Mila 7yo Torrent
Harcourt Ordonez
Milena Markovna Kunis was born into a Ukrainian Jewish family on August 14, 1983,[3] in Chernov'tsi, a city in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine).[4] Although Kunis's parents have since retired,[5] previously her mother, Elvira, was a physics teacher who ran a pharmacy, and her father, Mark Kunis, was a mechanical engineer who worked as a cab driver after the family emigrated.[6] Kunis has an elder brother, Michael.[7][8] Her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.[9] Her mother tongue and the common language within her family is Russian.[10] While participating in Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend Kunis confirmed she does not speak Ukrainian, stating Russian was the main language at the time she was there.[11] Children were not taught Ukrainian in school until they were in second grade which was the time she left to come to the United States.[11] She stated in 2011 that her parents had "amazing jobs", and that she "was very lucky" and the family was "not poor"; they had decided to leave the Soviet Union because they saw "no future" there for Mila and her brother.[12] In 1991, when she was 7 years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, with US$250. "That was all we were allowed to take with us. My parents had given up good jobs and degrees, which were not transferable. We arrived in New York on a Wednesday and by Friday morning my brother and I were at school in L.A."[12]
Kunis has cited antisemitism in the Soviet Union as one of several reasons for her family's move to the United States.[13][14][15][16][17] She has stated that her parents "raised [her] Jewish as much as they could", although religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union.[18][13] On her second day in Los Angeles, Kunis was enrolled at Rosewood Elementary School, not knowing a word of English. She later recalled: "I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the people. I didn't understand the language. My first sentence of my essay to get into college was like, 'Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven.' And that's kind of what it felt like moving to the States."[19]
In Los Angeles, she attended Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School. She used an on-set tutor for most of her high school years while filming That '70s Show.[20] She briefly attended Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), but when that school proved to be insufficiently flexible about her acting commitments, she transferred to Fairfax High School,[21] graduating in 2001.[16] She briefly attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.[7][22]
At age nine, Kunis was enrolled by her father in acting classes after school at the Beverly Hills Studios, where she met Susan Curtis, who would become her manager.[26][27] On her first audition she landed the role for a Barbie commercial.[28] Shortly after, she did a commercial for the Lisa Frank product line.[29] Her first television roles took place in 1994, first appearing on Days of Our Lives,[30][31] and a few months later doing her first of two appearances on Baywatch.[32] She had a minor role on the television shows 7th Heaven,[20] and Walker, Texas Ranger as well as supporting roles in the films Santa with Muscles, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and the Angelina Jolie film Gia, as the young Gia Carangi.[7]
At the age of 10, Kunis unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of a Russian Jewish girl who moves to North America in the film Make a Wish, Molly.[9] Instead, she was cast in the secondary role of a Mexican girl.[21] In 1998, Kunis was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show. All who auditioned were required to be at least 18 years old; Kunis, who was 14 at the time, told the casting directors she would be 18 but did not say when. Though they eventually figured it out, the producers still thought Kunis was the best fit for the role.[27] That '70s Show ran for eight seasons.[33] She won two consecutive Young Star Awards as Best Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series in 1999 and 2000 for her performances.[34]
In 2001, she appeared in Get Over It opposite Kirsten Dunst. She followed that up in 2002, by starring in the straight-to-DVD horror film American Psycho 2 alongside William Shatner, a sequel to the 2000 film American Psycho. American Psycho 2 was poorly reviewed by critics,[38] and later, Kunis herself expressed embarrassment over the film.[39] In 2004, Kunis starred in the film adaptation Tony n' Tina's Wedding. Although the film was shot in 2004, it did not have a theatrical release until 2007.[40] Most critics did not like the film, which mustered a 25% approval from Rotten Tomatoes.[41] DVD talk concluded that "fans would be much better off pretending the movie never happened in the first place".[42]
In 2005, Kunis co-starred with Jon Heder in Moving McAllister, which was not released theatrically until 2007.[43] The film received generally poor reviews and had a limited two-week run in theaters.[44][45] She followed up with After Sex starring alongside Zoe Saldana, who had also appeared in Get Over It.[46] In October 2006, she began filming Boot Camp (originally titled Straight Edge).[47] The film was not released in theaters in the United States, but was released on DVD on August 25, 2009.[48]
