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I have a meeting like at the New York Stock Exchange later today.
I have a meeting like at the New York Stock Exchange later today.
How What am I going to do?
You know, I'm always amazed I'm going TO BE LIKE, "FIRE SALE!" OH GOD.
HEY, WHAT'S GOING ON EVERYBODY?
For First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and you're watching Hot Ones.
It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.
And today we're joined by Ashton Kutcher.
You know him from his more than 20 years in TV and film.
He's also a successful tech entrepreneur and investor.
But don't worry, he hasn't quit his day job quite yet.
New episodes of The Ranch, part 7, are on Netflix now. Go check it out.
But first, the wings of death.
Ashton Kutcher, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.
I'm extremely nervous right now, but I'm not going to talk very much. Why are you nervous? I don't know.
Cuz I don't know what I'm getting into here.
This is it's a little disconcerting.
So So I've experienced it before. It's painful.
Are you ready for another round? I'm I'm ready to go. I'll rumble with you. Just a classic. Just a classic. Okay. What we got here?
That's all little tingle on the tongue. Mhm. Not bad. Flavorful.
But this is one I'm terrified.
I'm very scared of that last one already. Okay. I'm good.
As you mentioned in your intro, The Ranch that returned to Netflix and is a native Iowan.
I know that you're no stranger to the ranching lifestyle. Yeah.
So when I was 13, my mom moved out into the country.
And so I helped her out on on on the on the ranch a little bit like helping out with the cattle and stuff like that.
The craziest thing was like uh when you have like bulls that you don't want to crop to continue to breed, they got to cut the nuts on the bulls. You cut nuts?
So, I've cut nuts before.
That's very unpleasant to watch.
Which Hawkeye state-specific job taught you the most about life? Oh, man.
See, I had a lot of like very blue-collar jobs growing up.
I worked in a cereal factory like sweeping Cheerios dust, washed dishes in a kitchen for a while.
I used to skin deer in a butcher shop during deer season.
I think the biggest thing it taught me was like just appreciation cuz when you do have a job like that that when you get home at the end of the day you collapse from physical exhaustion, um collapsing from mental exhaustion from like uh sitting in an office all day seems easy and being an actor seems even easier. Goodbye wing number one. Goodbye wing number one.
Bring me wing number two.
Chicago red-hot jalapeño. Okay, let's do it.
See, I prefer the like little leg ones. Me, too.
Little bit less messy, you know? Less to navigate. Okay. That's all right.
So, I know that you're a football obsessive from your days playing linebacker at Bear Creek and Mena to watching NFL playoff games from the sidelines at Soldier Field.
Can you give us a story from your days as an assistant freshman coach at Harvard-Westlake?
Like did you ever have to snap a clipboard over your knee arguing a call?
Were you ever called on to give a spirited halftime speech or anything like that?
So, when I was in high school, my uncle was my coach.
Um at one point during a halftime speech, he told one of the other players to go sit by the toilet cuz all he was is a piece of [ __ ] So, that's the sort of football spirit that I got.
He actually lifted me up in full pads during a halftime speech where he goes, "YOU'RE WEARING A THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH of equipment. Use it."
and like tossed me back down.
So, this is like the football to I don't think Harvard-Westlake was like ready for uh Iowa football guy.
So, I definitely toned things down.
But, at one point, I gave a speech where one of the other coaches pulled me aside and was like, "Yeah, I mean, they're just you know, this is this is this is the freshman.
Like, we might want to just not We don't need to necessarily like go that far with it."
So, yeah, different people need different types of motivations to perform at their highest ability.
And some people that don't ever have anyone give them a kick in the ass need a kick in the ass. You can see it.
You can see it on the field. That's all I'm saying. We are on to pineapple. Oh, pineapple.
So, the sweetness should cut down the heat a little bit. Mhm. It should.
When we started this show, we lost track at how many guests sitting in your seat would look around and be like, "Am I being Punk'd right now?"
You know, the show, it's pop culture impact, it's so obvious.
But, I'm curious about what you think it's influence was with how celebrity is handled in the media.
