Ashton Kutcher tells us What Happens in Vegas

5:03pm Tuesday 6th May 2008

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Ashton Kutcher, who stars with Cameron Diaz in romantic comedy What Happens In Vegas, released on May 9, talks to Kate Whiting about his love of comedy, being happy in his marriage to Demi Moore and reveals the worst thing he's ever done while drunk.

It's refreshing to find that an actor who has you in stitches on screen is equally entertaining in person. And Ashton Kutcher is certainly good company.

The 30-year-old Dude, Where's My Car? star is back on fine comedy form in What Happens In Vegas alongside the ever-bubbly Cameron Diaz, and in jovial mood when we meet.

"I had wanted to work with Cameron before, she just wouldn't work with me," he says, joking. "I don't know if she will again."

Dressed in a white shirt and tie, with a navy cricket jumper, the handsome actor remembers the slightly awkward first time he met his co-star.

"I saw her backstage at one of those award shows, like seven years ago, and I was like, Woah... she's hot.' "She's funny, too. I was really enamoured, so much so that I don't think I was able to say any words when I talked to her. I think I just made noises and then walked away."

In a twist on the American adage, What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas', Ashton and Cameron play a mismatched pair who have to face the consequences of a drunken night out in Sin City when they return home to New York.

Somehow, while heavily under the influence, they get married and then win 3m US dollars on a slot machine.

A nasty court case quickly ensues, as they try to legally split with a share of the spoils, until the judge orders them to do six months hard marriage'.

It may sound like a blast, but Ashton apparently had to be tricked into taking the role after deciding he wasn't "in the mood to do comedy".

"You know, sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't. It takes a lot of energy to be funny," he said.

"I feel like I have to work twice as hard when I'm doing comedy and I was like, I don't know if I'm ready for that.' "I read the script and for the first 30 or 40 pages of the script I was laughing out loud really hard, over and over. When that happens you have to stop and say Hang on, something's working here'," he continues.

"I was talking to Emma Watts at Fox and she said, What's it going to take to get you to do this movie?' and I said, Give me a great director and a great co-star and we'll work out the rest'.

"She called me back about a day later and said Cameron Diaz is doing the movie' and I said, Okay'.

"Apparently Emma had called Cameron and said Ashton's doing the movie', so she had sort of lied to both of us.

"But doing this movie really changed my whole perspective on making movies, because I had FUN every single day. It was a blessing," he adds.

It seems Cameron, who is not promoting the film with Ashton because of the recent death of her father, was a big contributing factor to his enjoyment on set.

"When you're with Cameron, it doesn't matter who's there, she's just the happiest person," he says.

"I've never met a person who's so up for everything. She sees that glass so half full it might be spilling out the top. And being around her just makes your life better. She's one of those people."

Filming was split between venues like Pure nightclub in Las Vegas - where Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and co party - and several locations around New York.

Ashton plays Jack, a bit of a ladies man, who gets fired by his boss dad from a carpentry firm, while Cameron is the slightly more uptight Joy, who has just been dumped by her fiance and has a tough job on the stock exchange.

"Romantically, they've both been looking for the wrong thing, which is probably what draws them to each other to begin with - even if they are really, really hammered at the time," says Ashton.

So how much did Ashton identify with Jack? What's the worst thing he's ever done while drunk?

"That's not PG!" he says, laughing. "Man... wow! I don't know, there's a really big long list of stupid things. But probably the stupidest was when I was at my college campus. Between the house that I lived in and where all the bars were, there was a river. It was winter, the river had just frozen over and there were no tracks on it yet.

"My buddy dared me to walk across the river and I got about halfway but I was so drunk that I slipped and fell down and just passed out.

"He didn't come and save me because he didn't know how thick the ice was, so I ended up just sleeping there for a couple of hours and waking up. Then I went for him saying, Dude. Why didn't you come get me?' so he said, I thought the ice would break with two of us on there'.

Thinking back now, it was not bright."

Ashton was born in Iowa and his parents divorced when he was 13. He went to the University of Iowa, where he was spotted by a model talent scout and in 1997 was signed to an agency in New York.

He landed a role in TV sit-com That 70s Show the following year, which launched his showbiz career and opened the way to comic film roles.

He started producing, and presenting, TV shows like MTV's Punk'd through his company Katalyst Films and in 2005, married Ghost actress Demi Moore, who is 15 years his senior.

But the age gap between them doesn't even register, he says.

"All my friends were always a little bit older," he explains. "I spent a lot of time with my mum and her friends when I was young I was always more interested in adult conversation, so maybe I just have a thing, I don't know. I like adults, grown-ups, I guess."

And he wasn't phased when he turned 30 in February: "The number is sort of inconsequential, because to me it's really just the level of responsibility you have in your life. And 30 was sort of a reason to throw a party and not get hepatitis." he jokes.

He's not as much of a party animal as his character Jack these days. But being happily married, Ashton says, was actually important to his portrayal of the character.

"I think you have to be able to connect to the end of the movie in order to be able to deliver the end of the movie and if you can't connect to what that is, it's hard to really feel it - that open awareness of love.

"I think the biggest problem in relationships in general is that guys are raised with a goal of having sex while women have this whole thing of, I'm going to get married'.

"Nobody ever has the goal of BEING married, so our movie is really about being married, in a sense. It ain't always pretty. And that's when you find out who's got the guts."