Matt Damon Backed Out of Playing the Mark Wahlberg Role in the 2012 Comedy TED

Mark Wahlberg’s Role in Ted Was Offered to Matt Damon

Mark Wahlberg‘s role in the 2012 comedy, Ted, was passed on by Odysseus, himself, Matt Damon, who talked himself out of appearing in the aforementioned raunchy 2012 comedy.

Comedy has always been a mixed bag for Matt Damon even though he’s great at it. In 2003, Damon played a conjoined twin alongside Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly Brothers’ classic, Stuck on You. However, that film didn’t do well at the box-office at the time of its release despite its hilarious premise, a fact which may have helped encourage Damon to sit out of another over-the-top comedy that he was considered for, 2012’s Ted.

Damon admitted in a recent GQ article that he actually talked himself out of starring in the 2012 comedy, Ted. Damon was considered for the lead role of that goofball comedy. That part ultimately went to another Boston guy, Mark Wahlberg Funny enough, Wahlberg was Damon’s co-star in The Departed as well as the star of The Departed who actually received an Oscar nomination over stars like Damon and Jack Nicholson.

These days, it doesn’t seem like Wahlberg is in the running for any Oscar nominations, though. Meanwhile, Damon is currently on the Best Actor frontrunner list for an Academy Award nod for the 2026 film, The Odyssey.

Whereas Damon struck it big with this year’s The Odyssey, Wahlberg’s recent projects have mostly fallen by the wayside these days. Wahlberg did strike it big with Ted, though. Playing the role Damon passed on, Wahlberg even got to appear in a sequel to the raunchy teddy bear movie that also helped inspire a television show for streaming on Peacock.

It has been said, Damon thinks in retrospect it could have been nice to have shot Ted in Boston to have been close to his dad, who died several years after the time the original Ted was made. Damon laughed hard at the script, but overthought playing in it, and his previous disappointments with comedy in terms of the small box-office dollars generated by them may have had something to do with it.

However, Ted turned out to be a big hit. It’s interesting to wonder if Ted would have been as funny with Damon as the “straight” guy in it to the wise-cracking, vulgar teddy bear referred to in the film’s title. Still, Damon’s the one laughing now as the actor is predicted to take home the Best Actor statuette for his work in The Odyssey by many organizations this awards season. Meanwhile, Wahlberg has been stuck in box-office belly flops such as By Any Means. We won’t mention that Father Stu re-issue that failed to ignite at the box-office several years back.

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