PASADENA, Calif. -- If Ashton Kutcher could do it all over again, he wouldn't become a model before becoming an actor.
"When someone first approached me and asked me if I wanted to be a model, I said to them, 'No, I want to be an actor,' " Kutcher said. "And they said, 'Well, (modelling) is a great way to get into acting.' But had I known, I never even would have become a model.
"A lot of my friends who are actually really good actors but are models end up getting stereotyped in that. It's a very difficult segue, I would say."
Kutcher was at the Television Critics Association tour to promote his new series The Beautiful Life, which coincidentally is about young models.
Kutcher is not starring in the series, but rather is the co-executive producer. The Beautiful Life stars Corbin Bleu, Elle Macpherson, Sara Paxton and Mischa Barton, and it will air this fall on A and CW.
Of course, the transition from modelling to acting wasn't all that difficult for Kutcher, who in his first TV audition nailed the role of Michael Kelso in That '70s Show. It was Kutcher's earlier transition, from frustrated Iowa university student to New York model, that was the tough one.
"I was going to the University of Iowa School of Engineering, and it was finals, and I was 19, and somehow I managed to get into a bar and get a beer -- I can be persuasive when I need to be," Kutcher said.
"This woman came up to me and said, 'How old are you?' And I said, 'Just give me one second,' as I'm ordering my beer. Then I turned around and said, 'I'm 19.' She said, 'You should be a model.' And I said, 'Do guys even do that?' Then we got into this conversation."
Kutcher explained that two weeks earlier he had reached the breaking point because he was overwhelmed by school and furious with his hated roommate, who had been having sex with a girl and wouldn't let Kutcher back in the room.
"So when an opportunity came to get out of Dodge, I jumped on it," he said. "I (entered a modelling contest) and won a trip to New York City. I went to New York and called home and just said, 'I'm not coming home.' "
At that point Kutcher's knowledge of the modelling scene was, shall we say, limited.
"I thought the Marlboro Man was a real cowboy," Kutcher said. "That fish-out-of-water story was a fish-in-the-desert story. But I think it created such a great landscape for the storyline of this show."
At only 31, Kutcher already has become an accomplished producer, businessman and industry innovator. His companies and enterprises are endeavouring to stay ahead of the game as Internet and social-media technology changes and advances.
"I don't think I'll ever have to say, 'enough TV,' because I think (TV and Internet) eventually will merge into one," said Kutcher, who is married to 46-year-old actress Demi Moore.
"I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's both, and our goal is to be there when they merge and we'll already have an established understanding, awareness of that space."
So let's get this straight: Ashton Kutcher has been a highly paid actor, he's a budding producer, he's a multi-media force and he gets to see Demi Moore naked on a regular basis.
Dumb model, my butt.
