THE BEAUTY: Official Podcast Episode 5: Ashton Kutcher

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Welcome back to the Beauty official Podcast. I'm Evan Ross Katz, podcaster, provocateur. Wishing I was as wealthy and beautiful as the big Pharma billionaire Ashton Kutcher plays in The Beauty. Joining me now is the man himself and one of the stars of the beauty. Ashton Kutcher.

Thank you so much for being here. How are you doing today?

ASHTON KUTCHER: I'm. I'm awesome.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I'm excited to get into episode five with you. I mean, we'll talk holistically about what we've seen so far in the series, but top of mind for me would be the ending of episode five. Quite unexpected. I had a sense that maybe Byron was not the nicest guy, but I didn't know that he was going to be quite so destructive.

Can you talk about that ending?

ASHTON KUTCHER: Okay, let's start here. Whenever you're playing a character, you can't judge your character. If you created a super drug that made people a more enhanced version of themselves. Fountain of youth, the beauty and extraordinary thing. And you felt like the other people involved in the project were likely going to abuse that product.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yeah, you got to do it. You got to do. Totally. Talk to me about reading the script for episode five, particularly, and learning about, you know, where Byron was going to go up to now.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Okay, so let me back up to the conversation that Ryan and I had initially around this character or this role in this show. My agent calls me. He's like, you need to meet with Ryan. He has this idea. I'm like, oh, it's Ryan Murphy. Like, I and I love Ryan's work and I love everything he's done. And so I'm like, okay, I'll take a meeting to have a conversation.

He's like, I have a TV show. I was like, I don't really know that I want to do a show. And I'm like, that's like a commit. And I, my kids are young and I like being in Los Angeles and driving them to school and coaching football and all the things. And it was like it kind of at the beginning of like Ozempic and Munjaro and all these things.

And when we were having this conversation and he's like, this thing's really taken off, I was like, oh, I'm well aware of what's happening. And he's like, and people are giving themselves a shot to like, enhance themselves. And I have this comic book series that has this is a subject line. And I think this is the moment in time for this story to be told.

And I think that you should play the guy who creates the thing, and then tries to keep it contain it. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting. He sends me like a script and I'm like, Ryan, there's like one scene where the guy is like calling a hit on someone and and he's like, you know, got this wonderful line of like, beautiful people don't think the rules apply to them.

And literally off of that one scene, that one line, I took the leap of faith that I'm in good hands because it's Ryan Murphy. And then I got episode five. A month later and I went. I made the right decision.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Did you base Byron off of any real life figures?

ASHTON KUTCHER: So behaviors and mannerisms. I very much based off of the historic body of work of another actor, that is, the other actor who's embodying this character.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: By the way, we can talk about the transformation.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Well, I can fully talk about it.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I'm. Yeah, we can talk about it.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Okay. So Vincent D'Onofrio and I are playing the same character, so I started watching everything Vincent D'Onofrio has done, trying to get an understanding of, like, how he behaves, how he moves, how his body moves, how he walks, all these things just so I can put like little nuances of that into this character. And then there's an attitude of, this guy's like a trillionaire, and there's some people, you know, they're billionaires, but they're there aren't any trillionaires yeah, there will be.

But like, I know a couple people that have enough money that they don't worry about money. What's that like? Like what? What kind of power and essence do you feel and have when you walk through the world and go, well, if money is the problem, it's not a problem. How many problems do you actually have at that point?

Like, and and the only problems you really have are interpersonal relationship problems or like larger societal problems that you can't afford to just fix with money.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Was it fun to reimburse yourself in that process, cause you talked about the fact that you've kind of stepped away from acting in some sense, and so to be brought back into this and to have these opportunities like you're talking about, to study people in real life and to bring that into the character and onto set and all of that.

Was, you know, flexing that muscle once again. Was that exciting for you?

ASHTON KUTCHER: This job of acting is playing pretend for a living. That's a very fun job. I run a venture capital firm most of the time, and I'm making decisions, and there's like a very fairly, you know, realistic pressure cooker of that and being able to go and just do play pretend was it was so fun. And to be able to do it with Ryan Murphy, where every week I'm opening a screenplay and I don't know what I'm going to get, and it's definitely not going to be a scene that you've ever seen in anything ever before.

