- As a young kid,
I just loved everything about this industry,
I thought it was magical.
I never looked at it as anything other than fun.
I didn't care that I didn't get a part, it was okay.
Like I think being an immigrant
and understanding what the simple aspect of opportunity is
gave me a sense of appreciation for just thank you so much
for even allowing me to sit here and audition for you.
That was enough.
[upbeat music]
Hi, my name is Mila Kunis
and this is the timeline of my career.
Hi, I'm so young.
Why are we doing a timeline?
This makes me feel really old.
[soft jazz music]
- Humph, you're not wearing that to the game, are you?
- Um, actually no.
I've got some good news and bad news.
- I'm Ashley, I don't get bad news.
- I think as a kid, the bad girls
were the ones with the dark hair
and then like the more relatable all-American gals
were the blonde ones or whatever.
So I clearly wasn't that.
So I ended up as a young kid
being like the cool girl or the bad girl
'cause I had dark hair that happened to be curly.
My parents were so nice enough to let me do this as a hobby.
The only stipulations I had to go to school,
I had to get good grades, and then this was a hobby of mine
that I accidentally stumbled into that I was like,
"This is awesome.
I'm like in junior high and I get to be on television?
This is crazy."
So I auditioned a lot and more times than not,
you don't get anything you auditioned for.
So that built up a solid backbone
and resilience and talk about hard work.
But I remember I auditioned for a show I did not get,
little known show called 90210.
And I love that show.
And I got a call back
and I came back and they didn't tell me,
they didn't prepare me, that Jason Priestley,
who was directing that episode, was gonna be in the room.
And I froze.
I froze guys.
I froze.
Okay, I choked.
And I was like, "Ah!"
That was extraordinary.
But I also went into all of this
being like, "I'm never gonna get it.
Who cares?
But it's gonna be fun."
[soft jazz music]
- Well besides, if you worked here,
you can see me whenever I wanted you to.
[laugh track plays]
You love her?
- Oh yeah.
- First and foremost, '70s Show impacted me.
I met my husband.
Also gave me an amazing opportunity
of eight years of steady work
that I otherwise never would have in this industry
which gave me a financial freedom.
There's a rumor going around that I may or may not have lied
about my age for That '70s Show.
I'd like to make a very clear now, I did lie.
Okay? I did.
However, by the time I went to
what was then like producer's network call,
you have to sign a contract before you get the job.
And in my contract I had to put an asterisk
and be like, "Studio teacher."
And they're like, "What do you mean?"
And I was like, "PSM 14."
But at that point, if you talk to Bonnie and Terry Turner,
they were so sweet, they were like,
"Well we loved you at that point.
And so what did we care?"
It was in the heyday of like older kids
playing younger kids.
And I was actually of the age of the character.
I wasn't intimidated.
I had a solid ego.
Man, I thought it was so cool.
- So do you wanna like go to the mall or something?
- That's cool.
- So I must have been intimidating is what I should say.
But I don't know if it was intimidating
in the sense of like I didn't know who I was
or lost sense of myself, but I must have been like,
"Wow, these kids are all so cool
and they're so much older than I am
and they're so much cooler than I am."
I had the greatest experience on '70s.
100%, I was embraced,
100%, I was never treated as like lesser than.
And if I did by one of the cast members,
another cast member would stand up for it.
So we were all trying to figure ourselves out.
We were all young.
I will say the reason I don't do drugs,
the reason why I didn't get into drugs,
all of that was because nobody on the set did.
And I looked up to them at 14
and so the trajectory in my career
or my life could have gone any which way.
But it didn't, it was like this set was cool,
it was like they played poker on Friday nights,
and they drink beer, and I was like, "Oh, cool."
But that was it, right?
Like that was the extent of that.
- I'll get it.
- Dad, how could you be okay
with mom parading herself around like this?
I mean, she's half naked.
It makes all women look bad.
- Meg, who let you back in the house?
- I remember my manager, Susan at the time,
being like, "There's a show called Family Guy.
The actress quit because she didn't find the show
to be in line with her ethical beliefs.
You wanna audition for it?"
And I was like, "Yeah, what's the show?"
It hadn't aired yet.
And so I went and auditioned
and I remember McFarland being like, "Slow down."
