USA TODAY International Edition
Kate and Mila play ‘Spy’ game just for laughs
McKinnon and Kunis, who play BFFs in “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” offer advice on love and life.
BEVERLY HILLS – Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon have some advice for women stuck in bad relationships.
“Jump ship, babe,” says McKinnon, who stars with Kunis in “The Spy Who Dumped Me” (in theaters Friday). “That’s what I’d say. Just get out.” The R-rated comedy serves up Kunis as Audrey, an introverted 30-year-old grocery store clerk ghosted by her boyfriend (Justin Theroux) only to learn he’s a CIA operative. What’s a girl to do? Fly to Europe with her best friend Morgan (McKinnon) to untangle an international conspiracy, obviously.
Catch up with the two busy stars:
A word about heartbreak
Audrey is blindsided by a breakup in “Spy,” and it takes several car chases, some amateur Jason Bourne moves and a mad dash across Berlin, Paris and Prague for her to find her footing. What advice does Kunis, 34, have for young women in bad relationships? “If I could tell a 16-year-old anything, (it would be): No relationship is permanent,” she says. “It took me until I was in my mid- to late 20s to realize, ‘Oh if this isn’t working out, I can simply walk away.’ ”
McKinnon, 34, says, “When you’re younger, a year is such a higher proportion of your life. And as you age, one year becomes less and less of a significant fraction . ... You do start to put things in perspective more.”
Sorry, ‘SNL’ fans: Helsinki is on ice
McKinnon is the MVP of “Saturday Night Live.” But the comedian’s vibe is distinctly more mellow in person. “When I’m performing, I’m quite loud, and then in real life, you can’t hear a word that I’m saying,” she says, smiling.
She, dashes hopes that writers had a group text about a Trump/Putin Helsinki sketch. “We all are in a different mode” now she says. “I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and following (politics) and stuff but I’m not trying to think about how to make comedy out of it.”
Finding your crew
In “Spy,” McKinnon and Kunis are BFFs, so when the effervescent Morgan (McKinnon) is deemed “a little too much” by a male character, Audrey swings to her defense. In real life, both actresses say they still have tight crews from childhood. “When I was younger, I remember being told that I was weird,” says McKinnon. “Then I noticed that half of the people were telling me I was weird, but the other half were laughing. So I just decided to hang around those people instead. And that’s been my strategy for my life.”
Party of four
What changed after Kunis gave birth to her second child, Dimitri, 1? “Everything,” says Kunis who also has a daughter, Wyatt, 3, with husband Ashton Kutcher. “You don’t appreciate how easy having one kid is until you have two – and then it’s too late to appreciate having just one.”