Mila Kunis

(1983-)

Mila Kunis is a Jewish American actress best known for her role as Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show.

Kunis (born August 14, 1983) was born Milena Markivna Kunis to a Jewish family in Chernvtsi, Ukraine. In 1991, when Mila was seven years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, California after being selected in a lottery system that allowed them to move first to Moscow and then to the United States.

Kunis still remembers seeing anti-Semitic graffiti in her school in Chernivtsi, a city in southwest Ukraine. Once in the United States, however, Kunis says she was miserable partly because she did not know English or understand the culture of the American people. After nearly two decades in America, however, Kunis admits that she is much happier in the US than in the former Soviet Union, mainly because she can express herself freely.

At age nine, Kunis enrolled in acting classes after school at the Beverly Hills Studios, where she met her manager Susan Curtis. Kunis began appearing in print-ads, catalogues, and TV commercials for children's products and her first TV role was on an episode of the popular soap opera Days of our Lives. In 1998, Kunis was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show, which ran for eight very successful seasons. In 1999, she replaced Lacey Chabert as the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy.

Kunis's first commercially successful film was the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, co-produced by Judd Apatow, in which she starred opposite Jason Segel. Also in 2008, she portrayed Mona Sax, a Russian assassin, alongside Mark Wahlberg in the the action movie Max Payne. In 2009, Kunis appeared in the comedy Extract with Ben Affleck and Jason Batemen and in 2010 starred alongside Denzel Washington in the action film The Book of Eli.

In September 2010, Kunis won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for her performance opposite Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Kunis has also placed three times in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list of the world's most beautiful women, ranking fifth in 2009 and 2011 and third in 2012, just behind Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli.

Regarding her Jewish identity, Kunis said that "I'm pretty Jewish .. I go 'oy' and people are like, 'oh, you're very Jewish ... When I'm in New York, I become super-Jew."

Sources: Wikipedia, Times of Israel