By: Izumi Hasegawa August 4, 2016
Mila Kunis seems to have come full circle from her days of That 70’s Show where she met now husband Ashton Kutcher. She is art imitating life co-starring in the hilarious od to Mom’s – Bad Mom‘s. Check out our interview with Mila who shares her secrets on motherhood and what her thoughts are on Hillary Clinton being the first woman and mother nominated for President of the United States.
Q: You’re mom in real life. Is there such a thing as a bad mom and what would you call yourself? How would you rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10?
I think that when it’s referred to as “bad mom” it’s not moms that put their kids’ lives in danger. To clarify it’s not, “I’m a bad mom. I forgot I had a child.” It’s not that dramatic. It’s just being able to allow yourself to make mistakes and know that it’s ok to ask for help and not put so much pressure on yourself. I think that that’s what it refers to when it when is says “bad mom”. It’s just the antithesis of the perfection that society puts and the pressure we put on ourselves.
Q: What’s the best advice you received from your mom that you would even pass along to your kids?
My mom was never big on advices. She’s one of those people that, “Learn from my actions, not from my words”. My whole life she’s never been like, “Let me tell you how to live your life.” She would live her life in a really beautiful way and hopefully I would emulate it. She will run all of you one day. She’s just not one of those people who would ever tell someone else, let me tell you how to do anything. She’s just not that type of person. She’s just always been a wonderful, giving human being. She’s always come over and she always just helps out. I don’t know how else to say it but it’s never through words. It’s always through actions.
Q: Has being a mom changed you as an actor?
I 100 percent agree with everything. For me it changed everything. I mean it changed me as an actor but I think it gave me a really interesting sense of confidence, in the same way that you’re saying. I think my priorities shifted. My priorities shifted a while ago, but my priorities really shifted when I decided to start a family, and I think I became incredibly selfless. Knowing that I was going to have a baby made me be like, I know that I have to give up so much of myself and I’m happy to do that. It wasn’t like, “Oh I’ll sacrifice.” It was more like, “Oh no, I want to do this.” I think having these type of emotions and having gone through this, ultimately you see characters in a different way and you can sympathize with characters in a different matter. That being said, aside from the selfish issue of it, it also makes you pick projects differently, because is this worth me going out of town for? Is this worth me being away from my child? In my 20s, I had nothing to lose. I was traveling the world, working non-stop and I was like, “Life is great”, because I really didn’t have a home to come back to, in a good way. I was young and 20. Then all of a sudden I had a husband and the child and I was like, “This is not worth it. I want to be home with my family.” Then you look at projects in a very different manner.
Q: Have your husbands seen the film and if so, what were their reactions?
My husband did see it.
Q: And what did your Ashton think?
He loved it, genuinely loved it and if he didn’t, I would lie to you and tell you that he hadn’t seen it, so he loved it, which was great. He saw the screening that we all went to.
Q: Did he try to give you pointers or did he say, “Oh my God, that is so you.”
No, because he loves me and he wouldn’t dare have those things to say.
Q: Did he say anything in particular that he liked about it?
You’d have to interview him. I didn’t necessarily interview my husband, I wasn’t like, “Hey baby, tell me exactly what scene did you like? What did you like?” No, but he laughed a lot and he got teary eyed and his whole thing was he loved the movie because, I can tell you this much, to your point, he didn’t look at it as a one quadrant film, which is I think coming from a 30-plus year old male is always a positive. He was like, “I hope that they promote this movie as a multi-quadrant film. All you need to do is give an excuse to a guy to go see it and they’ll see it, because it’s worth it.” The humor is not just female-based humor. It is universal humor. You just need to give a man an excuse to go and see it. He loved it.
Q: Many mother will say they see themselves in their children, do you?
Mine’s a little too young to tell. She’s only 21 months but I hope that she’s better than I am in every single way. She’s funny, I’ll tell you that much. She’s a very funny kiddo, but she’s a little young.
Q: Christina mentioned that between takes when the six of you that are mom’s in real life got together all you talked about were your kids and politics. Mila, you’ve been recently quoted as taking issue with the anti-immigrant stuff that’s been happening in this country lately. Would you like to share anything on that, or any of you on our current Presidential race?
Who cares what I have to say? The truth is I will give my opinion when in a conversation form, but in reality, no one should listen to anything I say. Educate yourself. Educate yourself on what it is that you find to be interesting. Go with three things that mean the most to you and educate yourself on it. Go with platforms. Know what people stand for, know what’s wrong and form your own opinion. Not you, you, but people. What I have to say is based on what I find to be important and given that I’m an immigrant, that I came here on a refugee-based Visa, yeah I have a very different opinion as to what’s happening in the world today, but that’s from my experience, so to me there’s certain things, women’s rights is important to me, gay rights was important to me. Now we finally are past that point. Whenever I did vote for presidents, whenever there was an election, whenever there was a point made, I always say there’s so much for people to consume information wise, just pick three issues that are the most important to you. Educate yourself on those three issues and who do you align yourself with, and that’s it. That’s all you need to worry about. Everything else is just loud noise. I can go on and on. I’m a massive political junkie. I just recently had the privilege of talking to Hillary Clinton. There’s nothing I can say. We’ll see what happens.
Q: Was she as awesome as I think she is in person?
She’s really smart. At the end of the day I think people discredit her level of intelligence and everything else is just loud noise and it doesn’t matter, She’s so brilliant. Here’s what I will say about her. The most brilliant people I’ve ever met, I go to conferences all the time. I go to Yellowstone and I’m very privileged that I get to be a part of these amazing groups. The most brilliant people that I’ve ever had the luxury to talk to have always been in her cabinet. The one thing I can always say is I know whether she’s smart or not, she hired really, really smart people and lets them do their job.
Bad Moms is playing in theatres nationwide.
