Witty, self-aware, smart and politically active – Mila Kunis is not your average starlet. She tells Stylist why her heart belongs to Barack

As a rule, the ‘safe’ areas to cover when you’re interviewing a celebrity include the following: body image, work, co-stars, relationships… body image. What you definitely don’t imagine you’ll end up debating are the potential landmines of sex, politics, religion and money. But then I don’t imagine Mila Kunis is much like any other young actress. For a start, when I walk into the suite at The Dorchester the tiny 28-year-old actress is sprawled on a chaise longue holding her stomach after eating fish and chips (“big enough for a family”) and caramel rice pudding. It may seem a frivolous observation but, among the aesthetically conscious stars of Hollywood, a hearty appetite is not something you stumble across often. Secondly, she doesn’t appear to view interviews as a chore. We meet at 7pm after a long day and Mila just smiles: “Oh, it’s fine, I’m not tired – go ahead.” She also doesn’t play down her intelligence or interest in things that appear outside the Hollywood bubble, becoming more animated when discussing her biggest passion – politics – than anything else.

Oh, and she’s incredibly modest, despite having just made the leap from supporting actress roles [in last year’s Black Swan} to co-star, alongside Justin Timberlake in new film Friends With Benefits – a comedy about friends who, well, do more than most friends advisably should. When I walked out of the cinema it wasn’t Justin I was discussing; it was the huge crush I’d developed on her.

Maybe it’s her background which sets her apart. Mila lived in Kiev, in the Ukraine with her physics teacher mother, engineer father and older brother until she was seven, when she moved to LA, without being able to speak a word of English. Her heritage has clearly given her more than just her ridiculously amazing looks (huge Bambi eyes – one brown, one green – flawless skin and the figure of a ballerina).

Mila started acting at the age of nine and has worked continually since then; first in TV roles such as Jackie in That ’70s Show alongside Ashton Kutcher and as the voice of Meg in Family Guy, before moving into film and winning audiences over with her performance as Rachel in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Lily in Black Swan alongside her friend Natalie Portman. She also famously spent eight years dating Macaulay Culkin – the quirky child star who the rest of the world can only remember eating macaroni cheese as he psyched himself up to fight off baddies with a glue gun. It’s clear there is so much more to Mila Kunis than your typical Hollywood actress

What attracted you to the part of Jamie in your new film Friends With Benefits?

When I got the script it was very dated but I knew it made for a funny movie so I took a meeting with Will Gluck [the director]. Will, Justin [Timberlake] and myself went out to dinner and that’s when we realised we wanted the same thing for the movie. We were able to workshop it, re-write the script and tailor the characters to what we feel our generation is like now. So that’s really what attracted me most to it – to be part of a process in making a character that I was proud of.

The film poses the timeless question: Can women have sex without becoming emotionally attached? What’s your take on that?

I don’t think it can work; I think it’s a very temporary solution but people are very busy, very driven now and there is a lot more that twentysomething girls want to accomplish. So it makes for an easy solution to a situation, but it is also a very temporary solution.

Your chemistry with Justin is brilliant – were you friends before?

We weren’t – we met during that first dinner and he had food poisoning, so… a really awesome dinner! We did workshop on the script for two months before production and created these characters that were so dear and special to us because they were so much a part of us. Then, on top of that, we didn’t hate each other.

Always a bonus…

It is, because you truly never know. A lot of the time you go to work, then you have lunch by yourself, then you go back to work. There are those few movies where you actually sit down with your co-star and your director and have lunch together. Three months in, we still enjoy having dinner together and we still go out to dinner in LA now.

What surprised you most about Justin?

I knew very little about him, but I loved Saturday Night Live [Justin hosted the US talk show earlier this year]; I thought he was hysterical in it. He’s one of those people who want you to succeed. He made me feel very comfortable and he’s great to the crew. He’s a very passionate person when it comes to his work, which is contagious. He’s very funny. He’ll be very humble about it but he’s very smart and I think to be funny you need to be smart.

The pressure to ‘be funny’ in a comedy must be quite overwhelming – do you ever get self-conscious?

I am nervous every day I go to work that I’m going to get fired. It’s only once we pass the halfway point through production that I’m like, “Oh well, they aren’t going to fire me now, it’s too late.” Otherwise, whether you have to be funny or mean or angry, whatever the character is... it is incredibly nerve-wracking to go to work because acting is based on opinion.

Are you ever a victim of imposter syndrome where you think you’re going to get found out at any minute?

Yeah, completely. I have no clue how I got here. I feel as if I tricked a lot of people and I don’t even know how.

How are you finding the transition from a supporting to leading role?

The experience has been incredible but not in the sense of, ‘this is what I’ve always wanted’, because this isn’t what I’ve always wanted. It was never my priority to be this type of actress. It was just to keep working. I love what I do and so when a movie ends I just want to get hired again – there is no sense of security so this means nothing, unless I have another job.

What are you looking for next?

I’ve always just looked at projects which I can learn from. I really do like working with people that are better than me because the only way you can become better at what you do is by observing other people. So if I can surround myself with people that are smarter, better, I’m set.

Interview: Mila Kunis