Mila Kunis is Hollywood’s Ukrainian heart

Milena Markovna was seven when she arrived in America on a refugee visa. Growing up in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, with older brother Michael, the little girl who would become A-lister Mila Kunis was largely oblivious to the antisemitism that drove her parents to leave their homeland for a better, safer life in 1991. “We were Jewish,” she told US radio host Howard Stern, without mentioning the memories of swastika graffiti that stay with her.

Now, as the most famous Ukrainian after president Volodymyr Zelensky, Mila has used her star status to spotlight the plight of her war-torn birthplace to raise donations for aid. That the figure currently stands at $36m – $3m of which was contributed by the actress and her actor husband Ashton Kutcher – is a testament to her dedication. Propelled by public praise from Zelensky for being “among the first to respond to our grief”, Mila uses every interview and junket as a segue to her Ukraine fundraiser and her latest role in Netflix, Luckiest Girl Alive, is controversial enough to create the necessary interest. With some viewers saying it should come with a trigger warning, the film is based on Jessica Knoll’s best-selling semi-autobiographical novel, and casts Mila as a successful New York
writer plagued by a harrowing high school history that made her a victim of violent rape.

“I hate being the person who says, ‘I hope this starts a converstion.’” says Mila, who also produced the film. “However, I do hope the film opens up people’s minds to being more empathetic towards what’s happening in society and to uncomfortable conversations, with oneself, peers and others.” Hard-hitting and impactful, the role is a departure for Mila, who began her career as the cute kid in Barbie commercials before graduating to teen roles, notably in That ‘70’s Show in which, as Jackie Burkhart, she had her first sort-of screen kiss – “on the cheek” – with co-star and future husband Kutcher.

With a resume that includes the films Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Friends With Benefits and Black Swan – for which she received many award nominations for playing Natalie Portman’s ballet dancer nemesis – Mila can pick her projects, especially now she’s a producer. That she continues to voice unfortunate daughter Meg in Family Guy and is reprising her role as Burkhart in the new That 90’s Show (15-and-a-half years after That 70s Show ended) shows her penchant for comedy and all of it thrills her father, Mark. Arriving in New York with $890 to keep a family of four and two grandparents, the former engineer did menial jobs, but managed to pay for the acting classes he felt Mila deserved. “And they never took a dime from me even though I had money,” reveals the actress, who still speaks Russian to her parents. “From all the jobs I got I would never have blamed them if they had taken money, but to this day they are really stubborn about it, and if we go out for my dad’s birthday, he calls the restaurant before and gives them his card.”

Mila’s mum also does a weekly food drop for her daughter laden with pickled herring, borscht and chicken soup. Now a mum herself, to daughter Wyatt, eight, and son Dimitri, five, Mila was brought to tears this year during a TV interview with Josh Horowitz when she told her children about the war in Ukraine. “My daughter punched the air after computing that, ‘There’s a war in Ukraine? Aren’t you from Ukraine?… Well I’m HALF Ukrainian!'”

While it would be easy to cite hatred, Mila doesn’t feel the Russian people are the enemy. “Rather than that become the rhetoric, it’s more the people in power that are the problem.” What Mila has not been allowed to give her parents, she now gives to Ukraine and the still-active GoFundMe page has helped Airbnb
and Flexport to help refugees leave Ukraine and continue to support those who remain. Unbelievably, Mila and Ashton were almost destined to be involved in the crises as some years ago they met with Zelensky and his wife Olena and got very positive feelings.

“Sometimes you meet a magical unicorn, and you go, ‘I hope that you succeed because you’re a normal, nice human being who has the best intent,’” says the actress. Takes one to know one.