Features

January 10, 2010

Kunis shares ugly truth about ‘The Book of Eli’

AMY LONGSDORF For The Times Leader

Mila Kunis might be a mainstay on Maxim’s Hot 100 list, but, if it were up to her, she’d be appearing in her latest movie with a killer sunburn and the world’s worst teeth.

In the post-apocalyptic “The Book of Eli,” opening Friday, the world’s population is reduced to small bands of grimy survivors, including good guy Eli (Denzel Washington) and his nemesis, the power-mad Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Almost everybody looks like they’ve been to hell and back, with the exception of Kunis.

“I wanted gnarly teeth,” the actress, 26, says. “But they were like, ‘Uh, no.’ Why? Because apparently an American audience would not want to look at me for two hours with gnarly teeth. I disagree.”

On second thought, Kunis says, it’s probably better off that her character – Carnegie’s pampered stepdaughter Solara – isn’t as gritty as the rest of the filthy, dirty bunch.

“Actually, Solara is not supposed to be gnarly. She’s being taken care of by Carnegie. She was able to shower. She didn’t have frills about her, and her hair was never blown dry, but she wasn’t dirty. She didn’t have sunburn on her face; she didn’t have to.”

Solara, who longs to accompany Eli on his journey across America, is only one source of conflict between Eli and Carnegie. Eli is in possession of one of humanity’s last remaining Bibles and believes it can be the cornerstone of a new civilization. Carnegie, meanwhile, is angling for ways to use the book to control his underlings and expand his dominion.

For Kunis, “The Book of Eli” was an opportunity to expand her range. After eight seasons on the Fox sitcom “That ’70s Show” and appearances in such comedies as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Tony and Tina’s Wedding,” the actress is ready to be taken seriously.

When she was offered a role in “The Book of Eli,” she jumped at the chance to work with Allen and Albert Hughes, the “Dead Presidents” filmmakers who are directing their first movie since 2001’s “From Hell.” An even bigger lure was the opportunity to share scenes with Washington.

“He’s very strong, very powerful,” Kunis says. “He has a presence about him that’s indescribable. It’s something you can’t teach a person to have. You either are born with it or you’re not. He walks into a room, and whether your back is turned to him or not you feel he’s there.”

The latest in a stream of doomsday movies (see “The Road,” “2012,” “Terminator: Salvation”), “The Book of Eli” was filmed at desolate New Mexico locales, primarily in and around Albuquerque, as well as the roadways at Cochiti Pueblo and the White Sands National Monument.

While the film has something to say about “commitment, sacrifice, survival and human nature,” according to Allen Hughes, it’s also chock full of brutal hand-to-hand confrontations, knife fights and machete battles.

Like Washington, Kunis did many of her stunts, including dashing away from a grenade explosion. The scene was tricky, the actress says, because 30 minutes before shooting, she twisted her ankle stepping out of her trailer.

“They had to call the doctor and put a cast on my foot because I tore a ligament,” she says. “So the running was done with a cast and a fake shoe on top of it. That was the most physically challenging (stunt) because I was in pain.”

While Kunis is primarily known for making people laugh, she’s no stranger to action. In the surprise hit “Max Payne,” she played a bad-ass avenger alongside Mark Wahlberg. But, the actress insists, “The Book of Eli” boasts a much different, more-grounded-in-reality edge to it.

“The girl in this movie is not necessarily tough,” the actress says. “She’s just not. She’s perseverant and she’s driven, but she’s not tough. She’s not wearing leather pants and shooting machine guns. She’s just a woman with a purpose.”

Kunis, born in the Ukraine and raised in Los Angeles, can relate. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t hellbent on a career in show business. At the age of 9, she signed up for acting classes at Beverly Hills Studios, where she met manager Susan Curtis, who represents her to this day.

Thanks to Curtis, Kunis immediately booked a handful of print and TV commercials as well as small roles on TV’s “Days of Our Lives,” “Baywatch,” “Walker: Texas Ranger” and “7th Heaven.” She played a young Angelina Jolie in HBO’s acclaimed “Gia” before landing the breakthrough role of Jackie Burkhart on “That ’70s Show.” She was only 14 at the time.

According to the actress, acting was a way for her to deal with her insecurities. Always small for her age, Kunis – nicknamed Munchkin by her family – was the subject of non-stop bullying at school.

“I got picked on,” she says. “I had a very funny-looking face when I was little. I had big eyes, big lips, big ears, I had big features, and I grew into them. When I was little, I was constantly being made fun of for having big eyes, and that was awful. I used to come home crying, ‘Why do I have big eyes?’ And my parents were like, ‘You’re crazy. You’re a crazy child.’ ”

Kunis’ champion was her 6-year-old older brother Mark, who now works as a mechanical engineer.

“My parents worked full time. They still do,” the actress explains. “So my brother ended up being a caretaker for me. And he was fantastic. To this day, my brother and I travel together. We’re best friends.”

While Kunis says she’s happy with her looks these days, it’s still difficult for her to watch herself on screen.

“I don’t like looking at myself 40 times my own size,” says the actress, who has dated Macaulay Culkin for the past eight years. “It’s not fun because all you do is nitpick everything that you do, every mannerism, every decision, everything.”

Kunis is just as adamant about not watching herself on the small screen. She made it through all eight seasons of “That ’70s Show” without taking in a single episode.

“I have yet to watch a full episode,” she says. “Sometimes, I’m flipping channels and I see it because it’s on all the time, but I never watch a full episode. I can’t.”

Kunis wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of her performances if not for “Family Guy,” the long-running animated hit in which she lends her tonsil power to Meg Griffin, the family’s awkward teenager.

“ ‘Family Guy’ is great,” Kunis says with a laugh. “ I’m not on it so I can watch that show all day long.”

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