Like, do you think famous people have been more on their heels ever since then?
Um so I once had like a TMZ guy like outside of a airport like shove a camera in my face.
And he was like just asking me just abrasive stuff.
And I just didn't want to talk to the guy. I had like no interest.
And he was like, "Come on, man. You did Punk'd.
Like, you should you know, like this is the thing."
And I was like, "No, no, this is like really different than Punk'd.
Like, yes, we filmed people on Punk'd, but we never aired a single episode that a celebrity didn't sign a waiver to say it's okay to air this.
Um and in fact, there were many cases where I was like, "Listen, I'll show you the final cut product.
If you don't like it, if you don't think it's funny, we just won't air it."
And then I know the stakes for the pranks, they're very high.
Like, what's the most money you think you ever lost either because a mark caught on to what you were doing or because something went haywire?
So, usually if a mark caught on to what we were doing, we would hit the eject button and then like keep the bit up and then bring try to bring somebody else into the scenario so we didn't lose the money. Right.
Um or we would keep it going on for so long that they'd be like, "Okay, there's no way I'm being punked."
And then you're right like right back on.
So, a lot of times someone would be like, "I'm being punked right now.
My I'm being So, I swear I'm being Ashton, come out. I'm being punked."
And and I would just be like, "Okay, everybody back off and chill."
So, that happened quite a bit.
But, I think the most amount we lost was like $300,000 on a bit that we were pulling.
I I can't remember exactly, but I want to say that there was like a special effect that was supposed to go off that didn't go off and we couldn't get it to trigger and there was no way to do it.
And so, we had to just like we had to just pull. Okay.
Well, the thing is Oh, that's a really good one. Um Which one is that?
Was that really Ashton's? I'm good now. There you go. Free sponsorship.
We actually make that one, Ashton. Thanks. do? Yeah. That's all you? Mhm. Congrats. Thank you, Ashton.
That was a taste just one so far.
So, as someone who's scaled the heights of entertainment and also founded their own venture capital firm, I think you're uniquely qualified to weigh in on this.
My nose is starting to run. It's happening. The show is happening. juice is coming. I like the flow.
Where are pitch meetings more likely to be of themselves, in Hollywood or in Silicon Valley?
Oh, that's a great question. I think Silicon Valley.
They talk about this, the elevator pitch. Yeah.
You'll literally get in an elevator and someone's like, "I just got to tell you about my company.
I just got to tell you about my company.
Let me just tell you about my company.
I've tell you about my company."
And you're like, "Dude, I'm going to get off of this thing in like 1 minute.
So, you got a minute and you've already wasted 20 seconds saying, 'Let me tell you about my about my company.'
You better start telling me about the company."
And it's usually like some guy with like a hoodie and I mean, it's it's the It's the tech bro.
It's the archetype that you expect.
What's easier internal math for you, passing on an investment or passing on a script? Passing on a script.
With a script, I always know when I want to do it immediately.
Sometimes you can like love the idea of a company, but the math just doesn't work.
And so, you actually have to like do the architecture of the math.
And then finally, when is overnight success more of a curse, in entertainment or in tech?
Ooh, entertainment, for sure.
Even now, like the founders of those companies, they don't actually get the capital for all the work that they've done until the company either has an exit event, goes public, or they pull money off the cap table.
So, it's not like they're sitting like burning through millions of dollars.
Their company can be worth billions, but they could maybe still be living a one-bedroom apartment.
Whereas like, in entertainment, people get the money right now and they get the fame right now.
And so, it's like the combo of money and fame can be really, really dangerous. Let's go. Just the yellow one. Uh yeah, this is yellow. Mhm. All right. Here we go.
All right, Ashton, we have a recurring segment on our show called Explain Gram, where we do a deep dive on our guest's Instagram, pull interesting pictures that need more context.
And here in season 10, we're doing it big.
We have retired the laptop and we are now going off monitors.
Camera guy Bill says there will be no hiccups.
So, we have our best man on it. Where's camera guy Bill? Right there.
