We've heard of Method acting, but this is ridiculous: Ashton Kutcher wound up in the hospital after imitating the fruit-only diet of Steve Jobs.
A "fruitarian" not only eschews meat for ethical reasons, he or she also believes that harvesting vegetables and grains is wrong because it harms plants. Thus, fruitarians eat only what falls off the tree, bush or vine.
But it didn't work so well for Kutcher.
"I ended up in the hospital two days before we started shooting the movie," Kutcher told reporters Friday at the Sundance Film Festival, where jOBS premiered. "I was doubled over in pain, and my pancreas levels were completely out of whack — which was completely terrifying, considering everything."
"Everything" probably includes the fact that Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011.
The dietary complications were one thing — Kutcher has also felt the sting of public criticism, with many wondering why Kutcher, who has a reputation for taking on lightweight fare, was cast as the iconic Jobs.
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"It was kind of like throwing myself into this gauntlet of ... massive amounts of criticism," Kutcher told the Associated Press.
Don't count on that criticism ending anytime soon — the reviewer for the Salt Lake Tribune damned him with faint praise, calling him "not the casting disaster that some thought he might be" before saying he can't nail Jobs' "spark."
The Hollywood Reporter called jOBS a two-hour commercial and said Kutcher did a "fair" imitation of Jobs himself.
The UK Guardian, on the other hand, called the film "overly referential and saccharine." It praised Kutcher himself, though, calling him "surprisingly effective."