Mila Kunis is the cover girl for GQ’s August issue, “The Comedy Issue”. She’s promoting her soon-to-be-released film Friends With Benefits, and I guess GQ didn’t want to give the cover to Justin Timberlake (who would?). I get that Mila is a hot girl and she’s doing a photo shoot with a men’s magazine, but I wish she wasn’t so scantily-clad in the photos. She’s actually talented, an up-and-coming dramatic and comedic actress in films, and they’ve got her all tarted up like she’s some dumb reality star. Just a minor peeve. You can read GQ’s interview here, and here are some highlights:
GQ: Your new movie is called ‘Friends with Benefits.’ Ever been in one of those relationships?
MILA: Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism—good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?GQ: Its because they enjoy sex.
MILA: But friends with benefits isn’t a purely sexual relationship—it’s two people who like each other having sex, not a random hookup. And when two people who like each other have sex, eventually someone catches feelings and everything is f-cked. You might be able to treat our relationship as killing time. I might not. I may be in love with you.GQ: Who’s the funniest person you know?
Mila Kunis: My father. He has such a dry sense of humor. He’d say something funny and then be like, “Kiddo, now’s the part where you laugh.”GQ: What about someone you’re not related to?
Mila Kunis: Lucille Ball is perfection—her timing and her commitment. Sarah Silverman is raunchy and brilliant, and people call her out for saying f-cked-up stuff that they wouldn’t have a problem with a man saying. How dare she? Who else? Tina Fey. She’s a genius. I actually just finished reading Bossypants… I love Tina Fey. So funny, but never shticky. She’s not tripping over sh-t.GQ: She’s so clearly attractive and successful that I can’t buy her self-deprecating stuff anymore.
Mila Kunis: I see your point. You want the attention to go to the joke itself rather than be distracted by who’s delivering it. But look at Bridesmaids. That movie’s full of beautiful women who are hysterical. I’m so proud of those ladies. You have no idea how hard it is for a woman in this business. A lot of people don’t even think women are funny. It’s f-cked-up, but you have to deal with guys like that. I’ve learned to roll with it.GQ: Do you have a personal experience of men in Hollywood not finding women funny?
Mila Kunis: I don’t personally know of anybody, no. I could give you some bullsh-t excuse why I don’t, but I just don’t. The bottom line is if you’re an attractive female in this industry, people just take you as that: attractive. People aren’t getting the opportunity to move beyond being attractive. It’s not only with comedy. It could be with drama or action or whatever. People are distracted by looks. It happens. I’m not saying it happened to me, but it happens.GQ: I imagine working with people like Seth MacFarlane and Jason Segel ends up involving a lot of dick jokes.
Mila Kunis: Put me at a table with five guys making dick jokes and I will be right there with them. And, uh, I’m on Family Guy. I’ve been on that show for so long that I don’t get grossed out by anything. But I’ve never had an experience where it’s been a bunch of dudes making dick jokes and I was like, “Oh, there go the boys. I’m going to go get a pedicure and be back in an hour.”GQ: Is it harder to be funny when you’re naked?
MILA: It’s hard to be funny in general. I think I have a good sense of humor, but I’m not, like, a joke-teller. I get the jokes, which is sometimes half the battle. Believe me, I have no idea why anyone hires me… Image is not a priority for me. I have to think about how I’m going to word this…. A lot of times, people go into this industry with a grandiose idea of fame and think the only way to achieve that is to please everybody. Unfortunately, that can lead to very self-conscious on-screen choices. This industry scrutinizes you. It’ll tear you apart.GQ: Are you single?
MILA: I am. I wouldn’t dare wish myself upon anybody at this point in my life! My shooting schedule is crazy. I’m a nomad till January.
[From GQ]
Mila also goes super-in-depth about how she’s a nerd and a Trekkie, which I now totally buy. Mila does give off a certain kind of vibe, that she’s up for anything and completely easy-going at heart, which I think really, really appeals to men. She’s a heartbreaker. Even I love her completely.
Cover courtesy of GQ/Terry Richardson, slideshow here.
I love her too….she seems like she would be a lot of fun to hang with.
I love her too….she seems like she would be a lot of fun to hang with.
