Bucking convention
Ashton Kutcher was holed up in his dressing room on the Warner Bros. lot, surrounded by Chicago Bears memorabilia, contemplating how he’d go about binge- watching his new series, “The Ranch.”
The 38- year- old actor and producer officially joined the Netflix club last week with the release of the multi- camera comedy. The family sitcom, which reunites him with his “That ’ 70s Show” friend and co- star Danny Masterson, stars Kutcher as Colt Bennett, a thirtysomething semi- pro football player who returns to the family cattle ranch in Colorado, which has fallen on hard times, and attempts to run the business with his brother ( Masterson). Sam Elliott and Debra Winger also star.
The 20- episode first season is being released in two installments — the second batch of 10 episodes will roll out later this year. Ultimately, Kutcher decided he’s an all- in kind of bingewatcher who would kick back with the f irst set over one weekend. You were coming off “Two and a Half Men” when the idea for “The Ranch” started forming ...
Danny and I wanted to do a show together for probably the last 10 years — since we finished “That ’ 70s Show.” I was not sure I wanted to do another sitcom. But I thought, “If we can come up with something great, it would be awesome.” I really enjoyed working with [ executive producers] Jim Patterson and Don Reo when we were working on “Two and a Half Men.” So we started kicking around ideas — could it be a “Two and a Half Men” spin- off ? We didn’t really want to do that. We really ended up bearing down on the question of “How can you be funny today in a very PC world in a way that isn’t super meta, that’s available to a lot of people, but that doesn’t offend everyone?” What we realized was that nobody had really made a show about blue- collar, conservative, Middle America, small- town family values in a long time that wasn’t making fun of these types of people. I mean, there’s a reason why “Duck Dynasty” has an audience on television. Is Colt someone you identify with, given your background?
The show is like pretty deep in my bones. I grew up in a town of 100 in Iowa. I understand what this blue- collar life is. I know these characters and the places and the feeling of living in that part of the world and the discontent with it. And I also understand the feeling of wanting to get out of it. And I know the feeling after I’ve left of the fear of having to go home and say I didn’t make it. And so I have deep connection to this character from that perspective. “The Ranch” isn’t your traditional multicamera comedy. You can be looser with the language, the lighting is different. How was it bucking with the conventions?
Coming off of sitcoms and having done, collectively between Danny and I, about 800 episodes of sitcoms, we know this format really, really well. And we keep working in this format because we love this format. There’s an extraordinary energy when you get to shoot in front of a live audience. What we realized when we set out to do this is we didn’t want to do it just the same way everything else is. If you look at the history of the sitcom, going back to Lucille Ball’s show, not much has changed. And when you get to things like lighting and music, you go, “Why is every sitcom set lit up like it’s a play?” And we wanted to challenge that convention. You’ve invested millions in companies like Airbnb, Spotify and Foursquare. Was doing business with Netflix the next logical step?
Any time somebody gives you a platform where you can do what you want to do and make money as an artist, that’s where you’re going to go. Twitter provides a voice for anyone that has the capacity to build an audience. I think everybody wins with that. Netflix is the same thing, in a sense where if you’re an actor or producer, you want to be able to make content, but you want to be able to make a living, you want to be able to make it authentic and true. You know the other aspect of this partnership that you should consider — the reboot, reunion part. You know everyone is wondering when we’ll get a “That ’ 70s Show” return.
As far as a “’ 70s Show” reboot... You’re going to deny us.
Well, most likely. But I don’t think I’m denying you. Here’s why: I think when you make something great, and I think some people felt “That ’ 70s Show” was great and they connected to it — sometimes the nostalgia of what you experienced the first time doesn’t exist anymore because you’re in a different place in your life. You have to remember, we filmed “That ’ 70s Show” in the late ’ 90s. And “That ’ 70s Show” was post- Vietnam. It was these kids in the basement that didn’t have anything to protest. Today, I think we have things to protest again and so, I don’t know if that show would have the same resonance it had when it first aired.