of both sea and sky; he is a longtime sailor and has a private pilot’s license. He also has a love for blues and seeks to keep it in the forefront through his Ground Zero Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of blues music. In 1973, he co-founded the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop, now in its 42nd season. The workshop seeks to serve successful playwrights of the new millennium. He is a member of the board of directors of Earth Biofuels (now known as Evolution Energy), a company whose mission is to promote the use of clean-burning fuels. He also supports Artists for a New South Africa and the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED).
Freeman has been named as one of Forbes’ Most Trustworthy Celebrities each of the five times the list has been published since 2006.
ABOUT THE CREW:
SETH MACFARLANE (Ted/ Directed by/ Written by/Produced by) is a true Renaissance man, possessing talents that encompass every aspect of the entertainment industry. MacFarlane has created some of the most popular content on television and film today, while also expanding his career in music, literature and philanthropy.
At 25, MacFarlane became the youngest showrunner in television history when his animated series Family Guy aired on FOX. Now in its 14th season, Family Guy has garnered MacFarlane Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and Outstanding Music and Lyrics. In addition to Family Guy, MacFarlane serves as co-creator, executive producer and voice actor on American Dad! He also executive produced the 21st century version of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey that premiered on 10 U.S. networks, simultaneously across FOX and National Geographic platforms, making it the largest television premiere event of all time. The series has gone on to receive a Peabody Award, two Critics Choice Television Awards, a Television Critics Association Award and nominations for 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
MacFarlane made his feature-film directorial debut in 2012 with the highest-grossing original “R”-rated comedy of all time at the worldwide box office, Ted. The buddy comedy starred Mark Wahlberg, with MacFarlane as the voice of the lovable foulmouthed teddy bear. The film, which was co-written and produced by MacFarlane, made more than $545 million worldwide. Fresh off the success of Ted, MacFarlane hosted the 85th annual Academy Awards® in 2013 and was also an Academy Award® nominee for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) for “Everybody Needs A Best Friend,” from Ted. In May 2014, Universal released MacFarlane’s Western-comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West. The film, which MacFarlane wrote, produced, directed and starred in, featured an ensemble cast that included Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried and Neil Patrick Harris, among others.
MacFarlane’s debut album, “Music Is Better Than Words,” debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes jazz charts in 2011 and received two Grammy Award nominations, including one for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. Released by Universal Republic Records, the album celebrates the classic, sophisticated sound of the lush swing orchestras of the ’40s and ’50s, with MacFarlane singing some of the hidden gems of that era. Norah Jones and Sara Bareilles collaborated with MacFarlane on two duets on the album. In 2014, MacFarlane released his first-ever Christmas album, “Holiday for Swing!,” which debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes holiday album charts. The album features timeless holiday songs accompanied by a 52-piece orchestra.
In August 2014, MacFarlane performed with the world-renowned John Williams Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl, lending his baritone voice to renditions of “Luck Be a Lady” and “You’re Sensational,” to rave reviews. MacFarlane also performed sold-out shows with the San Francisco Symphony on New Year’s Eve and the National Symphony Orchestra on Valentine’s Day.
American television writer ALEC SULKIN (Written by/Executive Producer) recently teamed with Seth MacFarlane and Wellesley Wild on A Million Ways to Die in the West. Sulkin is most notable for writing and producing several episodes of the animated series Family Guy. Sulkin has also contributed voices to Family Guy as well as The Cleveland Show, another series by Family Guy creator MacFarlane.
Sulkin began as a writer for The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn during the show’s first three years.
Sulkin joined Family Guy in 2004 and has since produced, written and provided voices for multiple episodes, including the hour-long Star Wars homage, “Blue Harvest,” as well as “Chick Cancer,” “Stew-Roids,” “Stu and Stewie’s Excellent Adventure,” “Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q,” “Family Guy Viewer Mail #2,” “Into Fat Air” and “Three Acts of God.”
