Just A Minute With: Ashton Kutcher & Jennifer Garner on Valentine's Day

In new romantic comedy Valentine's Day, which opens in movie theatres on Friday, Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner play best friends each dealing with their own romantic relationship issues.

The pair first worked together 10 years ago in the 2000 feature Dude, Where's My Car. Since then, both rose to fame on television shows, got married — Kutcher to Demi Moore and Garner to Ben Affleck — became parents and movie stars.

Kutcher and Garner talked to Reuters about their film and shared opinions about all things romantic including JumboTron proposals and school teacher crushes.

Q: Ashton, you play a florist in Valentine's Day. What did you learn about that job that would be a tip for guys.
Kutcher: Baby's Breath is hell to florists. It's filler. It's not sexy, it's not chic. It's death to a florist. They hate it when it comes in as a request.

Q: What's your take on giving flowers on Valentine's Day — boring and unimaginative, or a given?
Garner: It's a baseline must.

Kutcher: Flowers are conformist if you don't think about the card. The flowers will say a lot, but the card becomes the essential piece of the delivery.

Garner: Well said.

Q: In the film, a high school student played by Taylor Swift gets a giant stuffed teddy bear from her boyfriend, played by Taylor Lautner. Are stuffed animals an appropriate gift on Valentine's Day, or too cutesy?
Garner: In high school, or in a new relationship: appropriate.

Kutcher: It totally depends. If you can imagine at some point in time the stuffed animal at the bottom of somebody's closet, don't go for it. However, my wife collects monkeys. She's got these little monkeys all over her desk, so if it's somebody like that, a stuffed animal could be the right thing."

Q: So you're getting Demi a monkey for Valentine's Day?
Kutcher: This year, instead of giving gifts to each other, we started a foundation called the DNA Foundation to help human trafficking victims. We're sending the girls flowers and making them our Valentines so they know that someone can love them without asking for anything back. There are 3,50,000 trafficked people here in the United States."

Garner: "Wow. You think it doesn't happen here. It's so shocking."

Q: Ashton, your character proposes to his girlfriend (Jessica Alba) on Valentines Day, but it doesn't work out. Is it dangerous to propose on a Valentine's Day in case the answer is no and the day is forever associated with a negative? 
Kutcher: I say: 'two birds, one stone.' I proposed to my wife on April Fool's Day.

Garner: How do you feel about proposals on a JumboTron?

Kutcher: I'm not down with the JumboTron. I think it's very valiant to the people that do it, but I've seen too many You Tube videos where it didn't go well."

Garner: I proposed for a guy once. I was working the Georgia Shakespeare Festival. I was an intern and we had a pre-show. This guy — I had to call his girlfriend up on stage, read her a sonnet and say: 'He wants your hand in marriage.'

Kutcher: How'd it go?

Garner: She said yes, but I was shaking!

Q: You were shaking?
Garner: Yes, because I was asking for him and I felt like I was the conductor for his nerves.

Kutcher: I get it. I'm an ordained minister in the state of Nevada and I married two couples. It was terrifying!

Q: Jennifer, you play a grade school teacher in the film with a 10-year old student who has a crush on you. Did any of you have innocent crushes on teachers back in school?
Garner: Mr Monaghan. I had a necklace and I gave it to him for Valentine's Day. It was a necklace I got for practicing the piano every day for certain amount of months.

Kutcher: I never got a necklace for practicing the piano.

Garner: We were bribed. It wasn't fancy. It was a little heart on a rope. But Mr Monaghan didn't even sneak behind my back and go to my mom to give the necklace back.

Q: As an adult, you don't seem okay with his decision.
Garner: I just feel like, C'mon Mr Monaghan.  What did you do with my necklace?