Like that was the big thing.
I guess I naturally speak really fast.
When I record now,
I'm really good about knowing to slow down.
But when you're 15, you just wanna get this ball rolling.
You're like, "I got places to be, people to see.
Let's go, go, go."
And so for whatever reason,
McFarland was like down enough to be like,
"Slow down, slow down."
'Cause he could have easily hired anybody to do the voice.
But for whatever reason, here we are 20 years later.
I only ever asked once for Meg to get a makeover.
It was like years into the show and I was like,
"Just give her something.
Like get the condom hat off of her head, give her a hairdo."
And then I think they gave her blonde hair
and and I was like, "Thank God, like finally."
- I got a makeover Dad.
Don't I look great?
- Oh Meg, honey, I always thought you
were beautiful just the way you-
[Peter laughs]
- Let me be clear about this thing
where people are like what's the voice that you do for Meg?
It's this.
This is the voice guys, I have no skills.
I pitch it sometimes now
because I have since aged myself due to life and that's it.
That's my skillset.
But when I got it at 15, it was just my voice,
which was a little bit younger.
All in all, I think that it's half the time,
Meg doesn't talk, she's like kind of just like
in the background that gets farted on or sat on.
So if I have dialogue, I'm really happy.
- And where was I?
Oh yeah.
[Peter farts]
- Ah! Dad!
Get away from me! Dad!
- Hello?
- [Rachel Jansen] Hey Peter?
- Sarah?
- Uh, no, it's Rachel Jansen from the front desk.
- Hey.
- Hey, what's going on up there?
I'm getting complaints about a woman crying hysterically?
- As a young actor, nothing draws you to a role
other than work and money.
Let's be honest, unless somehow you're magical enough
to have that to begin with.
I was not.
So what drew me to roles?
Jobs.
I had a house that hated to make payments for.
I wasn't picky.
I know that some people were,
and kudos to them, this was not me.
I auditioned for Knocked Up with Judd and Seth Rogan
and it was an improv scene.
Judd was big on auditioning improvs.
So he'd be like, "Here's a circumstance, go."
And it was like Rogan and I acting something out.
And I remember I made a funny joke about Costco or something
and Judd was like, "Ha ha ha."
And I was like, "Oh, I made Judd Apatow laugh."
Like I was just like, "Look at me."
It didn't work out.
For one reason or another, I did not get Knocked Up.
A year later I got a call from Judd
to be like, "Hey will you do me a favor and do a table read
for a movie that we may or may not make?"
Which is totally normal in the industry,
they do table reads to hear their dialogue.
I was like, "Yeah of course, Judd Apatow,
like whatever you need."
So I showed to this table read
and it was a very different cast
that you know from Sarah Marshall
than it was at the table read.
And it was a different movie.
But we did the table read and I was like,
"Cool, nice to knowing you guys.
Bye, see you later."
Never to be heard from again for like eight, nine months.
And then all of a sudden, I got a call being like,
"Do you wanna do the movies.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, they're actually gonna do it."
And I was like, "Hawaii?
They'll pay me to go to Hawaii?"
I was like, "I am in."
That was it.
And then we showed up to Hawaii
and it ended up being hands down
one of the most incredible experiences
anybody could ever ask for as a young actor.
It was magical.
The fact we shot where we lived, we were all young,
and in our '20, didn't need much sleep,
none of us had kids, none of us had any responsibilities,
we surfed in the morning before work
and we would go surfing after.
I don't even surf, but I did it.
My real life hotel room
was next door to the room that we shot in.
It was like an inclusive resort, but with like movie making.
This was before anybody had any notoriety.
Let's keep in mind, like there was no ego of anybody.
They were so great and so funny.
I've never improved,
but I was like this is their wheelhouse.
Russell Brand would go on these rants
when he improved that I was like,
"I don't even understand what this improv means."
Like half the time, he improved into a world
that was so existential that I was like,
"That is high brow Russell.
I cannot keep up to save my life."
Russell was like [lip-trill] on a tangent.
I also got in trouble.
We showed up to the resort,
we're on an island that also has a military base on it,
and so our resort at the time had a lot of families
that were visiting their kids
that were in the military base.