In August 2010, Sulkin and his writing partner, Wild, signed a three-year pact with 20th Century Fox Television. In 2012, Sulkin co-wrote the well-received comedy feature Ted, along with MacFarlane and Wild.
Sulkin, along with Family Guy writers Julius Sharpe, Danny Smith, John Viener, Patrick Meighan and MacFarlane, were special material writers for the 85th Academy Awards®, which MacFarlane hosted.
In 2010, Sulkin and Wild created their first live-action sitcom, Dads.
WELLESLEY WILD (Written by/Executive Producer) and his writing partner, Alec Sulkin, recently co-wrote A Million Ways to Die in the West, with Seth MacFarlane. Wild got his start in New York City, working at Saturday Night Live. After relocating to Los Angeles, Wild worked as a writer for The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn, and then later as a story editor for The Pitts.
Wild is best known for writing several episodes of the Primetime Emmy Award-winning hit Family Guy, which he joined in 2004, later becoming an executive producer as well as an occasional voice actor for the show.
While garnering much success in television, Wild, along with Sulkin and Family Guy creator MacFarlane, teamed up to write the well-received 2012 comedy feature Ted.
In 2010, Wild and Sulkin signed a three-year pact with 20th Century Fox Television to develop their own show. Dads, their live-action sitcom, premiered in September 2013.
SCOTT STUBER (Produced by) is the founder and CEO of Bluegrass Films, which has been based at Universal Pictures since 2006.
Recent Bluegrass Films releases include the true-life dramatic thriller Kill The Messenger, which starred Jeremy Renner and was directed by Michael Cuesta from a screenplay by Peter Landesman; Seth MacFarlane’s Western-comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West, which starred Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried and MacFarlane; Identity Thief, which starred Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, was directed by Seth Gordon and grossed more than $100 million domestically; Ted, the highest-grossing original “R”-rated comedy of all time at the worldwide box office, was written and directed by MacFarlane and starred Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and MacFarlane; and Safe House, which starred Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds and directed by Daniel Espinosa.
Stuber is currently in production on the Civil War drama The Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, and the comedy Central Intelligence, starring Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson.
Under his Bluegrass Television label, Stuber ventured onto the small screen as an executive producer on the NBC comedy Whitney, which was created by and starred comedian Whitney Cummings. He is currently collaborating with Yahoo! on the original comedy series The Pursuit, which he is executive producing.
Stuber’s first production was summer 2006’s romantic comedy The Break-Up, which starred Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. That summer also saw the release of the hit You, Me and Dupree, which starred Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson. These were followed by Peter Berg’s critically acclaimed film The Kingdom; the David Wain hit Role Models, which starred Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott; and Couples Retreat, which starred Vaughn and Jon Favreau.
During Stuber’s eight years at Universal—five of which he spent running worldwide production with Mary Parent—he was responsible for many of the studio’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including King Kong, Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man, Munich, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, About a Boy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 8 Mile, Spy Game, The Family Man, The Nutty Professor, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, The Mummy franchise, the American Pie franchise, the Fast & Furious franchise, Friday Night Lights, Bring It On and many others. More than 20 of the films Stuber supervised grossed more than $100 million domestically.
JASON CLARK (Produced by) is an innovative producer in the world of live-action and CGI feature films and television programs.
Clark previously produced Seth MacFarlane’s blockbuster comedy Ted, which went on to be the highest-grossing original “R”-rated comedy of all time, earning more than $545 million worldwide. Clark also teamed with MacFarlane on the live-action film A Million Ways to Die in the West, for Universal Pictures. He developed and executive produced the feature-length animated version of Jay Ward’s classic cartoon Mr. Peabody & Sherman, directed by Rob Minkoff and released by DreamWorks Animation. Clark served as executive producer on the critically acclaimed Jackie Robinson biographical sports film 42.
In addition, Clark served as executive producer on the action thriller Act of Valor, which featured a cast of actual Navy SEALs and was filmed utilizing only Canon 5D digital cameras. Clark executive produced the stereoscopic 3D film Monster House, alongside Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. The film went on to be nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature. Clark also executive produced the box-office hits Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2.
