INTERVIEW - Ashton Kutcher: All Grown Up?

As one of Hollywood’s biggest names, Ashton Kutcher has never been one to be typecast. Building his reputation on TV and in light comedy, he has since run the gamut of film genre, from action to horror to drama, all with great success. His latest work puts him back in a comedy role, opposite Cameron Diaz in What Happens In Vegas…

The pair play a couple of recently single people who in one holiday in Vegas drunkenly get married, then win $3million. They are court-ordered to attempt to work out their differences over six months of ‘hard marriage’, in which time the desperate pair try to undermine each other to get their hands on the money.

Despite his character’s lack of wedded bliss, Kutcher himself has been very happily married for over two years to actress Demi Moore, something he puts down to having realistic expectations about marriage. “I think the biggest problem in general, with relationships, is that guys are raised with a goal of having sex...But for women, they have these goals of ‘I’m gonna get married, and then I’m gonna have kids’. What we’re missing is no one really has the goal of being married. They think about the event (of marriage), and so no one’s really working towards being married as a goal and that’s what this movie’s really about, in a sense. The idea of, ‘it ain’t always pretty’, and that’s when you find out whose got the guts.”

Kutcher signed on very early to the project, even though he was intent on more serious roles. “I really was set on not doing a comedy. Then I read the script, and the first 30-40 pages I was laughing out loud. And when that happens you have to stop and think, ‘well something’s really working here’.” He was quickly joined by co-star Cameron Diaz, for whom he has nothing but admiration. “When you’re with or around Cameron she’s always the happiest person to be there in the room. When she’s filming...(She has) the greatest depth of appreciation for the opportunity to fight in the grass, or run in the park, like she sees that glass so half-full that it might be spilling out of the top. She just makes you’re life better being around her. She’s just one of those people.”

Finally, given his character gets married ‘under the influence’, what’s the worst thing he’s ever done when drunk? “That’s not PG!” he laughs, “Oh man...there’s a big, long list of stupid things I’ve engaged in. Probably the stupidest thing was...on my college campus between where I lived and the bars was a river. It was winter and the lake had just frozen over...So my buddy dared me to walk across the river, and I was so drunk that I slipped and fell down. Then I passed out, and my buddy didn’t come and save me because he didn’t know how thick the ice was! So I was just lying there for a couple of hours and woke up on the ice!”

What Happens In Vegas... is out 9th May. 

Check out the trailer