What's up, camera guy Bill?
What's your shirt say, Midsommar? Midsommar. Great movie. Oh. I've seen it. Midsommar. Yeah. It's pretty good. Check that one out.
First things first, it's you courtside at Staples Center talking to Kobe. Mhm.
Do you remember this moment? Yeah. Specifically.
I think I was giving him a hard time uh cuz I was I was talking to him about like uh how it feels to be getting older.
And cuz he was like he was like, "Man, I can't keep up with these kids. They're like going out."
It was like I think it was early in the season.
He's like, "Ah, these kids are just running all over the place."
And and I was like, "Yeah, we're getting older, bud."
So, this is yeah, we're getting older, bud. That's the caption.
Is it true that you savagely heckled Gary Payton so bad one time that he returned the trash talk? Yes.
Uh I was in I think those same seats and I said um I was like giving him a really, really hard time.
He's like, "Why don't you shut up and eat a hot dog?"
And I was like I Listen, I'm under his skin. I've already won.
Any party stories that are our favorite genre of anecdote if you have one, yeah. Well, okay.
I've got a lot I can't tell.
So, um Can't tell that one either.
I mean, like I was like cycling through them.
There was one moment so I It's not really a party story, but our relationship was really bizarre.
So, it started over Punk'd cuz he was like, "Yo, Don't punk me. you can't punk me."
And I was like, "I don't want to tell you.
Everybody's on the table." He's like, "Not me. I'm off the table."
And so, that started our conversation.
We became fast friends and we used to used to uh hang out watch football together like what And he came over and I was like, "I'm going for a run."
He's like, "Oh, I'll go for a run with you."
And so, he comes over to go for a run.
About halfway through the run, he's like, "Yo, I'm running out of gas right now."
But, we had like paparazzi all around us at the time.
He's like, "You got to slow down and but make it look like you're not slowing down."
I don't want to look like I'm not going to be able to finish this thing.
And he was losing it, right?
Like he was like me right now with the wings and the heat starting to kick up.
And he's like, And we So, we finish out the run.
And then, he he was so upset over the fact that he got skunked on this run.
That year, he decided to run the New York Marathon.
And so, we just started immediately training for the New York Marathon. I like that.
Well, he just can't lose.
Even when he's that close to humility, that like it's becomes a driver.
And so, then he went out and ran the New York Marathon.
Here you are playing Steve Jobs in the Steve Jobs biopic.
Why Why is it a bad idea to do the Steve Jobs fruitarian diet? Oh my god.
I This is the craziest thing.
So, I'm studying the character and there was this book that he had read that he got when he was in India about like the healing properties of fruitarian diet and this and But, I was just sort of studying like his eating habits and his behaviors.
And was told that he drank a lot of carrot juice.
And part of it he kind of always had like an orange color to his skin cuz he drank this Odwalla carrot juice.
And I was like, "Well, if I'm playing the character, I'll just drink the carrot juice.
I'll have the orange skin tint to my skin."
So, I started just drinking carrot juice like nonstop like all day long.
Two weeks before we went to start shooting, and all of a sudden I was like I had this like pain in my back.
And through the night it got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.
And I ended up in the hospital on like the maximum dose of Dilaudid because I've got like my pancreas was like crazy out of whack.
And then I'm getting freaked out.
I'm like, "Oh my god, I've become Steve Jobs. He died of a pancreas.
Like I'm This is like the ghost of Steve Jobs is like taking over my pain." I'm just freaking out.
And it just turns out like it was the carrot juice that was causing this like crazy pancreatitis.
So, don't drink carrot juice.
That's the moral of the story. Here we go. Fire. Fire.
So, the tech world that's known for disruptive thinking and bold proclamations.
So, now that we have a tech power player here, what I want to do is bounce a few big ideas of the future off of you.
And I'm just curious if you agree or disagree, okay? Okay.
This first one is from former Facebook president Sean Parker. Yeah.
I believe in the future privacy will be the new celebrity. Yeah.
I was there when he said that.
He and I were doing an interview together.
