Mark Wahlberg on Filming with 'Ted': "It took some getting used to but in the end it was a great experience"

One of the most anticipated films of summer 2012 is Ted, the first film directed by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. The movie is about a man named John Bennett whose childhood wish of his teddy bear coming to life has come true while he was an adult.

Mark Wahlberg stars as John, and talked to the New York Daily News about shooting a film with an imaginary co-star and what kinds of films he won’t do.

Shooting the film wasn’t easy for Wahlberg at first because he had to interact with a co-star who literally wasn’t there. “They’d have a little stick there with a couple of dots on it for the eyes and I’d just have to visualize that the bear was there. It took some getting used to but in the end it was a great experience.”

Nevertheless, he did feel embarrassed by filming one sequence: when he has a knock-out fight with Ted. He says, “I didn’t actually fight the bear so it was just me flailing around. That one I felt pretty damn ridiculous doing, I’ll be honest with you. I was just fake-fighting myself. It wasn’t fun. But people love the scene.”

Though Wahlberg was drawn by the script, he admits that he was previously unfamiliar with MacFarlane’s popular work. He explains, “I had never seen Family Guy before I read the script for Ted. When I was pitched the concept, I wasn’t into the idea of a movie with a talking teddy bear, but then I read the script and fell in love with it. That’s when I started to watch Family Guy and realized that Seth is pretty much a genius.”

Acting with an imaginary teddy bear makes it seem like the normally tough-guy Wahlberg would be open to starring in just about any type of movie. But he does have limits, with the former pop star confessing, “I’ll do anything but a musical. I’m done with that. No more singing.” It’s worth noting that the only time Wahlberg starred in a movie based on music, Rock Star, all of his singing was dubbed. And let’s be honest, just because Wahlberg was the leader of the Funky Bunch doesn’t mean that he actually has the pipes to pull off a musical.