Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher Had More Fun Than Anyone on Red Nose Day

Actors manned the phones with Tony Hale, Johnny Galecki, Retta, Minnie Driver, Ben Feldman and Grace Helbig

By Zach Johnson, Alli Rosenbloom May 27, 2016 11:57 AMTags
Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Red Nose Day 2016Instagram

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher had a ball on Red Nose Day.

Hosted by Craig Ferguson, the second annual two-hour fundraiser aired on NBC Thursday. It featured pre-taped sketches, performances and live appearances by some of the most famous people in the world, including Kristen Bell, Jack Black, Connie Britton, Rose Byrne, Ellen DeGeneres, Zac Efron, Bill Gates, Blake Griffin, Elton John, Anna Kendrick, Jay Leno, Andrew Lincoln, Ludacris, Mandy Moore, Chloë Grace Moretz, Tracy Morgan, Norman Reedus, Julia Roberts, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Emma Thompson, Danny Trejo, Emma Watson and more.

The Red Nose Day special was created by writer-director Richard Curtis to help lift children out of poverty around the world. The campaign, run by Comic Relief, has raised more than $1 billion globally in the last 25 years.

As donations poured in—a total of $30,703,465 was raised Thursday—Kunis and Kutcher manned the phones with Tony Hale, Johnny Galecki, Retta, Minnie Driver, Ben Feldman and Grace Helbig.

"As soon as the show started, Ashton put on his red nose and took a selfie," a source tells E! News. "Meanwhile, Mila was watching the video with blank stare until Ashton turned to her with the nose; she laughed when he stuck his tongue out."

Before the broadcast even began, Kutcher turned on his Facebook Live and answered fan questions. Given that his Q&A wouldn't air on TV, he told Kunis, "We're sort of cheating the system." Or, as he later put it, "We're hijacking the broadcast of Red Nose Day live on Facebook." Kunis was impressed, telling her hubby, "This is amazing! Baby, there 5,000 people." Kutcher had higher hopes, saying, "By the end of this, hopefully there'll be like 100,000 people."

Some fans' questions got a little weird. "Can y'all adopt me?" one asked. "We ain't adopting right now," Kutcher said. After Kunis overheard the actor, she asked, "Can we adopt people?" Kutcher, who teased Kunis for burping on camera, spent most of the Q&A plugging the special.

After Galecki was clued in to what they were doing, he congratulated the couple on their 18-month-old daughter Wyatt. "She's really cute. She has a funny, funny personality. Like, she's really f—king funny. Like, she's learned the fake-out," Kunis told Galecki, adding that Wyatt has also mastered the "fake cry." As Kutcher addressed his Facebook fans, his wife—seemingly unaware that her conversation was being recorded—continued to share details about their baby girl. "We literally cannot wait for her to be 3...Her mind gets blown by things. She goes to the zoo and she's like [hyperventilating]." Kunis also revealed that Kutcher has never been to Disneyland, but they're waiting until Wyatt is older to go on a visit.

Later on, Kunis and Kutcher had the callers in stiches, and they were a hit with the other stars on set, too. "Craig talked to them at every commercial break," the source says. "He would go straight for Ashton and Mila every free chance he got."

While Kunis got understandably distracted at times (she was "cracking up" during Rudd and Griffin's sketch), Kutcher was answering calls left and right. "I got a call! Hello? Hi! Who's this?" he asked. After Kunis' first call, she proudly recounted the details to Kutcher. She made small talk with the next caller, saying things like, "Where are you from?...Thank you so much! That's so nice." Galecki and Kutcher also spent some time "goofing around" and sharing calls, while Kunis and Driver spent the evening laughing together. At one point, when Retta told Ferguson that her donations weren't as high as she had hoped, Kunis kindly patted her on the shoulder.

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Emma Watson, Zac Efron, Ellen DeGeneres and More Stars Vie for Attention in Hilarious Red Nose Day 2016 Promo
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Driver later revealed that she got a drunk person to donate much more money than intended. She joked it was a Scottish person—maybe Ferguson's mom—which had Kunis "cracking up."

When Kunis had phone troubles, she listened in to Kutcher's conversation and laughed at his "silly" banter with a caller. Midway through the show, producers switched out the celebrity call center members. "When Mila got up, she shouted to the audience and waved. 'Bye, guys!'" As the crowd applauded, she encouraged them to get into it, saying, "Let's try more energy, guys!"

"Retta, sit your ass down!" she joked.

Retta did as she was told and resumed her telethon duties. "It was really funny," the source says. "Everyone laughed." Kutcher was the last person to get off the phone, though, as he'd been "taking it very seriously." He waved to the crowd as he left and walked off after his wife.

Giving back is important to both Kunis and Kutcher, who married in 2014. It's a big part of Kutcher's businesses, too. In 2011, he co-founded venture capital firm A-Grade Investments, and in 2015, he co-founded Sound Ventures. More recently, Kutcher co-founded a human rights organization (THORN) and a digital media company (A Plus). Asked to pick the best investment he's ever made, the actor recently told Acorn: "My relationships—taking the time to get to know [people], what motivates them, what their challenges are. These things are often overlooked."

(E! and NBC are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)

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Stars Celebrate Red Nose Day 2016