NEWSWilmer Valderrama and Ashton Kutcher Had a 'Friendly Rivalry' on Set of 'That '70s Show'
Wilmer Valderrama and Ashton Kutcher fueled off of one another's energy while filming 'That '70s Show.'
No harm in some friendly competition!
In his recently released memoir, An American Story: Everyone’s Invited, which hit shelves on Tuesday, September 17, Wilmer Valderrama recalled what it was like starring alongside Ashton Kutcher on the set of the 1998 sitcom That ‘70s Show as two young rising actors in Hollywood.
Wilmer Valderrama reflected on filming 'That '70s Show' in his recently released memoir, 'An American Story: Everyone’s Invited.'
"Ashton was far more intelligent in real life than the character he played, and he was far more serious about the craft of acting than it appeared," the NCIS actor, 44, admitted of Kutcher, 46, who played the character Michael Kelso, a jock, on the fan-favorite series.
Valderrama, who portrayed the role of Fez in the show, said he and Kutcher had similar approaches to their jobs, as both of them "always came to set extremely prepared."
Wilmer Valderrama said he and Ashton Kutcher had a 'friendly rivalry' on set of the sitcom series.
"He and I soon developed a friendly rivalry to see who could get the biggest laughs from the audience on the first take," Valderrama explained in his memoir, noting "the laugh is always bigger" when a scene is being filmed for the first time.
"If you mess up on the first take and try for a huge laugh on the second, the joke never lands as powerfully. If you need to do a third or fourth take, you might as well forget it," he detailed.
'That '70s Show' ran from 1998-2006.
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Valderrama said he and Kutcher started to become known as "two-takers" since they would "always try to land the first perfectly, then do the second take just for fun."
While That ‘70s Show turned out to be a wildly successful sitcom — with a spin-off titled, That ‘90s Show airing on Netflix in January 2023 — Valderrama didn’t initially take the gig too seriously.
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Ashton Kutcher once joked the 'That '70s Show' cast 'got paid to laugh at each other all day long.'
"I didn’t put much stock into the show at first. I vowed to give it my all, just like everything else. But after you’ve been auditioning for a few years without much success, you learn not to get your hopes up," he admitted.
Kutcher recalled a similar experience about his time on set of the sitcom — which ran for eight seasons before coming to an end in May 2006 — while reuniting with Valderrama and their fellow costar Laura Prepon, as well as his now-wife, Mila Kunis, for Fox's 25th anniversary special in 2012.
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"We were just having fun," Kutcher, who tied the knot with Kunis in 2015 after meeting as costars on the series, declared, noting the cast of That ‘70s Show simply "got paid to laugh at each other all day long."
The No Strings Attached actor continued: "You can tell when you watch the show that we're having fun. So that invited everybody else to come and have fun with us. And to me, that's what really made it magical."
