Ashton Kutcher – No Strings Attached

ASHTON KUTCHER stars in the riotously funny romantic comedy NO STRINGS ATTACHED with Natalie Portman.

Kutcher chats about his screen dad, Kevin Kline; creating on-screen chemistry with Natalie Portman; and romance in the age of the internet.

**NO STRINGS ATTACHED is in cinemas from 25 February.

MMM: This is probably your most revealing role. Did you head off to the gym to get toned?
Kutcher: I actually stopped working out for this movie. I literally had a conversation with Ivan [Reitman, director] before I started, and I said: ‘This guy’s a production assistant/aspiring writer, I know a lot of these guys and none of them are particularly fit!’ So I just didn’t feel it necessary for this character.

He’s in a very enviable position, as the fantasy of most guys would dictate, so I thought making sure that this character was real was really important. So Ivan and I had a little discussion, and I said: ‘I think I’m going to let myself go a little bit more.’ But apparently I didn’t let myself go enough, because it seems to be the only thing anyone wants to talk about – that and my derriere!

MMM: When you were at school were you a player with the girls or more of a fumbler?
Kutcher: I was a bit of a fumbler. I didn’t really have a girlfriend until I was a senior in high school. I was very nervous about the whole thing and I didn’t manage very well.

MMM: What do you think of the 21^st-century way of using social networking to get to know dates? Is romance being killed by texts and Facebook?
Kutcher: I think there are a couple of elements to it. I think it’s accelerating relationships, but it’s also making them very disposable. The notion that you can just unfriend someone with the push of a button is kind of frightening. And therefore, I think people are having less of an investment in relationships.

It used to be that you meet someone, you go on four or five dates and you gradually get to know them and trust them at the same time, and you learn a little bit about them. Now, it could be one date – maybe even before that first date – you go on Facebook and you know who all their friends are, you know who all your friends are in common, you know about their family, what they do for a living, what they ate yesterday and what they did for Christmas.

So all that information makes us feel very familiar with people that we may not know at all, and so that trust element and that level of personal one-to-one vulnerability is slowly disappearing. Now, the largest fear in the world is to speak in public, right? Why do we fear? We fear of stumbling, of public humiliation, and so we’re fearing a face-to-face rejection. So we’ll say things in a text or e-mail that we would never say face-to-face.

So relationships are coming together faster and breaking apart faster. And they’re a little bit more disposable. At the same time, I think that it creates great opportunity – because a handwritten letter to someone probably means more today than it’s meant in quite some time. So there are opportunities for romance that are being created.

MMM: Does that mean you’re more of an old-fashioned romantic?
Kutcher: I’m very tech-forward – I believe in it. However, I also think pushing the pause button is not a bad thing and really connecting with people one-to-one viscerally, having a connection with someone, is really important.

MMM: You have to create an on-screen chemistry with your co-star Natalie Portman, so how did you go about creating that?
Kutcher: It’s easier when you like the person, and she’s very likeable. I don’t know that it’s something you can plan, or something you can manufacture. I generally find that you can have really good chemistry with someone you can argue well with, and I think Natalie and I both really appreciate being right! [Laughs] I think that makes for good chemistry.

But I think Natalie could have chemistry with this cup if she wanted to! She’s probably one of the best actresses of my generation. There’s a blessing and a curse in that, as an actor, because you know everything you get across from you is going to be real and honest and reactive and beautiful. But at the same time, when the light shines in a dark room all the dust shows. So it was a challenge for me to play this role and be as honest as she is in every scene.

MMM: I noticed your character took the trouble to peel the raw carrots he gave Natalie in lieu of flowers… What’s the most romantic odd gesture you’ve received or given?
Kutcher: Here’s the thing: romance is personal. The carrots in this film are in place of flowers because she didn’t want them, and so it really meant something to her. Romance is just that, it’s usually not some grand gesture.

It’s usually something that’s very, very simple but very, very personal, and romance is sort of an island right next to care. And when you care about someone and you listen to them and you hear them and you can feel them then you know just what’s right. And generally it’s something that will be very unimpressive to a room of strangers.

MMM: How was playing opposite your on-screen dad Kevin Kline?
Kutcher: First of all, [screenwriter] Liz Meriwether did such a great job of crafting this very bizarre relationship where the parent was the child, and the child was the parent.

I was a little nervous about working with Kevin. This guy just loves being an actor. He shows up and the first day I was working with him, he’s got these linen pants on and between scenes he’s taking his shirt off and he’s walking around with no shirt, prancing down the streets – and I’m thinking: ‘This guy’s fantastic! He’s really going for it!’

I thought he was going method – I think he was just being Kevin! Like I said, working with Natalie really upped the bar, and when I found out I was working with Kevin that took it another step. The relationship we get to play was fantastic.

Especially the more familiar you become with any kind of family dynamic where one person has a great level of public success, and what that does to the relationship with the kid, where they’re in some ways publicly invisible. And I loved what that afforded this character, and how that relationship motivated his character, and having Kevin play it was just an absolute treat.

MMM: Do you have any tips about to make a relationship with an older woman work?
Kutcher: I’m just trying to make mine work. To give tips out…. I would never… I think great relationships are great partnerships, and those come in all shapes, sizes, forms, ages.

The only tip I have for anyone in a relationship or a partnership is work on it when it’s good. It’s very easy to try to try to take that break when things are going good, but that’s the time you have to keep working on it, because you can keep it good, and that’s worth a lot.

MMM: Coming back to your revealing moments in the film – when you saw the schedule with your derriere scene on it, was that just an average day filming?
Kutcher: I like having it out! I don’t mind being naked! We all come into the world this way… there’s very little you can do about it, you are who you are. Doing the scenes, it doesn’t matter. It’s infinitely awkward: you have 40 strangers standing around. I think it’s less awkward for guys than girls, because the crew tends to be slightly more masculine and mine doesn’t look that much different than yours.

So whenever I’m doing scenes like that, I actually get out of myself by trying to make sure that the other person is OK. When you’re caring about someone else, you really stop worrying about yourself and that’s kind of my mental cycle that I put myself through, so I just really try to focus on making sure the other person’s alright, and then I apologise a lot!

By Jan Gilbert