Thoroughly Modern Mila

As an Actress, She’s Making the Comedic Movies She Wants to Make (a Bad Moms Christmas, Out This Month), and as a Producer, She’s Elevating Women’s Roles on-screen. Building a Career on Her Own Terms Isjust How Mila Kunis Rolls

- Allison Glock

 THE SKY IS ABOUT TO OPEN UP ON HER early-morning walk, but Mila Kunis isn’t worried about the coming storm. She gives zero effs about hair falling flat or mascara running or jeans growing sodden and weighing heavily on her hips. Moreover, Kunis has little patience for delicate flowers who fret about getting drenched. After all, “It’s just rain.”

Fleeing religious persecution, her family emigrated from Ukraine when Kunis was 7 years old, with just $250 in their pockets. Because of this and a naturally resilient, suffer-no-fools disposition, she understands that life is full of challenge and sorrow and that a spot of precipitation during a stroll is neither.

“It is what it is,” she asserts in her rat-a-tat-tat style, marching directly toward the darkening clouds, hair in a loose ponytail, the tiniest spot of concealer on her chin. Kunis, 34, speaks freely and loudly as she navigates the Atlanta BeltLine, an urban walking path that winds through the city she’s calling home while she shoots A Bad Moms Christmas, the sequel to 2016’s raw, endearing ensemble comedy Bad Moms—a film, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the upcoming The Spy Who Dumped Me (with Kate McKinnon), that showcases Kunis’ slapstick chops and every woman accessibility. As the first drops fall, she pops open a small umbrella, quickly veering into a story about her rental house and how yesterday a lightning storm felled a tree in her yard.

“It should’ve fallen onto three homes. The fact that it didn’t was unbelievable.” She seems genuinely thrilled by the near miss. “We could get struck by lightning any second. So why worry? There’s something so empowering about being, ‘Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.’ Over the past four or five years, I’ve realized how much I enjoy that feeling.”