Ashton Kutcher

It's hardly surprising that young, shaggy-haired Ashton Kutcher looks like he's the offspring of some '70s rocker--he stars as the puka-shelled, bell-bottomed, spacey heartthrob Michael Kelso on the popular sitcom "That 70s Show."

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But once audiences have had a chance to see Kutcher in something besides his TV show, their idea of who he is should change. With a successful series as a showcase and a safety net, Kutcher has gone the smart way of young Hollywood stars these days--the Miramax way. "Miramax works like the old studios," the 22-year-old actor says. "They bring you in and the first role that you do, you might not even have a name. Then you'll do one where you might have a line. And then, an actual character." If you doubt Kutcher's take on the Miramax system, look at the careers of Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow and, in their wake, the even younger Freddie Prinze Jr., Julia Stiles and Rachael Leigh Cook. For Kutcher himself, it's worked like this: he nabbed a small role as a Jim Morrison wannabe in Miramax's Down to You and another small role as a college kid in Miramax's Reindeer Games, then found himself galloping into the action alongside Dylan McDermott and James Van Der Beek in the upcoming Miramax Western Texas Rangers.

"Dylan is the gritty cowboy, James is the East Coast schoolboy and I'm the kid that thinks he's going to be the meanest fighting machine, the hotshot," explains Kutcher. What does his character offer the ladies that James Van Der Beek's doesn't in this Young Guns redux sortie? "I offer a good man and he offers James Van Der Beek," Kutcher shoots back, grinning disarmingly. Then he laughs out loud: "I'm just kidding." Hmmm, does this humor reflect a spirit of one-upmanship on the Rangers set? "We all got a little bit lippy, and we were all jabbering," Kutcher confirms. But there was always someone to bring them back to earth. "Dylan and James and I would be bickering, and then somebody would say, 'Settle down, guys, you go back to your TV shows in a month.'"

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Wolf Schneider