Mila Kunis appears on the August cover of Interview Magazine – the Craig McDean photo shoot is interesting, I guess, even if I find it slightly bizarre. I guess I have to give Interview credit for going in a different direction for the shoot – Mila as a cowgirl/mechanic’s girlfriend – it’s that kind of styling. Posing on muscle cars, looking beautiful but kind of low-key. As for Mila and the interview… well… I don’t know. Ever since Mila started up with Ashton, one question has been haunting me: “Has Mila Kunis been a secret a—hole this whole time?” I still don’t know. After reading this piece, I’m developing an alternate theory: Mila Kunis has a very high tolerance for a—holes. I think that theory is right on, because James Franco did her cover interview, and it seems like they’re thick as thieves. Mila actually comes across as a really well-adjusted woman here (while Franco keeps bringing the conversation around to FRANCO!) – you can read the full piece here (it’s really, really long) – I’m just including some highlights below:

Mila on double standards: “I think that an actor is more likely to be forgiven in the public’s eye than an actress… I don’t know [why]. I think there will always be a double standard between males and females, so I think that an actress is more likely to protect her public persona, so to speak, than an actor would be. An actor goes crazy in a hotel room, gets trashed, throws a bench, breaks a window, and he is considered a rock star. An actress does that and she’s sent to rehab and is thought to have problems and issues and can’t get a job.”

Mila on being in a privileged position: “Well, honestly, after doing a TV show for eight years and a cartoon for more than a decade, you are, financially speaking, in a very lucky position where you don’t have to work for the sake of working. And I decided to take advantage of that. I don’t live lavishly, so it’s not like I have 20 assistants and travel privately and shop every day. I actually live a very mediocre lifestyle. [laughs] So I decided to step back and do things not just for the sake of doing them, but because I believe in them and I want to do them.

Mila on the industry: “If all my eggs were in this basket and I had nothing else and I was just so enamored with it all . . . This industry can eat you alive. I think it feeds you a lot of bulls–t and then spits you right back out, and then you get caught up in it because so much of it is perception and opinion. The fact that there is no right or wrong is what I think is maddening. I can think you’re a phenomenal actor, but the guy next door can think you’re a horrible actor, and neither of us is wrong and neither of us is right. It’s just a matter of opinion. And when your only source of happiness comes from that opinion, you go mad. So I think that you have to restrain yourself from googling your name and have other hobbies and desires and wants. I mean, you do a million things. You go to school, you write, you read, you blog.”

Mila on dealing with criticism: “As cheesy as it sounds, you deal with it the best that you can. To be honest, I don’t deal with it well. I can’t tell you that I’m like, “Oh, I’m so great at dealing with it. It’s in one ear and out the other!” That would be complete and utter bulls–t. But I take it for what it’s worth. Sometimes I let it get to me—I have internal dialogues with myself all day long. But, you know, people criticize a woman for everything—like, I get criticized for how my hair looks when I go grocery shopping or the fact that I don’t wear makeup when I get my nails done. Women get scrutinized all the time for the way they look. So if I can learn to deal with that, then I do believe I can learn to deal with people’s criticisms of my film choices.”

What she learned on That 70s Show: “Oh, I learned a lot. I think I got really lucky with the people I was surrounded by on ’70s. Everybody was older than I was, but nobody dicked around. Nobody was an a–hole. Nobody caused havoc or trouble. I was surrounded with positive influences. As weird as this may sound, you hear of stories now where everyone is in rehab twice over or drives recklessly or parties and comes to work hungover or whatever the issues are, but I never experienced that on ’70s. So I believe that 100 percent influenced me. I looked to these people and was like, “Well, they don’t do these things, so I don’t have to do them.” I never had to go through that period of angst where I was rebelling against this industry or my parents. And then, professionally speaking, I learned a lot about comedy. You make your mistakes, but you learn about jokes and punch lines. You also pick up horrible habits because it’s a multicamera sitcom. But I learned a lot about responsibility, about showing up to work, about respecting work, about respecting your co-workers. So I had a very safe place to go through my teens.”

Where she’ll be in five years: “Listen, in five years I do hope to have a family, and, you know, who knows? I think in this industry people have such a short shelf life, truly, that I don’t know what I’m going to be in five years in regards to acting. I mean, I’d love to produce. I can’t form a sentence or write an e-mail, so I know I’m definitely not going to go and become a writer, but I would love to explore other facets of this industry, for sure. I’m dabbling in that a little bit right now and trying to kind of see what I like . . . But I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go into the James Franco business and just do shorts with you for the rest of my life. We’ll go traveling the world together and shooting. I’ve always been a big proponent of not working for the sake of working, because I don’t want to work for the rest of my life—I want to live. So I’d rather work to live than live to work.”

[From Interview Magazine]

Franco asks Mila a lot of questions about being a child actor and how her parents were the antithesis of stage parents and all of that, some of which is really interesting. Mila sounds like she didn’t have much of social life, she just studied and worked all of the time and her parents expected her to make good grades the whole time, and there was the expectation that she would go to college when her little acting gig was over. I think that’s probably the way to do it, isn’t it? You don’t hear stories about Mila’s “Momager” or how Mila was falling over drunk at the age of 15. This is the way to raise a child actor.

Photos courtesy of Interview Magazine.