@kenobibear Published March 11, 2026, 11:00 a.m. ET Where to Stream: Ted Powered by Reelgood More On: Peacock Is ‘Southern Charm’ On Tonight? How To Watch The ‘Southern Charm’ Season 11 Finale Are Amanda Batula And West Wilson Hooking Up? Andy Cohen Presses Kyle Cooke For Answers ‘Summer House’ Star Dara Levitan Talks Dynamic With Ciara Miller Given Their History Of Dating West Wilson: “That Was Definitely My Concern” Harvey Weinstein Demands Credit For ‘Yellowstone’s Success In First Jailhouse Interview: “People Forget” That “I Brought Taylor Sheridan To ‘Yellowstone'” America’s favorite foulmouthed teddy bear is back! Now streaming on Peacock, Season 2 of Seth MacFarlane‘s Ted is wildly funny, smart, crude and—at fleeting moments— surprisingly heartfelt. At the center of it all is Ted’s human best friend, John Bennett, played by Max Burkholder. As Bennett, Burkholder has the difficult task of playing opposite a CGI teddy bear which he accomplishes with aplomb. Luckily, writer/director MacFarlane was on-set to provide the voice of Ted and oversee the production. “It’s such a rarity in television to have the same person direct every episode of a series,” said Burkholder. “Having that consistent vision all the way through is very helpful.”
Consisting of 8 episodes, Season 2 is full of buzzy moments, including MacFarlane playing an AI-enhanced version of President Bill Clinton. However, the series installment that has fans most excited is “Dungeons and Dealers,” which transports John, Ted and the rest of the Bennett family inside of a game of Dungeons and Dragons. An avid fan of the tabletop role-playing game, Burkholder was so “excited” to film the episode. “I’m a DM [Dungeon Master] in my free time,” explained Burkholder. “I have a couple different campaigns going on.” Burkholder’s co-stars, however, weren’t so familiar with the game. “I tried to get a session going with the cast, but like with most D&D things in real life, it never came together.”
Though MacFarlane has publicly stated that he has no plans for a Season 3, Burkholder, like the rest of us, is keeping his fingers crossed. With the last scene of Season 2 featuring Ted and John walking into a gym, Burkholder knows where he’d like John’s journey and physical transformation to potentially continue. “I want Peacock paying for my nutritionist. I want Peacock paying for my personal trainer,” said Burkholder with a laugh. “I want to see just how big and unnaturally huge I could get.”
Burkholder stopped by the Decider studio to discuss Season 2, share how he gets into character, and more.
DECIDER: Ted Season 2 has been out for a few days and from what I can tell, fans are loving it. It’s been the #1 show on Peacock all weekend long. How do you feel about the reception so far?
MAX BURKHOLDER: It’s been pretty great so far. Like you said, it’s only been a few days. We’ll see what happens when the actual metrics start coming in about two weeks. But #1 on Peacock and beating out Mariska Hargitay is not bad. Though, Mariska’s a titan, and I would imagine that within the next 36 hours or so, she’ll have recaptured our usual status.
Seth MacFarlane is such a genius. How helpful was it to you as an actor to have him direct all 15 episodes of the series?
It’s such a rarity in television to have the same person direct every episode of a series. Usually, people are swapping in and out. Having that consistent vision all the way through is very helpful, especially if it’s someone like Seth who was there in the writers’ room and created the fucking characters [laughs]. He’s also there on set doing Ted’s voice. I think it would have been possible to do the show without him present every day on set, but way harder. His timing is so specific. His sense of humor is so specific. Having him there to bounce ideas back and forth is really huge.
As a New Englander, I really appreciate your accent work in Ted. Did you have a coach? Or did you go off of vibes?
[does Boston accent] It’s fun getting to slip back into it. They set me up with a great dialect coach, Doug Honorof. Aside from helping me with my Boston accent, he is a linguist with tons of other accents in his tool belt. I worked super closely with him ahead of the first season and then got back with him ahead of Season 2 to really shape the accent.
You’ve got a great head of hair, and frankly John does not. Did you wear a wig? What was that transformation like?
Maybe hard to believe, but it’s not a wig. The style was a little more tedious in Season 1. For Season 2, I got a keratin treatment, which chemically relaxes the hair so it’s wavy rather than curly. Every day, they would flat iron and blow dry my hair. It took about an hour to do my hair for Season 1. We got it down to about 30 minutes a day for Season 2.
