He was a good student who played in the football team and appeared in school plays. Well-liked and popular, stress from his brother’s condition and his parents’ divorce drove him to a freak involvement in a school burglary in his senior year that led to a three-year probation sentence and 180 hours of community service. This incident led to the loss of his girlfriend, anticipated college scholarship, and his popularity in school and the community.
He attended University of Iowa where he took up biochemical engineering in his desire to find a cure for his brother’s heart ailment. He became a member of Delta Chi fraternity (Costner is a brod) and was recruited while in school to be part of the "Fresh Faces of Iowa" modeling competition. He won a trip to New York City, where he ended up being a professional fashion model.
Kutcher is well known for his dim-witted, juvenile characters like Kelso in eight seasons of That ’70s Show. As to why he suddenly decided to take a mature and serious role, Kutcher points out, "I like doing movies that make me a little uncomfortable.When you’re uncomfortable, you’re growing. I’ve never done anything that required so much physical output and this kind of dramatic output."
Kevin Costner was another deciding factor for Kutcher. Kutcher was born in Iowa, the home of the world’s most famous fictional baseball field in Costner’s Field of Dreams. "I grew up drinking from the fountain of Kevin Costner. In Iowa, you’re raised there with the mantra, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ I had a cornfield in my backyard," he enthuses.
Costner was a real hero to Kutcher as the real coast guards. "It wasn’t difficult to look up to him in the film and secretly watch him as my teacher because he is that in real life to me. It’s a pretty special thing when you get to go to work with one of your heroes," Kutcher explaines.
"If I was going to do a film about rescue swimmers and portray this kind of heroes, I wanted to do them proud. I definitely didn’t want to have somebody else come in and double for me. I figured that these guys are saving lives for a living and for me, as an actor, to get into shape and be able to portray them is small potatoes and the least I can do," Kutcher notes.
With the rest of the cast, Kutcher got into a gut-wrenching, sweat-inducing boot camp that tested his resolve. "The boot camp with the Aviation Survival Technician teachers was an unforgettable experience. I’ve never been yelled at so much by someone I respect so much in my life except maybe my parents. These guys rode us, and they rode us hard! In the actual A-school style of training, the instructors never ask the students to do anything that they don’t do. So if they yell at you, tell you to get down and do 40 to 50 push-ups, they’ll do them right there with you. And so you just have the most enormous respect for them," he elaborates.
Kutcher successfully met all the stringent requirements of a Coast Guard swimmer well before the end of his training, including tests of speed, strength, and endurance. His instructors noted that he seemed to have what it takes to join their ranks in real life. But the biggest challenge for Kutcher was his lack of comfort in the water. "I don’t really like the water. I mean if I get thrown in a pool, I’m not going to drown, but this is a whole different kind of swimming. The hardest thing for me was simply diving in first thing every morning. Still, I was just happy to be in a wave tank, and not the open ocean, where if something went awry, they could have pulled me out," Kutcher relates.
Director Andrew Davis admired Kutcher’s devotion to the role and commitment to training. "I think he gained 10 or 15 pounds of pure muscle," he quips.