I was of age, I was 22 at the time,
and I remember grabbing myself a drink
and there was a kid there
that had his like whole camo on and he couldn't get a drink
and he was like 20 I think.
And I was like, "Oh my god, you're fighting for our country
and you can't get a drink?
I'll get you a damn drink."
And I went and got the kid drinks
and I got into so much trouble from that hotel.
They went and talked to Shauna,
who was our producer at the time,
and they're like, "Your actress, that's not okay.
She cannot be buying drinks to underage people."
And I was like, "He's clearly in the military.
Give the kid a beer.
Like who cares?"
I didn't get kicked out.
Thank god, I didn't get fired
but I didn't do that again at that hotel.
- I like living here.
- Big day is getting closer and closer, huh?
Well I can't wait.
I think you're gonna be amazing.
- Thanks.
- Black Swan was great.
Like it was one of those
where you didn't know what you were making,
you kind of hoped people would get it,
you just didn't know.
Shot it for $1.
We lost all our budget the day before production.
Darren, I don't know how, found money magically,
we were able to shoot.
So much of our shooting was done illegally
'cause we didn't have permits
'cause we were a broke production.
We shot illegally in the subway.
I mean we got a phone call at three in the morning, be like,
"Come down to the subway, we're gonna shoot scene 35-A."
And I was like, "I'm coming."
There's no version of that that could do that today for me.
I be like, "I have kids and I gotta pick 'em up
and drop 'em off at school."
And I didn't know what was gonna happen with the movie.
I honestly was just like, it's Darren Aronofsky,
it's Natalie Portman, like winner, right?
This is an incredible group of people to be with.
Winona Ryder?
I was like, "What movie am I making?"
I mean, mind you, Darren was like,
"And now you must learn to dance."
And I was like, "I can do it."
Oh my God, I broke my body.
I was like, "No, I can't."
But I did it.
And luckily because we lost money,
we were able to push production three months
which gave me three more months to get on point.
So for that, I'll always be oddly grateful for it,
that we lost money initially.
- This could be great.
This could take all the weirdness out of it.
- Well, we talked about this.
I don't like you like that.
- I don't like you like that either.
That's why it's perfect.
- I don't even know if I find you attractive.
- That's cute.
- Mm, like, do you have a thing for jerks?
- The original script was so, to me, dated
and not what I wanted to do.
Clint was our producer on it and he convinced me.
We talk about, I was like, "I'm not gonna do it."
And he was like, "You're gonna do it.
I promise you, I promise you,
I'm gonna make this right for you.
You have to meet with Will Gluck, he's amazing."
And Will just did Easy A.
And I was like, "No, Easy A is great, I get it.
I don't wanna do it."
And he literally bullied me,
I mean in the best possible sense,
he jedied me into doing it.
And I was like, "All right, I'll do it."
He's like, "You gotta meet Justin, I swear you'll love him.
It'll all work out.
You and Will need to go to dinner.
This will all make sense."
And I was like,
"I don't know if this is the right thing for me."
I mean I fully got like, "You will do this movie."
And I was like, "I guess I'm doing this movie."
And then we would meet and hang
and Will will do the rewrites with us.
It was the first time that I felt in my career
ever to be a part of a collaborative process
of doing a rewrite.
We would improv a scene out
and then Will Gluck would go in and write the dialogue out
and we would improv the scene and Gluck would rewrite it.
And so it was a really collaborative, incredible process.
Working with Justin was fine
until you were on the streets of New York City.
It was all fine and dandy on a stage,
he was like young and excited about acting
and like super present and great.
And then you went on into the public with him
and it was like The Beatles
on the street of New York City shooting with him.
I've never witnessed that in my life.
We would shoot on this side of the street.
And I'm not kidding you,
it was like a sea of 1,000 people just staring at you.
And I was like, "Whoa."
Like that was a whole learning curve for me.
I was like, "You have a interesting life, homie.
Like good luck to you."
I thought I had it bad.
That's bad.
So working with them was great,
but being in this public street with him,
nobody should experience.
- Hey Johnny, how about a beer, eh?
- Oh, a couple Charles Brew-kowskis?
- A couple of Brew-stoyevskis?
- That's a good one.
- You know what?
I think I too want a Martina Navrati-brewski.