Article title, chosen poses …*snort*
So jealous! She’s so mature and doing everything right.
If she was wearing low-slung jeans instead of just knickers I think the cover would be perfectly sexy/cute, but if I knew nothing about her work, then that photo makes her personality, smarts & talent disappear into an amorphous mass of celebutard skin.
And yes, I am judging an actress by her cover – Mila, the letching photog is not your friend!
Easily one of the most real and down-to-earth actresses. I adore her.
She basically is what Olivia Munn will never be.
her stocks just went up with me.
Mixed messages lady.
I loved her in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” That movie makes me laugh more each time I see it. Jason Segel and her were adorable.
Love her. That is all.
Ugh. I wish they hadn’t tarted her up like that. She’s better than that, and it’s a shame GQ doesn’t realize it.
Pretty girl, she would make a HOT MATE for Justin Timberlake.
i want to hear more from mila about marxist-leninst economic theory and the disastrous misapplication of such principles in the former soviet union and china.
or is she too busy rubbing herself over the carpet to elaborate?
Eewww, Terry Richardson.
Why do mags employ him?
That said, I like Mila a lot, and I hope she’s genuine.
I think I love her because I am completely convinced by her art. She was fantastic in That 70s show; she is great in Family Guy; and I’ve liked her, completely, in every film role. She is a good interview and keeps her private life private. She seems really swell. And she’s so incredibly stylish and beautiful. I wish her the best.
Disappointed in the photos. I would have expected it from some no-talent like Megan Fox, but had higher expectations from her.
She’s just a little bit of awesomeness! And waaaaay to good for Timberlake.
Image isn’t a priority….from the woman who completely changed her face via plastic surgery.
See, all this complaining about how she’s too sexy in these photos and people expect it from a Megan Fox but not her…well, I kind of see that as problematic. Mila points out that the industry focuses too much on looks and it can be distracting. And she has a point. I would also add that women can only be talented or hot, never both. These comments are a prime example. She’s interviewing with a mens’ mag about a movie with a very sexual premise. Is she not allowed to be sexy/raunchy simply because she’s smart and talented? I hate that women are only allowed to be one or the other. Photoshoots for gender specific magazines are often styled through the eyes of the reader. What would the men who are reading Maxim want to see? And they give her a substantial interview to show she’s more than just a pretty face. We can’t win, apparently, not even among each other. It’s OK for women to be sexy, or to want to be sexy. That doesn’t make you a tart or a famewhore or whatever girl-on-girl insults we wanna hurl at one another. The problem occurs when that’s all a girl has to bring to the table, and I think it’s more than apparent that Mila can offer much more than good looks.
EDIT: I should add that usually when I read Maxim interviews they’re dumbed down and kind of insulting, but here they actually seemed for have some sort of respect for the interviewee.
I have a total girl crush on her. She can do no wrong for me. At least right now.
@moderncanadian: “You’re a first year grad student. You just got finished with some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison prob’ly, you’re gonna be convinced of that until next month when you get to James Lemon, then you’re gonna be talkin’ about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year, you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about you know, the Pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization.”
Thanks for the Good Will Hunting flashback.
@sam
“Yeah and you’ll be serving me and my kids burgers on our way to a ski trip”
“Maybe, but at least I won’t be unoriginal”
I do like her, but that photo shoot seems very “cheap Lindsay Lohan” like, especially the pose laying in front of the mirror.
@KJ:
There’s a difference between “being half-naked” and “being sexy”! Mila isn’t sexy (to me, at least) in these photos – dress her up for the Golden Globes and I start to question my sexuality, show me some cliched GQ thigh and Meh-I’ve-seen-it-all-before-who-gives-a-damn?
<3
=)
Just realized it’s GQ and not Maxim. Has GQ gone that down market? I knew it was bad but damn
@mia girl: “..But I mean, if you have a problem with that, I mean, we could just step outside. We could figure it out.”
@sam
Thanks for reminding me how much I love that movie 🙂 Netflix tonight!
“How do you like them apples?!”
She seems really awesome, but I wish she hadn’t agreed to that kind of photo shoot. She has everything going for her right now, she doesn’t need to resort to those sort of things.