For television, Clark has served as executive producer on FOX and the National Geographic Channel’s celebrated series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. The show premiered simultaneously across the platforms’ 10 networks, making it the largest television premiere event of all time. The show has gone on to receive a Peabody Award, PGA Award, a Television Critics Association Award and two Critics’ Choice Television Awards. Cosmos was also nominated for a WGA Award and 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.
Clark is a founding member of the design organization 5D: The Future of Immersive Design and remains an active member of the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and the International 3D Society.
JOHN JACOBS (Produced by) is the president and founder of Smart Entertainment, a company that has produced three No. 1 movies in a row. Most recently, Jacobs produced The Boy Next Door, which starred Jennifer Lopez. He also produced Ted, which has the distinct honor of being the highest-grossing original “R”-rated comedy of all time, exceeding $545 million at the worldwide box office.
Jacobs produced other successful hits, including Blades of Glory, which starred Will Ferrell and Jon Heder; Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which featured the voices of George Lopez and Drew Barrymore; and Anger Management, which starred Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. Each of these films grossed more than $100 million worldwide, and two of the three have spawned franchises.
Additionally, Jacobs produced The Ringer, which starred Johnny Knoxville and Katherine Heigl and remains one of Fox Searchlight’s highest-grossing films of all time; and My Boss’s Daughter, which starred Ashton Kutcher, for Dimension Films. Jacobs is also successful in television, serving as a consulting producer on FOX’s massive franchise Family Guy and TBS’ American Dad!. Both television series are in second and third rounds of syndication.
Jacobs is a fellow of the American Film Institute, where he focused on producing. He holds a master’s degree in media from NYU. Jacobs started his career at Orion Pictures Corporation, where he worked on the classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which starred Steve Martin and Michael Caine. He later became president of Dawn Steel’s company at Disney, where he was involved in the huge international hit Cool Runnings, which starred John Candy. He went on to become president of Atlas Entertainment, where he developed Universal Pictures’ 12 Monkeys, which starred Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis, and Warner Bros. Pictures’ City of Angels, which starred Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.
MICHAEL BARRETT (Director of Photography) was born in Riverside, California. Barrett received a BA in art from UCLA and an MFA in film from Columbia University. Barrett’s credits include the feature films Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Bedtime Stories, Zookeeper, the Golden Globe Award nominee Bobby, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, About Last Night and Seth MacFarlane’s directorial debut, Ted, as well as MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Barrett earned multiple American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award nominations for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in the Regular Series category for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and won an ASC Award for the pilot episode of CSI: Miami.
STEPHEN LINEWEAVER’s (Production Designer) early credits include working as art director on Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild, John Sayles’ The Brother From Another Planet and Emile Ardolino’s Dirty Dancing. Lineweaver continued on to production design with such directors as James L. Brooks on I’ll Do Anything and Cameron Crowe on Jerry Maguire and Singles, as well as Michael Caton-Jones on This Boy’s Life.
Lineweaver’s more recent feature-film credits include Seth MacFarlane’s huge box-office hit Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West, a comedy set in the Wild West of 1880, and David Wain’s Role Models. His additional credits include Blades of Glory, which starred Will Ferrell; Brian Levant’s The Spy Next Door; Are We There Yet?; Snow Dogs; Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls; Tommy Boy; and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold.
Lineweaver’s early television work includes working as a visual consultant with Brooks on The Simpsons and The Tracey Ullman Show, earning him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Ted 2 is Lineweaver’s third collaboration with MacFarlane. He is currently in production on Central Intelligence, an action-comedy starring Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson, which is directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and produced by Scott Stuber.
JEFF FREEMAN, ACE (Editor) previously collaborated with Seth MacFarlane on Ted and A Million Ways to Die in the West. For his work on Ted, Freeman was nominated for an American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award in the category of Best Edited Feature Film–Comedy or Musical.
