With her latest movie, Mila Kunis may finally fulfill her destiny.
Having begun acting professionally at age nine, the Ukraine-born beauty rose to fame playing goofy comedy on television’s That ’70s Show. Now with the dystopian drama The Book of Eli, she shares company with such an esteemed thespian as Denzel Washington — a step in the right direction.
“He’s a very powerful man,” said Kunis during a recent interview. “At this point in my career, I like to work with people that I admire and people I respect and can learn from, and an opportunity to work with Denzel Washington, you can’t really pass it up.”
In the movie, Kunis joins Washington as a post-apocalyptic survivor protecting a sacred book as he seeks to fulfill its destiny in the West. It’s a much more mature role for Kunis who, until relatively recently, didn’t take her job seriously.
“It was just a conscious decision that this is what I want to do with my life,” said Kunis. “I looked at it as something fun. I worked because I was able to work, and then when I was twenty, I was like, ‘OK, this is going to be my career so I’m going to make smart choices and I’m going to go about it as a career versus just a fun thing on the side.’”
While she admits luck had a lot to do with her success, Kunis selects her parts more carefully now, but she remains self-effacing when it comes to being realistic about the nature of showbiz.
“I’d like to think I could do it for the rest of my life, but tomorrow, nobody might want to hire me and that’d be the end of it.”
In the meantime, audiences will see Kunis in The Book of Eli (hitting theatres Friday) as well as two other films releasing this year. Plus, fans can always catch her voicing the animated character of Meg on TV’s The Family Guy — perhaps surprisingly her most famous role.
“If I open my mouth and I’m in public, that’s all it takes,” laughed Kunis. “If I be quiet, I’m OK. It’s just when I talk that people are like, ‘Hey it’s Meg!’”