@moderncanadian Don’t be sour, she’s an actress
Love her.
@K: “changed face due to plastic surgery”? Um, really??? Because I have a Lisa Frank magazine my daughter got in the 1990s and Mila was profiled as a child star in there. She was very young but she hasn’t changed a bit face-wise since then! Check older photos and say that. I don’t believe it.
trashy shoots.
@tapioca – the operative phrase being “to me at least.” I’m guessing you would not be in GQ’s general readership? What’s sexy to most women on other women is NOT what’s sexy to most men. GQ is a men’s magazine. The shoot is geared for a specific audience. It’s not like she’s spread eagle sucking on lollipops and prancing around in foam and nothing else. Mila’s draw for most of my guy friends is that she’s sexy just in a tee and panties. And GQ put her in a tee and panties. Men are pretty simple that way, and I don’t see what’s so offensive about it. Just like there is a difference between half-naked and sexy, there’s a difference between sexy and skanky. Being half naked in a men’s magazine isn’t always skanky just like being half naked isn’t always sexy.
@Hmmm: Are you kidding? It’s been widely publicized that she clearly had several procedures and her face is dramatically different. Most people have noticed she looks VERY different now then she did on That 70’s Show. She denies it, but they are not changes due to aging, only surgery could give these results.
http://www.findmysurgeon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/mila-kunis-nose-job.jpg
http://www.goodplasticsurgery.com/2008/05/09/the-new-mila-kunis/
She didn’t change everything, like Megan Fox, but she looks dramatically different. If celebs want to get plastic surgery, fine, thats up to them. But don’t then come out and say “image isn’t important” and “being attractive typecasts me”.
@k
Utter nonsense. She hasn’t had any surgery.
@hmmm
Totally agree. The talk was based on internet pictures of her at 14 or 15 to now. Age from a teen to an adult always creates subtle changes, and you factor in what camera angles, lighting and makeup can do to change a look at it is easy to post pictures as some proof, when it is no proof. As Mila said herself in an article not that long ago, if she was going to have surgery she’d get real work done starting with her breasts.:)
I also co-sign that Mila probably hasn’t had anything done. Watch Gia. She plays a young Gia/Angelina Jolie. She looks now exactly what you would imagine she’d grow up to be. If she has had anything done, then it was the most unnoticeable, inconsequential work ever.
EDIT: Those are the worst before and after photos to use. They don’t prove anything. Like, at all. Megan Fox’s before and after pics at least showed a real difference. The pictures of Mila just look like….pictures of Mila.
omg she is seriously hot-whether in these creepy pics or on a red carpet.
she’s absolutely stunning, has potential to be radiant, and so far has that icon-in-the-making look about her…
we’ll see….
if she continues to carry herself well and be herself, she will age well and continue to be a kick-ass actress….
I just love her. I hope she hooks up with a man equally as awesome as her next. Like Jason Segal lol
“Image is not a priority for me”, she said while baring her tummy and sucking coffee from a straw.
I like her but..everyone cares about image. So that is BS. I also think the shoot is too skanky. She is finally gaining respect as an actress she isnt a megan fox type where the sexy is the whole career. Idk.
She’s a liar.
“Image is not a priority for me”, she said while baring her tummy and sucking coffee from a straw.
I agree TOTALLY with what she said! WHAT is wrong with that?!? I LOOK fucking fine (and may e’en “show it off” sometimes…), but I do not care what image I might project.
You go Mila! I love you more each day!
She is just gorgeous and I love her personality.
Please somebody crown her the next ‘America’s Sweetheart’ so that we can FINALLY kick Aniston off that perch! 😉 😆
I think she’s a beautiful girl with alot of promise but I really dislike those pics. They’re generic and not very interesting or sexy.
She’s great. Love her. A refreshing interview compared to the boring, whiny Jessica Alba interview.
“Image is not a priority for me”
Bitch. F*cking. Please.
Image is not a priority…..let’s place that into context. Of course, in her business, show business, image is everything. She is not dumb. I think she means she will work as a person/artist to try and be real. These photos are racy, but so is the film she’s promoting. So is our (dreadful) commercial culture. Very sexually repressed and also vulgar simultaneously. That’s show biz in America.