He said, "In the future privacy will be the new celebrity." I think he's right.
Like I have an app in my phone in my pocket right now that's like a beta app.
It's a facial recognition app.
I could hold it up to anybody's face here and like find exactly who you are, what internet accounts you're on, what they look like. That's terrifying. Here it comes. There it is.
I'm I have like some after saliva happening right now.
This is really beautiful.
This next one is from Frank Ing, the CEO of Allied Esports.
As an industry, video gaming is already bigger than music and movies combined.
Are you talking right now? What did you just say? Start over. I cannot hear a thing. All right. As an industry my ears? As an industry Yeah.
video gaming is already bigger than music and movies combined. Yeah.
Esports will be the biggest format of entertainment. Yes, that's a fact.
This uh live gaming stuff is like just absolutely insane.
There more people watch like the I think what it was they was like the League of Legends finale than watch the Super Bowl.
It's very clearly happening.
All right, this next one is from Elon Musk.
I think the most important thing is to create a self-sustaining city on Mars.
That's I think the critical thing for maximizing the life of humanity.
Yeah, I I don't know if I agree necessarily with that whole thesis and I like Elon and I like uh a lot of the things that he thinks about and says, but the notion is is that for the survival of the species we need to be able to get off the planet, all right?
And so the first step to get off the planet is get to the next nearest planet.
But don't we want to see like some sense that we can actually get to a hospitable planet?
And Bezos will say the same thing.
A lot of it's like parodying some of the stuff that Elon said.
Functionally speaking, it's hard to believe that we're going to have enough energy for people's consumption of energy over time on this planet.
So uh we may well want to be able to uh get energy on other planets.
And finally, you got to be pretty desperate to make it with a robot.
That's from Homer Simpson. Um It's just wrong. I disagree.
Ooh, uh what my eye is burning now?
Did you touch eye burning?
I think I touched my eye.
Now now I have an eye burn. We had a powwow.
I know you told me all about it. I'm going to be okay. It happens.
I'm just I don't have anything to wipe my anything on anymore. This is crazy. Here comes Dom. Here comes Dom.
With a fresh one for you. Yeah, here.
Let's trade that guy out. Oh oh oh, look at you. Thank you.
We offer more than just water and milk here, Ashton. Thank is lovely.
And by the way, like one of the best interview questions I've had in a long time. Yeah? It's really lovely.
I feel like Well, we still have some time to go, you know, I can blow it here. Okay. Feel free.
Diddy party stories, man.
That was like some weird memory lane.
What kind of pepper are we going to do?
If it doesn't tell you what it is I think it's a ghost and reaper situation.
Oh, that just I just had a return.
There was a return That just said return to sender right there.
I have to go I have a meeting like at the New York Stock Exchange later today.
How What am I going to do?
You know, I'm always amazed by TO BE LIKE FIRE SALE! HOLY SMOKES. OKAY, LET'S GO. All right. Uh-huh. Okay.
That's more my wheelhouse. Mhm. What's a one?
So now that you were an early adopter to Twitter, if I have my information right, you're even the first users to pass a million followers.
Yeah, I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Just found that out today.
And And since then I have a word in the Webster's dictionary, punk.
But I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records.
I think that's pretty cool. I'm humbled. I'm humbled.
By the fact that that happened somehow in this insane life. Like I can't believe it. Like it blows my mind.
As a kid, if you told myself as a kid that I would shut I'm going to shut up. You go ahead.
As one of the first celebrities to fully embrace social media, do you think on a shift level increasingly there's this pressure to build this like cult of personality to help market or make viable whatever project is being made?
There are actors that do very, very well by being very, very well known as to who and how they are in their daily lives.
If I were to do my career differently, I think I would have like uh held who I am and how I am in my personal life way closer to the vest so that I had more versatility in the characters that I play.
Because sometimes I'll be playing a character and people are like they just call [ __ ] instantly because they know who and how I am and therefore they can't buy into me.
They can't like make the the imagination leap into me as the character.
And I think there are a ton of really really great actors that do that really well. Like Gary Oldman.
