How Ashton Kutcher Unsuccessfully Tried to Bond With ‘No Strings Attached’ Co-Star Ludacris
Ashton Kutcher has been making people laugh for over two decades. Through the years, he’s formed close relationships with people he’s worked with, even marrying one of his co-stars from early in his career. But a little over a decade ago, Ashton Kutcher starred in No Strings Attached and worked with a rapper who didn’t seem to appreciate Kutcher’s take on his music.
Ludacris and Ashton Kutcher in ‘No Strings Attached’
According to IMDb, the 2011 movie No Strings Attached starred Kutcher and Portman as two friends, Adam and Emma. In the movie, they decide to try a commitment-free sexual relationship. The two develop feelings for each other, complicating everything.
Rap star and actor Ludacris (also known as Chris Bridges) played Wallace, Adam’s friend and bartender. Wallace pours the drinks, jokes, and advice. Along with Eli (played by Jake Johnson), the guys have a close, supportive friendship full of terrible ideas and one-liners. The characters are there for each other as Adam struggles with what he really wants in a relationship.
Kutcher tries to bond with Ludacris
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kutcher discussed his time working on No Strings Attached. It seems that he and Ludacris didn’t really get each other. For example, Ludacris talked about his plans to buy a plane, something Kutcher just wasn’t able to fathom.
On top of that, Kutcher also mentioned that they reacted differently to one of Ludacris’ hit songs.
“I would go out to the club with my friends, that song ‘Move B****’ we’d turn it into like a mosh pit of one another,” said Kutcher. He demonstrated how he and his friends would shove each other in time to the lyrics. “So I tried to do it with him, and he was not having it. I thought that would be how he would feel about the song. I was wrong.”
Ludacris didn’t seem to appreciate Kutcher’s take on his music, and at the same time, Kutcher didn’t understand a world where people buy airplanes. Maybe this particular bromance seemed doomed from the start. Fortunately, that wasn’t true for Kutcher’s real-life “no strings attached” romance.
For Kutcher, life imitated art
It’s been over a decade since No Strings Attached came out, but that time in Kutcher’s life is still pretty important. At roughly the same time, Mila Kunis was making a movie with a similar plot called Friends with Benefits.
Kutcher and Kunis are now married and have children, but their relationship apparently started around this time. And at first, it was much like the plot of these movies. They enjoyed spending time together and agreed to have sex without the burden of expectations. But just like in a good rom-com, their feelings grew to be something more.
According to ET Canada, Portman, and Kunis already knew each other from another project, where they had gotten very close on screen.
“And Mila and I had just shot Black Swan together,” Portman said. “So we were all making out with each other.”
The idea behind the romance in No Strings Attached did work out for Kutcher in real life — but not with his co-star in the film. However, the easy, fun friendship he shared with Ludacris on screen certainly didn’t translate to real life.
