Ashton Kutcher: more than meets the eye?

WASHINGTON-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 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 drew legions of shrieking female gawkers and tied up rush-hour traffic.

Kutcher put himself through eight months of personal boot camp, adding more than 10 pounds of muscle to his frame and swimming laps weighted down with heavy equipment. He also gave up smoking.

By the time he showed up for a 10-day training session run by Coast Guard instructors, pretty much everyone was blown away by how conditioned he was. "Ashton, he was a stud," says co-star Peter Gail.

Once filming started, though, the real challenge for Kutcher was the character development. He wanted to play the part, he says, because "there is something about what these guys do and how they go about doing it. It was magnetic." But what, exactly, made his character the aloof elitist he had become? On a flight to Elizabeth City, N.C., to film on location, Kutcher confided in Costner that he was concerned because Jake's back story had yet to be determined in the script.

"Look, it was a stretch," he says of the decision to cast him. "I know that. I think that's uncomfortable for anyone."

He knew something traumatic had to have happened to his character, so he decided to take a page from his own life and use it--not as a specific model, but as his motivation. He decided to act from an experience he had at 18--to relive the fallout from the one night when he really was a bonehead.