That's exciting and super fun. So it was like, just like this wonderful flex of creativity that was, like all human like, I feel like, honored to be able to have the opportunity to do something like this.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Now, obviously, we know that in Hollywood there is so much attention paid to beauty and esthetics and all of that. But you have a unique perspective having come up in modeling, where this is very much a part of that world as well. And so I'm wondering, what is your perspective on sort of the evolution of, beauty standards as they exist today and sort of just the topic of beauty, which has become such an industry, you know, I mean, I think there was a time when it was sort of a little bit more contained, and it's certainly broken containment.

What's your perspective on that?

ASHTON KUTCHER: Oh. Let's start there. I, I think that, like, beauty can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And I think everyone's definition of beauty is somewhat variable. Beauty can be the weather. Beauty can be like, a sound or a song that, like, just fits in your ear. Beauty can be, an esthetic projection of vulnerability.

Beauty can be like, just really good lighting. But I remember the first time somebody came up to me, I was like, hey, you should be a model. And I was like, what are you talking like? Like, I don't look like Fabio. Like my version of a male model was Fabio. And I was like, that's not me. And I think that you're crazy.

And then as I started studying it and they were like, well, you know, there's a difference between like, commercial models and editorial models, and those are two very different things. And then working with Gianni Versace and working with Tom Ford and working with, Calvin Klein and working with, you know, some of the extraordinary photographers through history that I got to work with as a model.

You start to extract this, essence of variable beauty, and everybody has a different eye, and therefore everybody has a different image. There's something about a look that is interesting that kind of makes you, like, have to stare at it to figure it out. And the the harder it is to figure out why that's appealing to you, the more beautiful it is.

Then you've got this kind of societal homogeneity around what beauty is. You have people striving to look like that. Which I think is a different thing. I think that that is like the more commercial aspect of beauty. Like my when I was growing up, I was, like, desperately in love with Marcia Brady. Like, I was like, that is the most beautiful thing in the world. Like her hair.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: To be clear, I'm a gay man. And I felt similarly right.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Like her hair and the way she held herself. And it was like, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, I really didn't like her. And I was just like, oh my God. Marcia Brady is the most beautiful thing in on in the planet. And now we have like Instagram beauty and all the like in the in Kim Kardashian who's so beautiful. But the problem is people are chasing that look.

And then the Kardashian changes their look. And then all of a sudden you have to change something else, right? But to me. Beauty is this thing that you can't quite figure out. Why you think, why you can't stop engaging with it.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: My sense is that there's like. Because as you were talking about this, all these different forms of beauty, right? And like, you're talking about like, sound, beauty and all of these different forms in which expressions of it. But I see our society like moving towards, like unifying a beautiful esthetic.

ASHTON KUTCHER: I think it does until it becomes so unified and then it

EVAN ROSS KATZ: breaks

ASHTON KUTCHER: and then it breaks.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yeah. That's interesting.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Right? Like, like if you think about, like, style and fashion. Right. The classic the skinny jean trend. Right. I never liked it because I'm like I, I have very long legs. And if I wear skinny jeans like they're too high and then I look like I have like these, like, like I look like a giraffe. And it's weird.

So skinny jeans become the thing and everyone's wearing skinny jeans, and then it breaks and all of a sudden it's like, no wide leg pant. We're going to do a wide leg pant and that and and because you're like, oh, that does look good. But it's totally different than how everything goes. But what's happening now I think because of like social media, as you have these trends that are cycle so fast and like kids are in college, they're like, I remember that cool look in high school and you're like, wait, you're calling five years ago vintage things are homogenizing really fast and then breaking really fast and then homogenizing, then breaking.

It's a broader homogeny, but I also think it breaks and changes.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I could talk about this with you all day.

ASHTON KUTCHER: What about this?

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Unfortunately, we have to wrap up, but I just want to give people a tease as to episode six because you have a big episode coming up. Can you give three words to describe the journey ahead for Byron?

ASHTON KUTCHER: Oh, the journey ahead for Byron.

Heartbreak. Deity. Gorgeous.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Well said. Ashton, thank you so much. This was a pleasure.

ASHTON KUTCHER: It's yours. Thank you.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: That's all for this time. On the next episode, join me and Ashton Kutcher as we delve even deeper into the business of being a Big Pharma billionaire. On FX's The Beauty. You can check it out on Hulu, Hulu on Disney Plus or YouTube. Watch new episodes of The Beauty Wednesdays on FX, or stream on Hulu or Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers, be sure to rate, review, and follow the beauty official podcast wherever you watch or listen.

I'm Evan Ross Katz and I will see you next time.