Ashton Kutcher

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

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Ashton Kutcher's career is like many of those of Hollywood's most charismatic and influential actors. Their history begins by cutting their teeth through media that use their most easily identifiable assets then parlays that success to its maximum, which for Kutcher is his good looks and willingness to play dim-wits with it. However, like many successful celebrity actors, Ashton has come to the crossroad of whether he can burst the troubling bubble of being typecast by the image that made him famous in the first place.

The now 28 year-old Ashton Kutcher, already starting to flex his dramatic talents in 2004 in the successful sci-fi/thriller The Butterfly Effect, is ready to go even further in the new Andrew Davis-directed action/drama The Guardian, which opens September 29, 2006 in theatres.

In the film, he takes his furthest departure yet from his established stereotype as neophyte United States Coast Guard rescue swimmer Jake Fischer, teaming up with Kevin Costner as his former-teacher-turned-teammate Ben Randall.

'I think I like doing movies that make me a little uncomfortable,' Kutcher claims, 'You're growing. If you don't like speaking in public, stand up and say something. That's how you grow. So, for me, when I started this movie, I went, 'OK, this is a little uncomfortable. I never done anything that is going to require this much physical output and this kind of dramatic output, so let me do it.' And hopefully, the audience will catch up to where I was uncomfortable and go, 'Yeah, I'm a little uncomfortable about seeing him in this role. I don't know if he's going to pull.' Hopefully, it's close enough to people that they can go, 'I'll give it a shot and take a look.'

Ashton notes just how different indeed Jake Fischer's character was from the lovable dim-wit, Ken-doll-like-perfection of his Michael Kelso character.

'I had a day and a half to prepare for the character and memorize four pages of monologues,' he explained, 'The character's a drug dealer that doesn't have any friends. Going to the space of a guy who's not getting invited to the party is an uncomfortable place to go to for yourself, because we've all been there.'

Ashton went further to explain the admittedly hilarious lengths he'd go to make his character believably troubled:

'I didn't shower for three days when I did it,' claimed Kutcher, 'I felt like that guy probably hadn't had a shower in a while, so I wanted to see what I would do if he walked in and smelled me.'

However, he wasn't only willing to push himself to the emotional depths of his role as a Coast Guard swimmer, but the physical ones as well.

'We did a lot of preparation just to even get ready to play at their level,' Ashton reflects, 'I trained for about eight months before the movie. They're tough guys. We did a two-week boot camp'and just imagine going through that for eighteen weeks and then, the rest of your life.'

He notes that the experience of the film left him with a deeper understanding of the real-life heroics that went with being in the U.S. Coast Guard.

'To find people as tough as these guys are, but that have as big of hearts and that are as generous with themselves and sort of self-sacrificial in a way'That's the amazing thing,' Ashton explains, 'They talk about some of the cases that they've gone out on and the people that they had to leave behind. They are really emotionally connected people and the dichotomy of that is special.'

Kutcher claimed that part of the reason he chose to play the role of Jake Fischer was to define the true meaning of what it means to be a hero.

'I think real heroes are really hard to find,' he notes, 'For these guys, it's just going to work. It's noble to watch somebody that can just go do their job and be so heroic and not even know that what it is that they're doing is great. These guys put their lives on the line when they go out for a complete stranger. Most people wouldn't put their life on the line for a friend. These guys do it without hesitation.'

In an obviously sobering film like this one, Ashton Kutcher had no desire to resort to the antics of his master-of-ceremonies image he had cultivated on MTV as the king of all pranksters.

'Generally, my rule is while I'm working with somebody, I won't punk them,' he states, 'Just because you have to really be able to trust the person you're standing across from. This movie, especially, because there were some really dangerous things that we're doing. I never want to cry wolf in that situation and then not have somebody there when its really hair and we're hanging eighty feet from a cable with concrete and rerot.'

As Ashton Kutcher continues to push the boundaries of people's perceptions of Ashton Kutcher the actor, rather than Ashton Kutcher the goofball celebrity, he does mention a keen desire to broaden his creative palette. But like everything else in a career perceived by the general public to be light, Kutcher says it would not be a decision he'd take as such.

'I'm interested in directing something,' he mentions, 'Whenever I take a movie as an actor, especially if I did as a director, whoever put up the money for it, I immediately go, 'My job is to make that money back for you, because you're investing in me.' I have a ridiculous fear of failure.'

Until then, Ashton Kutcher is content with showing the public and the film community the full potential of his talent. Just don't expect him to grow too complacent with doing more dramatic roles.

'By the time I finished the movie, I go, 'Yeah, I'm comfortable doing this. I can do this again,'' Ashton says, 'But I wouldn't do it again for that very reason, because it's comfortable, so now I have to go find something else to tackle.'