Kutcher In The Rye - Brief Article

What separates Ashton Kutcher from all the other hopeful, attractive Young men who fly into Hollywood every day?

There aren't too many options for a wannabe actor in small-town Iowa, so Ashton Kutcher had to get imaginative: He tried roofing (at age seven); sweeping cereal dust off a factory floor; skinning and gutting deer; and surviving off the proceeds of donated blood plasma. These days, he's got it a little cushier: bringing stoned idiocy to new levels on a weekly basis as the resident heartthrob/dimwit (think equal parts Shaun Cassidy and Gomer Pyie) on That '70s Show. He's adapting to his teen-Idol status just fine, although he's well aware of its limitations.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with being pushed to attract a younger audience," the affable twenty-two-year-old acknowledges. "But you're not always gonna be able to play a teen. So you do have to step away eventually and find your place in a different category." His next film, Texas Rangers, opening in April, ought to ease that potentially awkward transition quite nicely: It's an intense post-Civil War Western starring...James Van Der Beek. ELIZABETH WEITZMAN: How did you go from studying biochemical engineering in college to acting?

ASHTON KUTCHER:: Actually, I went from wanting to act to settling for biochemical engineering. I lived in a tiny town, and I realized that unless I left for California, there wasn't anywhere for me to go with the acting. I couldn't afford to move that far, so I decided to go to school and become a genetic engineer. My twin brother had a cardiomyopathy, which is a virus that attacks the heart, and he had a heart transplant. I wanted to find out how to alter the virus.

EW: How'd you get off that path?

AK: One night I was at a bar and a lady came up and asked if I wanted to be a model. I didn't even know that was a real job. I thought Fabio was the only male model. Then I realized, Oh, the Marlboro Man isn't really a cowboy. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I entered a modeling contest and won a trip to New York as 1997's Fresh Face of Iowa. Two days after I arrived in New York, I had a job and an agent. After some runway shows, I was ready to start acting.

EW: How did that go?

AK: I was flown to L.A. to audition for a comedy, and afterwards a stranger stopped me in the hall and asked me to come read for a one-hour TV drama. So I did and they offered it to me. It was this show about cowboy surfers. I mean, I'm very uninformed about the ways of the world, but that didn't make much sense to me. So I said no and then auditioned for That '70s Show, and they offered me a part, too. It was my first day in L.A. It was pretty exciting. I don't mess around. [laughs] I say that like I had anything to do with it.

EW: Did you always want to be an actor?

AK: Yes, but it wasn't a realistic dream. I was never the star of my high-school plays. My private feeling was, You can't even get the lead when there are fifty-two people in your class. How are you possibly going to go to Hollywood?

EW: Have you adjusted to the reality that you're now living your dream?

AK: No. I walk through my house that I shouldn't have and get in my car that I shouldn't have and go to my job that I shouldn't have and believe that I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

EW: Have you ever compromised for your career?

AK: No. In no way, shape, or form. I don't think you have to be Sean Penn to be a great actor. You don't only have to do niche films to maintain integrity. There's nothing wrong with also taking frontline, big studio projects. [laughs] But I have no clue what I'm talking about. I've been here for two years, and this is what I've made sense of so far. Sean Penn's gonna come after me, now: "He ain't never gonna be in my movie!"

EW: What do you have to offer that other actors don't?

AK: When you do comedy, there's a certain instinct that you need to have. I try to do it differently than anybody else. And I have funny-looking legs, so I can usually make people laugh by showing them off. Plus, I'm one of the only younger actors with a '70s haircut. [laughs] Beat that!

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