Actress Confirms She Falsified Her Age to Secure the Iconic Role of Jackie Burkhart
Mila Kunis has confirmed a long-standing rumour regarding how she landed her famous role as Jackie Burkhart on the hit American sitcom That ’70s Show. The actress, now 39, was just 14 when she first portrayed the spoiled teenager on the show, which ran for eight seasons.
However, as the casting directors were only looking for older teen actors, Kunis admitted that she falsely told them she was 18 in order to be considered for the part. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kunis finally addressed the rumour.
“There’s been a rumour that I might have lied about my age,” she said. “I want to be very clear that, yes, I did lie,” she confessed, before quickly adding a clarification.
“When I went to the network audition, they required me to sign a contract, and it stated that I would need to have a ‘studio teacher’ listed. They asked me why, and I said, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m actually 14.’” She went on, “But by that point, the creators were already so fond of me, they didn’t care.”
Kunis’ character, Jackie, was romantically involved with Michael Kelso, played by her now-husband Ashton Kutcher. The couple will reprise their roles in the upcoming That ’90s Show spinoff.
In a previous interview, Kunis shared how strange it was to act alongside Kutcher again, joking that Jackie ends up with the wrong person in the new series. Kunis and Kutcher originally met on the set of the show in the late 1990s but only began dating years later in 2012. The couple married in 2015 and has two children, Wyatt, 7, and Dimitri, 5.
A release date for That ’90s Show is still to be announced.
