Today is Mila Kunis' 33rd birthday. In honour of her being an all round hilarious and generally awesome person, we've decided to look into what many would consider her 'big break' - Family Guy. Before you say it, yeah I know she was on That 70s Show but in my opinion, Family Guy propelled her into international stardom.The thing is, she very nearly didn't get the role of Meg in the cartoon. In fact, it was originally played by two other actresses before she landed the part.
Before Mila, she was voiced by Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert, but how Kunis landed the role is quite interesting.
Back in 2006, Chabert spoke to GameSpy about the career move. When asked if she had a grudge against Mila, she replied: "No, I actually left the show of my own accord. And only because I was in school and doing Party of Five at the time. But I think the show is hilarious, and don't have a grudge against her at all. I think she's a great actress."That's fair enough; it kind of sounds like one of those fake Hollywood 'nicey nicey' answers though. So let's hear from the man himself - Seth MacFarlane. What really happened? He told IGN: "You know, it was just purely a contractual thing. Lacey Chabert, I think there was a mistake in her contract, and I guess she had not intended to be involved for, like, the full run of the show. I don't even remember.
"To be honest, I don't really, to this day, know what it was. It was nothing - there was no tension or anything. She wanted to go, and she was very cool about it. We obviously don't want to keep anyone there who doesn't want to be there. So, you know, it was early on enough in the show that it wasn't a huge - that happens from time to time, you've got to replace a voice actor. Fortunately, what Mila brought to it, Mila Kunis, was in a lot of ways, I thought, almost more right for the character. "I say that Lacey did a phenomenal job, but there was something about Mila - something very natural about Mila. She was 15 when she started, so you were listening to a 15-year-old."Oh yeah, as mentioned earlier, Lacey Chabert was actually the second person to play Meg. She was first voiced (in the very early days) by Cree Summer. A voice actress who has lent her vocal chords to such cartoons as: Inspector Gadget, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Clifford The Big Red Dog. She even starred in The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. But actually in person, not just her voice.
Here she is explaining why she got fired...
So she got fired because she was crap. Fair enough.
Words by Mel Ramsay