Kunis starred as Rachel Jansen in the 2008 comedy film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, co-produced by Judd Apatow. The role, which she won after unsuccessfully auditioning for Knocked Up,[2] entailed improvisation on her part.[49] The film garnered positive reviews,[50] and was a commercial success, grossing $105 million worldwide.[51] Kunis's performance was well-received; Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal praised her "fresh beauty and focused energy",[52] while James Berardinelli wrote that she is "adept with her performance and understands the concept of comic timing".[53] She was nominated for a Teen Choice Award.[54] In an interview, Kunis credited Apatow with helping her to expand her career from That '70s Show.[2]
Also in 2008, Kunis portrayed Mona Sax, an assassin, alongside Mark Wahlberg in the action film Max Payne, based on the video game of the same name. Kunis underwent training in guns, boxing, and martial arts for her role.[55] Max Payne was relatively successful at the box office, grossing $85 million worldwide[56] but was poorly reviewed by critics,[57] with several reviewers calling Kunis miscast.[58][59] Travis Estvold of Boise Weekly wrote that she was "horribly miscast as some sort of undersized, warble-voiced crime boss".[60] Director John Moore defended his choice of Kunis saying, "Mila just bowled us over..... She wasn't an obvious choice, but she just wears Mona so well. We needed someone who would not be just a fop or foil to Max; we needed somebody who had to be that character and convey her own agenda. I think Mila just knocked it out of the park."[55] She was nominated for another Teen Choice Award for her role in the film.[61]
In 2010, she starred alongside Denzel Washington in the action film The Book of Eli. Although the film received mixed reviews,[67] it performed well at the box office, grossing over $157 million worldwide.[68] Film critic Richard Roeper praised Kunis's performance, calling it a "particularly strong piece of work".[69] Several other reviews were equally positive, including that of Pete Hammond of Boxoffice magazine, who wrote that she's "ideally cast in the key female role".[70] Even reviewers who did not necessarily like the film complimented her performance, such as James Berardinelli, who wrote that "the demands of the role prove to be within her range, which is perhaps surprising considering she has been thus far pigeonholed into more lightweight parts",[71] and Colin Covert of the Star Tribune, who wrote that she "generated a spark and brought a degree of determination to her character, developing an independent female character who's not always in need of rescuing."[72] Other critics, such as Claudia Puig of USA Today felt she was miscast, noting that "she looked as if she dropped in from a Ray-Ban commercial".[73] Kunis received another Teen Choice Award nomination for her performance.[74][75] Kunis was also cast in a minor role in the 2010 comedy film Date Night, starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell.[76] She garnered several positive reviews for her performance.[77][78][79] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune concluded her performance with James Franco helped save the film and gave it "a shot in the arm."[80]
Kunis was nominated for multiple awards, including her first Golden Globe, for the 2010 film Black Swan. She played a rival ballet dancer to the main character, played by Natalie Portman. Director Darren Aronofsky cast Kunis in the film based on her performance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and on the recommendation of co-star and close friend Natalie Portman.[9][81] She underwent a training regimen that included cardiovascular exercise, a 1,200-calorie a day diet (she lost 20 pounds that she regained after filming ended), and ballet classes for four hours a day, seven days a week.[1][82][83] During the demanding production, she suffered injuries including a torn ligament and a dislocated shoulder.[84]
Black Swan received widespread acclaim from critics[85] and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[86] The film grossed over $106.9 million in the United States and Canada[87] while grossing over $329 million worldwide.[88] Reviews of Kunis's performance were positive,[89][90][91] with Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter stating, "Kunis makes a perfect alternate to Portman, equally as lithe and dark but a smirk of self-assurance in place of Portman's wide-eyed fearfulness."[92] Guy Lodge of In Contention also praised Kunis, saying, "it's the cool, throaty-voiced Kunis who is the surprise package here, intelligently watching and reflecting her co-star in such a manner that we're as uncertain as Nina of her ingenuousness."[93] Kunis's performance won her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival,[94] and earned her Golden Globe Award[95] and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress.[96] At the 37th annual Saturn Awards, she was also honored with the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance.[97]
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