- Oh no, no, no, no, no. - Oh no, that doesn't work.
- No, no, no, don't ruin it, no.
- Bullshit, that totally works.
- [Ted] No.
- So Ted was a movie that McFarland
had written a couple years prior to it being made
and it had different actors attached to it.
And I was younger.
I would go into recording sessions
and he was like, "Okay, gimme another actress.
I need somebody for this movie.
Can you give me another actress
who you think is great that's funny?"
And I was like, "What about blah, blah, blah?
What about blah, blah?"
So for a year, I pitched him all of these actresses,
if not two years.
And then at one point, it got to a place
where I got old enough to do the movie
and he literally just out of nowhere turned, he goes,
"Well, do you wanna do it?"
And I went, "I mean, I can.
Okay."
But it all happened.
It was almost like I was this like last resort.
You know, it was a movie about a talking bear.
By the time that was at Fox Universal, whoever put it out,
you gotta convince people that this movie was gonna be good.
And they're like,
"You mean there's a talking bear in the movie?"
And you're like, "Yeah."
So I think it took a minute for people to jump on board,
but then when they did, it was off to the races.
[upbeat music]
- We're killing ourselves trying to be perfect
and it's making us insane.
- In this day and age, it's impossible to be a good mom.
- Screw it.
Let's be bad moms.
- I had my daughter at the time, I think she was two,
not even, one and a half.
And so I had taken a minute off from acting
and went to producing for about three years.
And I was like, "If I go back to shooting something
with a baby, with a kid,
with a one and a half year old at the time for me,"
I was like, "It's better be good."
And I was Like, "Couldn't find a project
that I gravitated towards."
Zoe Saldaña, was a girlfriend of mine, read the script,
totally randomly somehow, called me, and goes,
"I can't do this, but just for fun, read this script."
And I was like, "All right, I'll read it for fun."
I read it and I was like, "Oh, this is really funny."
Like I was like,
"I wonder what's gonna happen to this movie."
Like hope it gets made.
Don't give it any thought.
And then two months later, out of nowhere,
I got a call from agent being like,
"There's this script called Bad Moms.
Do you wanna read it?"
And I was like, "Wait, I already read it.
I know this script."
It all happened as like a fun read
that another actress sent me to be like,
"Here's a really funny, great movie."
And we had just both become moms
and we both I think just related to it, yeah.
[classical music]
- I don't know what's me and what part I invented.
- [Speaker] Your former classmate
has made claims against you.
- Don't talk about what happened that night.
- Are you seriously trying to threaten me right now?
- When I read the script,
I really gravitated towards Jessica's writing.
I thought that she had a very specific tone
and it reminded me a little bit
of like Diablo Cody's writing
where if you took the name off of a script, you'd be like,
"Oh, I know that writer, that's Diablo Cody."
And I looked at Jessica and Jessica's writing
exactly the same.
The dichotomy between who the person is in her head
versus who she outwardly portrays.
And the fact that you get to actually see both incidents
and you get to see both come to life
I think was really unique and different.
A lot of times in movies,
what I find sometimes hard to do in scripts
is that they talk about a lot of stuff.
There's lots of talking.
They're always talking about either what they did,
what they're going to do.
And in this one, I actually think that for the first time
in a long time, it's a story that we're actually showing you
and that you're allowed to experience
with the person visually and go on this journey
instead of just reliving it.
So at this very point in my life,
I think I'm super fortunate and really lucky
that I don't have to work to pay my bills.
I think in order to be successful in any career,
but in this industry specifically,
it almost has to become an obsession to an extent,
because otherwise there's just so many obstacles
along the way that will knock you down for you to go,
"Forget it, I'm getting out of here."
So in my '20s, in our '20s, we had that.
When we decided to start a family,
we had to reprioritize that and we said this to ourselves,
we made each other our number one priority
and we made our children our number one priority
and everything else came latter.
I love being a mom, I love being a wife, I love being home.
And so in order for me to pick a project,
it has to have a really good reason
for me not to be with my kids and my family.
And so the first thing is
is this worth me leaving my kids for?
And if the answer is yes, then I continue that.
But if I look at it and I go,
"Anyone can do this, it's gonna be great,
but it's just not something that I wanna leave my kids for."
It's done.