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Total Film plays third wheel with Future 100 stars Just in Timberlake and Mila Kunis to talk dirty about new horn-com Friends With Benefits.
You have great onscreen chemistry…
Mila Kunis: We were comfortable together from the get-go.
Justin Timberlake: When I got into bed on the project, no pun intended, we needed a girl who could do both drama and comedy and Mila was the first name that came up. We had dinner and found out very quickly that we had the same dark, demented, unabashed sense of humour.
MK: We rewrote the entire movie from scratch with Will Gluck, the director. [Squashes a bug] I got you!
How did that work?
JT: We would read through a scene and then ad-lib, find out what was funny about it from a girl’s perspective and a guy’s perspective…
MK: A lot of the movie ended up being inside jokes that happened in the workshop shessions [sic].
JT: [laughs] ‘Shessions’?
MK: You get to a place where you find things funny and you’re like, “Let’s just put it in the movie!”
JT: The original script was PG-13 but the one thing that did stay was the bad oral experience…
MK: …But it wasn’t graphic.
JT: No pun intended, it beat around the bush. It was very PC and we were just like, “Man, if we’re gonna do this…” We wanted the sex to be funny, we didn’t want it to be sexy.
In said oral sequence, Justin, you go down believing you’re the master of cunnilingus, only for Mila to put you in your place…
JT: That’s a joke that needs to be made. I find there’s an inside joke with women that guys just don’t know what they’re doing down there.
What’s your favourite sex-joke in the film that you improvised?
JT: [Laughs] Oh come on, man! I don’t know… Will and I thought the finger-up-the-asshole joke was funny. ’Cos it’s not every day you hear a heterosexual man own up to that.
How long did the sex scenes take to shoot?
MK: Two weeks. Will gave us the option to shoot them at the beginning or the end.
JT: We wanted to push it to the end because you’re like, “Oh man, we’re going to have to do A LOT of stuff.” It was two five-day weeks with a couple days to just try stuff out. Some of it made the movie…
MK: Like you sneezing in my face. That happened on the last day.
JT: We already had a joke in there about the guy sneezing when he comes so at one point I sneezed and she goes, “Really? Already?” And I go, “Just kidding.”
Was it awkward being naked in front of each other for two weeks?
JT: A lotta eye contact…
You can’t keep eye contact for two weeks…
MK: [Laughs] You really can… I mean, you’d have the DoP running in and fixing blankets while we’d be holding positions. It all became very surreal.
JT: I’ve never really done yoga and it was probably more a yoga workout for me.
MK: Oh, you poor guy…
JT: …because I had to cover her nudity a lot…
MK: With his arms!
JT: I’d be literally holding them up [mimics lying on top of her supported by his arms, straining through gritted teeth]…
MK: For eight, 10 hours, he’d have to be in this position and you could feel the muscles shaking. I was like, “I’m so sorry!”
JT: I was so tired, man.
MK: Towards the very end, we were shooting the lovemaking scene at his father’s house… It was like an 18-hour-long day and, 17 hours into it, I was laying there and he was kissing my back and I was like, “I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute.” Next thing I know, you’re like, “OK, we’re done!” I literally took a nap!
Any embarrassing moments?
JT: I had an ‘ass day’ where I had to run back and forth to the bedroom and show my ass on camera. I felt very insecure that day.
That’s the scene where you attempt to have a wee with a hard-on.
JT: See? That’s a joke that guys get.
So, can men and women keep it strictly physical?
MK: In theory, yes, but… What did you say earlier?
JT: I said it’s a really good idea until it’s a bad idea.
The film toys with the idea that most men just want to get their leg over…
JT: We’re chemically built differently. I think men compartmentalise life and women connect life. Not every guy is like that but it’s more true than not!
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