‘Ted’ Star Alanna Ubach Wanted to Make That Seduction Scene as ‘Unsexy as Possible’
Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Ted” Season 1.
If Susan Bennett’s attempt to seduce her husband Matty in Episode 3 of “Ted” made you feel a little uncomfortable, that’s exactly what Alanna Ubach was going for when filming the hilarious banana-eating scene.
“I thought how can I make this as unsexy as possible, to the point where it was taking Scott [Grimes] everything in him to not bust out laughing,” Ubach told TheWrap of her process filming the scene. “That was a lot of fun.”
In the same episode, titled “Ejectile Dysfunction,” Susan attended confession at church after discovering a pornographic film in the VCR. While the film actually belongs to John and Ted, she assumes that Matty is unsatisfied in their marriage.
“We shot the confessional scene with [writer] Dana Gould, who plays the priest, in a Presbyterian Church in Pasadena. I thought ‘If I don’t play this like I’m in a Lars von Trier movie … how can I find the absolute drama in this? It’s the only way it’s going to work,'” Ubach recalled. “I found myself doing that a lot — pretending that I was in a dramatic film, a film where the stakes were so high. What would you do if you were playing this woman whose husband was cheating on her? Forget about the fact that this is a comedy, throw that away for now, put that on the backburner and just focus on the actual high stakes and dramatic aspect of the scene. And I think it worked.”
Another highlight for Ubach happened in Episode 6, titled “Loud Night,” where Susan walks in on her niece Blaire (Giorgia Whigham) making out with her girlfriend Sarah (Marissa Shankar).
“That was my favorite scene and we did that over and over and over again and that was a lot of fun,” she said. “I had loosened up after we were shooting for a couple of weeks and I thought, ‘Well, what if I actually enjoyed watching them?’ It’s not written in the script, but what if I actually enjoyed watching Giorgia? So I subconsciously wished I was part of it, and how would that look? And it was funny.”
Ubach noted that the cast generally had about four different takes of each setup.
“By the second take, Seth has what he wants. The third and fourth are a little more playful, you’re given that leeway,” she added. “And I like to surprise everyone and not really rehearse what I’m about to say. And if I feel like this would be really funny to say in this moment, I’m going to say it, I don’t care, we’re rolling. I want to give him options. That’s the fun part, coming up with all of these different flavors of candy to give Seth so that he has a good time and he’s a kid in a candy store during post production. That’s the most important thing in my book, give them as many options as possible.”
In addition to Ubach, Grimes and Whigham, “Ted” stars MacFarlane as the titular foul-mouthed teddy bear and Max Burkholder as a 16-year-old John Bennett.
The live-action prequel is written executive produced by MacFarlane and his coshowrunners Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh, with MacFarlane also directing. Other executive producers include Fuzzy Door Productions’ Erica Huggins, Alana Kleiman, Jason Clark and Aimee Carlson. Fuzzy Door, MRC and UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, serve as producers.
All seven episodes of “Ted” are available to stream now on Peacock.
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