You tell me how Gary Oldman is in real life and I'll give you a dollar.
Joaquin Phoenix, that's another like how is Joaquin in real life?
You don't know but you know that these characters that he plays are just like you know, all over the map.
Like Ryan Gosling I think has done a really good job of it.
But that's kind of always been the case.
You've always had like you know, Tom Cruises and people that were like extraordinarily well known for who and how they were and then the characters that they play were really similar to that and and so you could sort of see them in the character.
And then you've had actors that are like these hard character actors that are just outside themselves and you don't want to be known by the public and I think both still exist. AH! MOTHER MARY! WHO ARE STEVE CARELL? OKAY, HERE WE GO.
I look at you casually drinking your water. Like a ninja. You're a ninja. He assassin. Sneaking, yeah. In the shadows. I saw that.
On the audience side as well.
Because I pointed out exposed over here.
Oh lord, my stomach It's really turning guys.
I haven't eaten yet today. This is my first bite. Oh. That was a rude yes. Return to sender. Address unknown. The bomb. No such number. Keep it off the lips. I'm seeing you.
That don't even taste like food. Hey.
I think I got the back of THE TRUNK. MHM. YEAH!
IT'S WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR. YES, ENDORPHINS.
[ __ ] YOU, 5 hours of sleep.
I had one OF YOUR ENERGY SHOTS. I'M GOOD. WE ARE UP.
DO PEOPLE STILL STOP you on the street for Dude, Sweet Conversations or is that tailed out over? Dude. Sweet. Dude. Sweet. Dude. Sweet. And then? And then? No end THEN. NO END THEN. NO END THEN.
THE NEW YORK Times once reported that you wore up to five trucker hats in a single episode of Punk'd. Confirm or deny on that. Probably.
I just threw them all out yesterday, like 2 days ago.
I was cleaning out the house and I just tossed a bunch of the trucker hats. I still had them all.
Along with my entire wardrobe from That '70s Show.
Is it true you once got fired from a Cameron Crowe movie? Uh fired? Yeah, I'll say fired. Sure.
He originally wanted Orlando Bloom for Elizabethtown.
And then Orlando Bloom was working on a Ridley Scott picture.
And then and wasn't available.
And so I went in and auditioned. He cast me.
And then we started working on it and uh I think he wanted to like see the character in rehearsals like all the way.
And I just um I probably wasn't like disciplined enough as an actor to get myself to a point where I was like able to do that show to him in a way that he felt comfortable.
At a certain point we we just kind of agreed that like it wasn't working out. More him than me.
But also I found out at the same time that Orlando Bloom had just become available right when he decided to let me go.
So I think he had like a nice safety net that he could land on. Oh, smokes.
Okay, can I get another one of these, please? Yep.
Is it different because I don't want to wet my face with that burning whatever that thing is? I I Hi puppy. Okay. Thanks, dog. Yes. Gloria in excelsis Deo.
Why do I keep saying these random things?
we have to do what we have to do to cope in these situations, you know? Oh my gosh.
Only way to get through it.
Oh, Mila Kunis, I love you.
If I don't make it out of this, honey, take care of the children.
This next one is burn after eating. What? That's the worst name. Burn after eating. That's a wonderful name. Venezuela. Okay, let's go. Dancing on it.
All right, so most of the people watching right here, they recognize you from your many movies and TV shows, but you've also executive produced a fair number of reality TV shows including the wildly underrated Adventures in Hollywood. What? Can you give us one? what was it?
What what did That was that Three 6 Mafia. yeah.
We're the We're living in the Wow.
I love the wildly underrated was what threw me.
Can you give us one how the sausage is made trade secret when it comes to reality TV?
I'm I'm like the biggest Bachelor fan in the world. I love that show.
I think Bachelor in Paradise is like unbelievable.
So, I think it's just like this extraordinary look at like humanity in a different way that I don't get to see every day.
Um and it sort of like compresses human decision-making into this like pressure cooker where you watch people have to like consistently and constantly make these decisions and choices.
