Okay, Smart Guy

Ashton Kutcher Has Made a Name For Himself Playing Amiable Goofs -- And Pranks. Now He's Out to Show There's More Than Meets the Eye.

Is Ashton Kutcher a dim pretty-boy?

That's what people wonder. He's played dim pretty-boys to such perfection in television and film -- starting with Michael Kelso, the oft-stoned, naive but likable character he portrayed for seven seasons on "That '70s Show" -- that the line between fantasy and reality starts to blur.

Then there's the whole Demi Moore thing. Is there something beside his fabulous good looks that made a 40-year-old movie star with three kids and a quiet home life in Idaho fall for and marry a kid 15 years her junior? A kid who, at the time, was still doing the all-night Los Angeles party scene and reveling in the perks that came with his first taste of fame?

So when Kutcher, now 28, rolled into Washington this month for the premiere of "The Guardian" -- which opens Friday -- it was intriguing to meet him, up close and personal, the afternoon before his big red-carpet appearance at the Uptown Theatre drew legions of shrieking female gawkers and tied up rush-hour traffic something fierce.

And, as far as first impressions go, he can be something of an endearing goofball.

"Let me get it for you," he says, jumping up from the chair in his hotel suite and heading to a room-service table covered with beverages. "I want to be a good host."

He puts ice in a glass after a bit of wrestling with the tongs -- "Why do they make you use these things, anyway?" he wonders aloud -- and then starts pouring a Diet Coke for his guest.

Pouring it all over the place, that is -- the soda bubbling up over the rim, running down the glass and over his fingers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he says, his laugh infectious. "See, this is what happens when I try to be a host!"

Improvising, he puts a napkin on a saucer, places the dripping glass precariously on top and presents the whole mess with a flourish.

"Okay, so you have a doily," he says, before laughing and collapsing back in his chair.

And then, over the next 45 minutes, he proceeds to talk about his production company, his forward-thinking Internet development deal, his onetime plans to study biochemical engineering at MIT, and how his MTV show "Punk'd" is, he hopes, more a study of human nature than it is "Candid Camera" with celebrities.