Freeman has worked as an editor on films such as Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which starred Kevin James; Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, which starred John Cho and Kal Penn; Hamlet 2, which starred Steve Coogan and Elisabeth Shue; Nancy Drew, which starred Emma Roberts; Just Friends, which starred Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart and Anna Faris; and Cruel Intentions, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon.
Freeman also edited Columbia Pictures’ The Craft, which starred Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney and Fairuza Balk, and The Waterdance, which starred Eric Stoltz, Wesley Snipes, William Forsythe and Helen Hunt, and won an Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.
Freeman also served as an editor on Touchstone Pictures’ Mad Love, which starred Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell; Frankie and Johnny Are Married, which starred Michael Pressman, Lisa Chess and Alan Rosenberg; The Crow: City of Angels; Highlander II: The Quickening; Bad Dreams; and Bulletproof.
Freeman’s television credits include Showtime’s Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, which starred Campbell, Christian Campbell, Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming, Steven Weber and Ana Gasteyer, for which he was nominated for the 2006 ACE Eddie Award for Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Non-Commercial Television.
Freeman also edited the pilot for the Showtime series The L Word; David E. Kelley’s The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire; ABC’s telefilm Angels in the Endzone; USA’s telefilm Deconstructing Sarah; SyFy’s telefilm Deep Red; NBC’s telefilms A Family Torn Apart and The Revenge of Al Capone; and Disney Channel’s telefilm The Ernest Green Story, winner of a 1994 Peabody Award.
Freeman attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, where he earned a BA in film with magna cum laude honors.
Freeman is represented by Jay Gilbert at APA and currently lives in Santa Monica, California.
CINDY EVANS (Costume Designer) established her career on director Christopher Nolan’s Oscar®-nominated Memento and has since enjoyed repeat performances with actors and directors alike. Evans worked on Freedom Writers and P.S. I Love You, which were both directed by Richard LaGravenese and starred Hilary Swank. She also worked on Niki Caro’s North Country, for which Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand were recognized by critics and nominated for Academy Awards® for their performances.
For director Catherine Hardwicke, Evans served as costume designer on Red Riding Hood, her retelling of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood,” which starred Amanda Seyfried, as well as Hardwicke’s coming-of-age drama Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown, a fictional take on the birth of skateboarding culture. On the film Laurel Canyon, Evans again worked with McDormand and Hardwicke, who served as the film’s production designer.
Evans again worked with Theron on Guillermo Arriaga’s directorial debut, The Burning Plain, which Theron also produced and starred in, and which also starred Kim Basinger. Her other costume design credits include Oliver Stone’s Savages; David Frankel’s Marley & Me, which starred Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson; Doug Liman’s political thriller Fair Game, which starred Naomi Watts and Sean Penn; Mick Jackson’s HBO biopic Temple Grandin, for which she won a Costume Designers Guild Award; The Forgotten, which starred Julianne Moore; and the crowd-pleasing romantic comedy Along Came Polly, which starred Aniston and Ben Stiller.
WALTER MURPHY (Music by) is an instrumentalist, arranger and songwriter who wrote many of the arrangements for Doc Severinsen’s NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Murphy’s disco adaptation of “A Fifth of Beethoven,” which was based on Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony,” was No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart in 1976.
Murphy has been nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on Family Guy and won one in 2002 for Outstanding Music and Lyrics for writing “You’ve Got a Lot to See,” with Seth MacFarlane. Murphy also received two Annie Award nominations for his work on the show. Most recently, Murphy collaborated with MacFarlane on Ted, the highest-grossing original “R”-rated movie of all time at the worldwide box office, and was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Original Song, alongside MacFarlane, for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend.”
Murphy’s additional credits include The Cleveland Show, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, American Dad!, The Winner, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Commish.
Murphy has also contributed to the soundtracks for Glee, Dancing With the Stars, The Cookout, The Stepford Wives, Johnson Family Vacation, Starsky & Hutch (2004), Austin Powers in Goldmember and The Simpsons.
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