{"id":652213,"date":"2026-11-05T21:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T21:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/652213\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T21:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T21:42:10","slug":"matt-damon-on-why-he-passed-on-ted-i-overthought-it-and-talked-myself-out-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/652213\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Damon On Why He Passed On ‘Ted’: “I Overthought It And Talked Myself Out Of It”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMatt Damon<\/a> is getting real about why he passed on starring in Seth MacFarlane\u2019s 2012 comedy Ted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new interview, Damon looked back on his career and explained why, despite loving the script, he ended up moving on.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI never like to say that, because I don\u2019t want to live with the regret, but I can tell you that I passed on Ted, and I\u2019ve never had this experience where I laughed so hard reading a script,\u201d Damon said in an interview with GQ<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cI literally took it to dinner and was reading parts of it out to my friends at dinner. And then I just got too clever by half. I don\u2019t know what I was thinking. I was like, Well, maybe the teddy bear\u2019s actually the best part.\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMark Wahlberg went on to star in the film as John Bennett, a Boston native whose childhood wish brings his teddy bear Ted to life. The production filmed in Boston, which was one of the factors Damon looked back on and regrets not haven taken the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI overthought it and I talked myself out of it. And because it shot in Boston, it would\u2019ve been a chance for me to be home\u2014my father\u2019s passed away now, and I look back and I go, Man, that would\u2019ve been six months back [home],\u201d Damon explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor has since watched Ted and said Wahlberg is \u201cgreat and the movie\u2019s great,\u201d adding, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have made it better.<\/p>\n

\n\tTed wasn\u2019t the only film Damon passed on, citing Christopher Nolan\u2019s\u00a0The Dark Knight<\/a>\u00a0and Gus Van Sant\u2019s\u00a0Milk<\/a>\u00a0as other projects he didn\u2019t do because of scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think I was on a Bourne movie or about to go do Green Zone with Paul Greengrass,\u201d Damon said about being offered the Harvey Dent role in the DC film. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs far as Milk, Damon said, \u201cI was supposed to play the Dan White part. And I was really excited about it. I\u2019d spoken to Sean [Penn], and I\u2019d started the research. I\u2019d been watching the documentaries about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThen Sean\u2019s schedule changed and the movie had to push three months, which meant that it was going to conflict with the movie I was going to do with Paul. So I had to bow out, and I just loved that script so much,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd I love Gus [Van Sant], obviously. And so that was a bummer. But having said that, they got Josh Brolin, and Josh is absolutely brilliant in the movie. That helped a lot, I think, with this feeling that I have, that I do believe that the right actor gets the part.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Damon is getting real about why he passed on starring in Seth MacFarlane\u2019s 2012 comedy Ted. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,15660,19332,111,139,69,139128,259816],"class_list":["post-652213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-matt-damon","tag-milk","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ted","tag-the-dark-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}