Mark Wahlberg: 'Ted is going to offend more people than Family Guy

American actor Mark Wahlberg is used to playing hard men, but has turned to comedy for new film Ted, finds Will Lawrence.

Mark Wahlberg, the star of Boogie Nights and The Fighter, might have cleaned up his act – the drugs, violence and the spell in prison are now just distant memories – but the 41-year-old reformed bad boy still flirts with trouble on occasion.

He cites a recent example, involving his wife, former model Rhea Durham, two of their four children and the TV cartoon series Family Guy.

“Now, I had never seen Family Guy,” begins Wahlberg, “but I had figured as it was a cartoon that I could sit down and watch it with my two eldest kids; the oldest is eight.” He figured wrong. “We watched the 150th episode.” Oh dear.

In this particular episode, two of the main characters, Stewie, a talking baby, and Brian, a talking dog, get locked in a bank vault and things get out of hand.

“The baby is locked in with the dog; the dog eats poo out of the baby’s diaper; then they are drinking alcohol; then they get this gun out of a safety deposit box... All this crazy stuff is going on and my wife comes barging in from the other room because she hears all this laughter and she immediately turns the TV off and yells at me for letting the kids watch it.”