IT is hard to believe a woman as stunning as Mila Kunis would be worried about baring all on camera.
She is after all no stranger to getting intimate on screen - she had a series of passionate embraces with Natalie Portman in the highly acclaimed movie Black Swan. But the brunette beauty says it took her four months before she felt comfortable to do sex scenes with co-star Justin Timberlake, 30, for their new film, Friends With Benefits. "It's not like you walk on set and start tap dancing," she says. "Like 'Ta-daa' and then you drop. It took four months to build up a comfortable enough level where we could do that. "I am incredibly self-conscious in real life about every part of my body, let alone for the whole crew to see and then the whole world to see."
However, she says her friendship with Timberlake made it easier to cope with being naked. "The last person I cared about was Justin," the 27-year-old says. "Besides we were asked to make those scenes as awkward as possible so we didn't have to worry about being attractive, it was more of a laugh."She says the comedy of their intimate moments on camera made it a lot easier to handle, especially as they have to make out plenty of times for the plot. "There are plenty of sex scenes but the good thing is that our sex scenes were not supposed to be sexy," she says. "They are supposed to be funny which was great because that made the situation a lot easier. Being fake intimate with someone is just weird."Indeed, for all Kunis's confidence on screen, in real life she isn't very good at taking compliments. "I get really uncomfortable with things like that," she said. "It's great and I like it and I'm totally flattered but I'm just learning to take compliments. I'm not great at it but I'm getting better. I think it's really sweet, I really do."
Her lack of belief in how beautiful she is may explain why she had a butt double for the movie, something which she freely admits but apologises for at the same time. And despite their on-screen chemisty, Kunis denies any romance with Timberlake. "I think that sometimes you just get along with somebody and you click with them and then sometimes you just don't. I think we both got very lucky that we both understood each other and got each other's humour. "I had so much fun on set, I was always laughing. The whole shoot was fun. I would class Justin as one of my closest friends now. We got along really well and have the same opinions on things, but we are just friends."Born in the Ukraine, Kunis moved to Los Angeles when she was seven and started acting as a hobby two years later. She started out with minor roles on TV and in movies until she was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the sitcom, That '70s Show, alongside Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace.
"I didn't ever think that I would have it [acting] as a job because I didn't know you could have a job in acting," she says. "But now I really love what I do and I can't even imagine doing anything else."With her career soaring, Kunis says she is too busy for love. She had dated child star Macaulay Culkin but the couple split in January after an eight-year romance. "I don't really ever get any down time," Kunis says. "If I'm not shooting I am reading scripts and looking at projects so I feel I'm due some time off. I like to travel so that is something I would like to take more time to do."However, Kunis is getting plenty of offers. In fact, she has agreed to accompany one lucky soldier to his Marine Corps Ball after he plucked up the courage to ask her via YouTube.
"Yes, I am. I was never not going, I am true to my word and I will be there on November 18."Kunis says of a real-life friends-with-benefits scenario: "I think it's a really good idea until it becomes a bad idea" and adds of how men and women cope with it, "I think they would handle it both the same". One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when her mother, played by Patricia Clarkson, walks in on her character Jamie having sex with Dylan, played by Timberlake. Luckily Kunis has never had this experience. "No! Honestly no. Can you imagine it? Uh-uh, no way, never. And in case my mom or dad are reading this, I don't have sex."
But she admits their are some similarities between herself and Jamie in the film. "I'm not as emotionally damaged but I think there is a lot of me in there, character-wise," she says. "Absolutely. It is a funny movie with a little romance. It is very much the truth. The chances are you don't have that fairytale of a romance, I think this is a very organic version of how two people meet."Her father, Mark, has seen the film and loved it, and this time he handled seeing his daughter getting intimate on screen. Kunis has previously said he walked out of her sex scene with Natalie Portman in Black Swan. "My dad has a very good sense of humour and so he thought it was great," she says."