We haven’t heard from Mila Kunis in awhile, except for literally hearing her as Meg Griffin. Her only film this year was the long-delayed bust Jupiter Ascending, and she’s got nothing on the horizon except another season of Family Guy and voicing a character in Hell & Back, a stop-motion animated film co-starring Danny McBride, Bob Odenkirk, and T.J. Miller out next month.
It’s a shame not having Kunis in our lives (although I’d rather have no Kunis than starring-in-Ted 2 Kunis), but she just got married, had a baby, and was threatened with a chicken-stealing lawsuit, so her break is well deserved. Today’s also her 32nd birthday, so let’s learn a little bit more about the That ’70s Show star.
1. From the Ukraine to Baywatch
Mila was born in the Ukraine and lived there until she was 7, at which point she and her family moved to Los Angeles. They left their home country because “it was right at the fall [of the Soviet Union.] It was very communist, and my parents wanted my brother and me to have a future, and so they just dropped everything.” She’s also said, “There was a bit of anti-Semitism in Russia.” And also no black people, as she told W magazine.
And what was the first thing she remembers seeing of America?
“A black man. It was at the American embassy, and all I had known were Caucasian people with blond hair, brunette hair, and sometimes red hair. You’re never really taught about anything else. I think I was frightened. And the beautiful thing was, the man spoke Russian. He explained to me that there are people in this world who are of different color. Being seven and a half, I asked him, ‘Does that mean there are purple people in this world?'” (Via USA Today)
Kunis didn’t know a single word of English at the time of the move, but three years later, in 1994, she made her acting debut in an episode of Baywatch, where she played a blind girl.
2. That fake age show
It’s one thing to lie about your age when you’re a 20-year-old pretending to be 19. It’s another when you’re trying to get a job, and you say you’re 18 when you’re actually 14. That’s how Kunis got her breakthrough role on That ’70s Show. “Legally I was 14, but I told them I was a little bit older,” she said. “I told them I was gonna be 18, which is not technically a lie, cause at one point…I was gonna be 18.” If producers knew what she was up to, Kunis probably wouldn’t have played Jackie Burkhart, and maybe she wouldn’t be married to co-star Ashton Kutcher.
I wish she hadn’t lied about her age.
3. Black Swan, white heat
Sorry, but the rumor that Kunis and Natalie Portman did shots of tequila before their Black Swan sex scene is false. Director Darren Aronofsky did, however, mess with them by pitting the actresses against each other. Portman got her friend Kunis the gig (she auditioned via Skype and never had an official audition), but Aronofsky didn’t want them to be TOO close. He “didn’t allow them contact during filming and repeatedly praised Kunis’ performance to Portman.” Aronofsky even texted them about the other’s performance, to stir up jealously.
Darren Aronofsky is a drama-queen monster.
4. No butts about it
Kunis has appeared naked on-screen before (in the little-seen Boot Camp and she’s topless in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, though it’s a fake photo), but she used a butt double for Friends With Benefits, her inoffensive rom-com with Justin Timberlake that isn’t No Strings Attached with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. She told Ryan Seacrest, “These young ladies came in and they were in a casting room and I was there with the director and the casting director…and these lovely women had to show us their derrieres and we chose the one that most resembled my body the most.” She’s not a total prude, though: “I showed side-boob, and I figured I can’t just give away everything all at once. I have to let out little pieces here and there.”
5. If they don’t win, it’s a f*cking shame
Congrats, Los Angeles Dodgers diehards, not only does your team have the league’s highest payroll, you can also count Kunis as a fellow fan. So much so that in 2008, when the Dodgers were losing to the Phillies in the playoffs, she grew so disgusted at the team that she began swearing — while sitting next to a 10-year-old boy, who didn’t realize how lucky he was. “The kid turns around and his parents turn around,” she said, “I was like, ‘I’m so sorry, but come on.’ ”
6. What an honor
She is Robot Chicken/the world’s only credited “Wrangler Wrangler” (in almost every episode).
7. One eye blind
For many years, Kunis was blind in one eye. She had surgery to correct her chronic iritis in 2010, which is right around the time she stopped dating a certain fellow actor who we’ll get to in a minute. Kunis told Cosmo, “I’m not blind anymore. I had surgery a couple of months ago. They cut it open and dropped a new lens in there.” She now has one brown and one green eye.
8. Home, not alone
She dated Macaulay Culkin for many years in the 2000s. I find this VERY fascinating.
