Matt Damon could have been the man sharing his life with a foul-mouthed teddy bear in Ted. Instead, a case of overthinking cost him a role in a comedy that became a massive hit.
The actor opened up about turning down the 2012 film in his GQ Men of the Year cover story, admitting he was completely sold on the script at first. In fact, he laughed so hard while reading it that he took it to dinner and read parts aloud to his friends.
But then he started second-guessing himself. "I've never had this experience where I laughed so hard reading a script," Damon, 56, said.
"And then I just got too clever by half. I don't know what I was thinking," he added.
"I was like, 'Well, maybe the teddy bear's actually the best part.' So I overthought it, and I talked myself out of it," he admitted. The role of John Bennett eventually went to Mark Wahlberg, and Damon says he has another reason to look back on the decision.
The movie filmed in his hometown of Boston, meaning he missed a chance to spend six months back home with his father, who died in 2017. "I look back and I go, 'Man, that would've been six months back [home]," Damon said.
Still, he has no complaints about Wahlberg's casting. "The right actor got the part," he said, adding, "Mark [Wahlberg] is great, and the movie's great, and I wouldn't have made it any better."
Ironically, Wahlberg wasn't convinced by the talking-teddy-bear premise either. He once admitted he was reluctant to even read the script, while his wife Rhea Durham reportedly had a brutally honest reaction to the idea.
Ted eventually made more than $549 million worldwide, spawned a sequel and a TV prequel, with an animated series also on the way.