Yeah, a lot of effort went it to making my hair look like dog shit [laughs]. That’s what we wanted for sure. Well, it’s what Seth wanted. I would have preferred to look a little less terrible, but so it goes.
This season, you got to dress as a knockoff Evel Knievel, a Mage from D&D, a knight from Camelot, and more. What was your favorite outfit?
Our costume designer, Heather Pain, was just incredible to work with. The Mage outfit was really cool. There was definitely some fantasy wish fulfillment there. If I had my druthers, I would have been a Knight in armor or something a little bit more martial and less arcane. It was all fantastic. The Evel Knievel jumpsuit was a little hot and sweaty. I did wear a wig with that. And a fake mustache. It’s hard to pick a favorite.
That D&D episode was honestly epic. How excited were you when you read the script?
I was excited before I read the script! I saw the title of the episode, “Dungeons and Dealers,” and was like, “holy shit!” Chelsea Davison, the writer of that episode, really bonded with me over our love of D&D, which was super fun. I’m a DM [Dungeon Master] in my free time. I have a couple different campaigns going on. I have a group of people that I play with in LA and a group of people that I play with in New York. It’s super fun. I’ve got some—fingers crossed—cool D&D activation stuff coming up that I’m really excited about.
Did any of your co-stars go to you for help?
They had no idea what the fuck was going on [laughs]. I tried to help everybody out. I tried to get a session going with the cast, but like with most D&D things in real life, it never came together. It’s very hard to organize a session. It’s hard to organize five people sitting down for three-ish hours. That’s a tough sell.
Scott Grimes and Alanna Ubach are next level as Matty and Susan. Which of your co-stars’ transformation into their on-screen character shocks you the most?
It’s got to be Alanna’s. Scott is obviously playing a very different person from himself, beliefs wise, but he really is that loud. In real life, Alanna has the biggest personality you’ve ever seen. She’s just the wildest, most lovely, fantastic person ever. She just becomes a whisper of a woman when she turns into Susan. It is crazy.
A lot has been said about Seth MacFarlane using AI to play Bill Clinton in a Dunkin Donuts this season. You are not in the scene, but what did you think of his performance?
I thought the performance was incredible. I hadn’t even seen the clip until the premiere the other night. It was an amazing voice performance from Seth—as always—and good physicality from him. The Ted VFX team is the best in the business. So, if they thought using AI was the best way to achieve that transformation… then I trust them. AI is something that needs to be talked about continuously into the future, but this is a great example of AI being used surgically as a tool rather than a one stop solution for anything that annoys an executive. Unfortunately, that’s how AI is being pitched a lot of the time.
This was a cool,good use of AI. However, it still has not done anything to really dissuade my general stance on AI.We should take this innovation slowly and be careful. People cast AI as an inevitability as if it is this overarching supernatural force that’s forcing itself into our lives. The AI used in Ted was overseen by individual people making choices about where and when it was deployed. AI can be deployed judiciously and with intent. It’s not an inevitable force.
As you know, Dunkin is very, very important to Bostonians. Do you have a Dunkin order you can share?
When I was going to college for a couple of years in Cambridge, I had pretty bad insomnia, and I had morning classes. The combination of those two things would lead my Dunkin order to be an extra-large iced coffee with no ice, black. I would pound about 36oz of this coffee before class every morning, and I would pass out at about 1:30PM. I’d just completely crash.
Right now, Seth MacFarlane says there are no plans to do a Season 3 of Ted. If John’s and Ted’s origin story were to continue, what would you want to see?
Well, Season 2 ends with John and Ted walking into a gym. I think we all know what I want to see in Season 3. I want Peacock paying for my nutritionist. I want Peacock paying for my personal trainer. And if all else fails, I want Peacock paying for my GLP-3, a myostatin inhibitor, that will be coming out within the next couple of years. I want to see just how big and unnaturally huge I could get [laughs]. There could be a lot of time between now and a potential Season 3. Who knows what could happen?
While fans are waiting for news on a potential third season, what’s next for you?
It’s been really fun doing all this promo and press stuff for Ted. It’s taken away time from some of the stuff that I’m trying to get done this year, but that’s okay. I’ve been working on some shorts with my friends so that we can all get some experience under our belt to start shooting features within the next year or so. That’s my goal. Though, I’m always on the lookout for whatever the next thing would be for me as an actor. Acting is still my favorite thing in the world to do, and acting is where my focus remains. What’s next for me is getting behind the camera and learning more about the technical/ production side of things.
