Daniel J. Stasiewski, Erika Jarvis
a&e editor
The Behrend Beacon
Ashton Kutcher overcomes medi
images to forge his own
By Barry Koltnow
The Orange County Register
Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber,
who wrote and directed "The
Butterfly Effect," worked on the
dark, time-travel drama for seven
years. They thought of it as their
baby.
Understandably, they felt very
protective toward it, and the last thing
they wanted to do was turn it over to
the goofball from "Dude, Where's
My Car?"
"Yes, I bought the myth," an
apologetic Gruber said. "I saw him
as a bimbo."
It wasn't just "Dude, Where's My
Car" that gave the filmmakers pause
when it came to casting Ashton
Kutcher as a dramatic lead in their
film, which opens Friday.
There was the long-running
television sitcom "That '7os Show."
And the MTV celebrity prankster
show "Punk'd" didn't help. Then
there were the tabloids, which had a
field day with Kutcher's rocking
chair-robbing romance with 41-year
old Demi Moore.
The lowbrow comedy work,
combined with the sensational
headlines and endless paparazzi
photos of the happy couple and her
three children attending movie
premieres, frolicking on the slopes
and posing with Moore's smirking
ex-husband Bruce Willis, were just
too much to ignore.
"There was no way he was going
to be in this movie," Gruber said.
"Then I met him, and I did.a 180
(degree turn)."
The 25-year-old Kutcher leans
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back on a sofa in his Los Angeles
hotel suite after nervously lighting
another in a series of Lucky Strike
cigarettes. But a visitor suspects that
he is less nervous about the interview
and more concerned over whether his
favorite team (the lowa native is
rooting for the Carolina Panthers)
will win the overtime NFL playoff
game being shown on TV.
In the interest of full disclosure, it
should be noted that this interview
was conducted while both parties
were watching the football game.
The story about the directors' initial
concerns over his dramatic-acting
capabilities doesn't faze him at all.
He says that he's grown accustomed
to people underestimating him. They
underestimate him, he says, because
they don't understand him.
"People are afraid of what they
don't understand, and they don't
understand me," he explained. "They
don't understand my friendship with
P. Diddy (rap star Sean "Puff Daddy"
Combs). They keep asking, "Why are
those two guys friends?"
"If I was hanging out with a white
guy my own age who was on a TV
sitcom, they'd understand. But
because I'm hanging out with a black
man from the rap world, people freak
out. They think there must be
something wrong with it.
"The same goes for my
relationship with Demi. People don't
understand it, so it freaks them out."
The couple met eight months .ago
at a dinner in New York City at about
the time he was hosting "Saturday
Night Live" and she was in town after
wrapping the "Charlie's Angels"
movie. Their meeting might have had
something to do with their mutual
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Friday, January 23, 2004
friend P. Diddy.
From the moment they were
spotted in public lip-lock they
became fodder for the tabloid
gristmill. And it has continued
unabated, with occasional breaks
thanks to Brittany's marital foibles
and the continuing J. Lo and Ben
circus.
"It's the one competition where
you desperately want to come in
second," he said of the tabloid
covers
The 6-foot-3-inch Kutcher has
grown weary of the constant
paparazzi attention, but he is
cautious about complaining too
much.
"I know it's looked at as a
privileged problem," he said. "I
understand that. I get it.
"But they literally sit at the end of
my driveway and wait for us to leave
the house. Then they follow us all
day, everywhere we go. The only
difference between a stalker and a
paparazzi is that the paparazzi is
holding a camera.
"Would I like it to change? Yes.
Would I like there to be a law
prohibiting this kind of behavior? I
don't know. We already have too
much censorship in our society.
"I really don't think we should
have to pass a law giving someone
a minute of privacy. If people just
respected other people, we wouldn't
need a law like that."
The son of factory workers (his
dad worked at the Cheerios plant; his
mom was employed by Proctor &
Gamble making Head & Shoulders
shampoo), Kutcher was born and
raised in Cedar Rapids, lowa, but the
family moved to an 80-acre farm in
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tiny Homestead, lowa, when he was
13.
In 7th grade, he caught the acting
bug when he played a thief in a
school play and the audience laughter
gave him "instant gratification."
Following high school, he enrolled
at the University of lowa as a
biochemical engineering major, but
he dropped out after one year when
he won a modeling contest in a
shopping mall. First prize was a trip
to New York City, where he signed
with an agent.
"That's my story," Kutcher says
with a laugh, "and I'm sticking to it."
Although he found work as a
model (for the likes of Calvin Klein,
Gucci and Abercrombie & Fitch). the
life of a male model is not as
glamorous or prosperous as their
female counterparts.
In fact, at one point he was living
on instant soup
"It was my starving model stage,"
he said. "But there was no way I was
going to quit or call home for money.
There was no way I could tell my
parents that quitting college to pursue
modeling was a mistake. That wasn't
an option."
He appeared in a New York
University student film, which led to
an audition for the movie
. "Varsity
Blues." He had to borrow money for
the subway to get to the audition. •
Obviously, he lost the part to James
Van Der Beek, but it did get him a
trip to Los Angeles to test for an NBC
sitcom. He didn't get that role either,
but his agent sent him to another
audition the same day for a new Fox
comedy called "That '7os Show."
The rest, as they say, is tabloid
history.
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He said he ended "Punk'd" because
he felt the short attention span of the
MTV audience would soon spell
disaster anyway, but he is developing
new shows for MTV and Fox.
"I want to constantly do new things
to challenge myself and surprise
other people," he said. "That's why I
did this new movie."
"The Butterfly Effect" (it derives
its name from the environmental
theory that if a butterfly flutters its
wings on one side of the globe, it can
cause a natural disaster on the other)
stars Kutcher as a man who discovers
how to go back in time to relive
traumatic moments in his past that Le
blocked out as a child.
"I ti,: tight it was a cool title and a
cool character," he said, "and the
movie only cost $9 million to make.
Even if I fall flat on my face, I think
I can make back their money.
"There will be people who won't
like, but maybe some people will like
it. I'm willing to take that chance.
This was a deliberate attempt to do
something new; it was not a
deliberate attempt to change people's
image of me."
As for that image fostered by the
tabloid press, Kutcher said he has
learned to live with it.
"They really should write a
handbook for new celebrities," he
said. "It's all kind of surprising what
happens to someone in my position.
"Personally, I don't read the stories
about myself. I don't watch the TV
shows. I know what the truth is. I go
to work, do my job and have a
wonderful relationship. I just live my
life, like everyone else, only people
choose to write about mine."
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