The key is is like constructing a show where the functional characters of the show have to make high-pressure decisions at every act break.
It must have been a big deal for you then to make a cameo on Rachel's season of The Bachelorette. It was unbelievable.
So, my wife and I we go on a date like every Wednesday.
We go We have like date night. We love this show.
We watch it all the time.
We actually just want to come and watch them tape, but then they were like, "Hey, can you come on?"
We're like, "Yeah, sure."
And then you shot that segment at Malibu Wines.
Did you get a chance to feed Stanley the giraffe while you were there?
The crooked-neck giraffe? I saw the giraffe. I didn't feed it.
Why are you shaking the bottle? All right.
So, this is the last dab.
We call it the last dab because it's tradition around here to put a little extra on the last wing.
Try not to be as aggressive with the pour as I was, should you be brave enough to go there.
You don't have to if you don't want to. Calm down. Relax. Okay. I feel better.
I think you're getting a little I mean You know. Yeah.
When you get to the finish line, you know. I can't feel my nose. Very deliberate.
Well, you said try not to be as aggressive on the pour as what you were, so I'm trying not to be as aggressive on the pour. I'm listening.
I'm taking all the instructions. Tags. Look at that.
Puts things in a perspective, you know.
All right, Ashton Kutcher, here we are at the end of our ride down the spicy wing gauntlet.
And we've hit on a lot of the Ashton Kutcher greatest hits, but there's one deep cut that we've missed.
And that's that you're a biochemical engineering major over at the University of Iowa. That's right.
So, we're going to take it back to those classroom days.
Can you do your best with the heat going through you Yeah.
to explain Punnett squares to the internet? Explain Punnett squares? Yeah, sure. Okay.
So, Punnett squares are basically a uh a res- it's it's a way to solve for dominant and recessive traits, right? Genetically, right?
We're going to make our little four-quadrant square, okay? Big B, brown. Little B, blue, okay?
The only way to have blue eyes is to have two little B's.
And what the other parent could have had brown eyes, but been a carrier for the recessive trait of blue eyes.
So, that So, mom would be little B, little B.
So, now we're going to determine Each one of these box holds a 25% likelihood of the offspring having that color of eyes. My nose is running. Give me a moment.
So, as you can see, if this offspring, which is one of the potential offspring, has a big B and a little B, they will have brown eyes.
This offspring would have a big B, a little B, and have brown eyes.
Dual recessive, dominant recessive, having a recessive offspring.
An education from Ashton Kutcher, and look at you, my man.
10 chicken wings up, 10 chicken wings down, and still in plenty of time for your meeting over on Wall Street.
like the range was rough, but then but then we just zenned out, didn't we? We we zenned out.
I got to know a lot about you.
Thinking about the pain of others, and all of a sudden ours seemed like nothing, didn't it?
We just had gratitude for the world, you and I.
Exactly true, and the education continues.
Now, there's nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you Ashton Kutcher.
This camera, this camera, this camera.
Let the people know what you have going on in your life.
Do you have any projects?
What to plug or anything like that?
What do we What do you want me to talk about something?
Oh, The Ranch is out on Netflix right now.
So, you can check out The Ranch on Netflix.
Oh, if you want to text me, you can just hit me up.
My number is 319-519-0576. That's an actual number. You can text me.
I'll try to hit you back if I have time.
Otherwise, I'll keep you up on what else is going on in the world. Good job, Ashton. Good man. That was really fun.
Did you have a good time? You need this? You want a little sip? Attaboy.
He'll be all right after this. He'll be okay. He's had a couple wings. He's had a couple wings. Can we have a beer?
Do we have any beer for Ashton? Kumbaya, my lord. Kumbaya. What is up Spice Lords? Camera Guy Bill here.
I know we've retired the laptop this season and you all miss me, but I want you to know that I'm still hard at work behind the camera.
If you'd like today's episode, it would mean a lot to me and the rest of the Hot Ones crew to give us a little like or a little subscribe.
It would really mean a lot.
This is Camera Guy Bill here saying, "It's good to be Camera Guy Bill."