Wilmer Valderrama recalls ‘friendly rivalry’ with ‘That ‘70s Show’ costar
Wilmer Valderrama had a friendly rivalry with the That ‘70s Show co-star Ashton Kutcher.
Wilmer has opened up about his days working on That ‘70s Show in his new memoir An American Story: Everyone’s Invited.
In the book, the NCIS star recalled his friendly competition with Kutcher on the set of the hit sitcom, which ran for eight seasons from 1998 to 2006. Wilmer played the foreign kid Fez whereas the Your Place or Mine actor played the dumb and self-obsessed Michael Kelso.
“Ashton was far more intelligent in real life than the character he played, and he was far more serious about the craft of acting than it appeared,” he wrote in the memoir, per Us Weekly.
He noted that both him and Kutcher “always came to set extremely prepared.”
“He and I soon developed a friendly rivalry to see who could get the biggest laughs from the audience on the first take,” Valderrama wrote, explaining that that’s when “the laugh is always bigger.”
“If you mess up on the first take and try for a huge laugh on the second, the joke never lands as powerfully. If you need to do a third or fourth take, you might as well forget it,” he said.
The duo would “always try to land the first perfectly, then do the second take just for fun,” going on to be known as the “two-takers.”
Along with Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama, That ‘70s Show also starred Topher Grace (Eric Forman), Laura Prepon (Donna Pinciotti), Mila Kunis (Jackie Burkhart), Danny Masterson (Steven Hyde), Debra Jo Rupp (Kitty Forman), Kurtwood Smith (Red Forman), Tanya Roberts (Midge Pinciotti), Don Stark (Bob Pinciotti), Lisa Robin Kelly (Laurie Forman) and Tommy Chong (Leo Chingkwake).
