Wilmer Valderrama and Ashton Kutcher shared a ‘Friendly Rivalry’ on ‘That 70s Show’ | Entertainment

Wilmer Valderrama is reminiscing on his That ‘70s Show days with Ashton Kutcher. 

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, the NCIS actor, 44, launched his memoir, An American Story: Everyone’s Invited. In the ebook, Valderrama, who performed Fez, opened up about auditioning for the sitcom, and what it was like working with Kutcher, 46, as soon as he landed the position, per Us Weekly.

“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,” Valderrama admitted of the Punk’d alum, who grew to become recognized to followers as Michael Kelso, the jock of the present. 

According to Valderrama, the factor he and Kutcher had in frequent was that 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, including that that is 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 stated.

The duo ultimately started going by the “two-takers” as a result of they might “always try to land the first perfectly, then do the second take just for fun.”

Valderrama additionally confessed that he initially didn’t put a lot thought into That ‘70s Show, which was initially titled Teenage Wasteland. 

“I didn’t put much stock into the show at first. I vowed to give it my all, just like everything else. But after you’ve been auditioning for a few years without much success, you learn not to get your hopes up,” Valderrama wrote.

In addition to Valderrama and Kutcher, the sequence additionally 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). That '70s Show ran for 8 seasons from 1998 to 2006.

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In January 2023, Netflix launched the That '70s Show spin-off, That '90s Show. 

Though a number of the unique solid returned to Wisconsin, on the 2024 Monte-Carlo Television Festival in Monaco in June, Valderrama informed PEOPLE why he was not a part of the brand new sequence. 

“There's no time!” he solely informed PEOPLE.

“We're pushing 20 episodes a season [on NCIS], but at the same time, it's the kids' jobs,” he added, referring to the brand new solid members of the spin-off.

The reboot stars Callie Haverda as Leia Forman, the daughter of Eric Forman and Donna Pinciotti, in addition to Max Donovan, Ashley Aufderheide, Sam Morelos, Reyn Doi and Mace Coronel.

“This is their show now, and I think it was important that we came and pay respect to their show and have fun with the legacy of what we did,” Valderrama continued. “At the same time, it was really about, you know, now seeing them take it over.”

That '70s Show is on the market to stream on Peacock.