Mila Kunis heads her local homeowners association

Mila Kunis has spent more than three decades in front of cameras, but the role that consumes a surprising amount of her time isn’t on a set. It’s in her own Los Angeles neighborhood, where she oversees the homeowners association and handles the daily stream of resident concerns that come with it.

Kunis said the position began informally but has turned into a steady responsibility. She is, in effect, the first stop for small grievances that in any other subdivision would be handled by an anonymous management company. 

“I take the complaints,” she said, matter-of-factly, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

The issues run the gamut: garbage cans left out too long, early-morning noise, disagreements over property upkeep — “If you have a complaint about someone’s trash or if you have a noise complaint, you complain to me.”

The job comes with its own odd mix of anonymity and instant recognition. 

Because people in Los Angeles are used to industry types living next door, Kunis said neighbors often behave as if it’s entirely routine to lodge a complaint with someone they’ve watched on television for years. 

“They’re desensitized — it is LA,” she said. 

But for vendors or workers she calls in to handle infrastructure problems, the novelty hits quickly.

When she needs someone to inspect a damaged road or evaluate erosion, the reaction is almost always the same: a laugh, followed by the realization that, yes, the person asking for a quote is actually Mila Kunis.

As she explained it, “I know this is ridiculous, but please, can you give me a quote on this?”

Her duties don’t end with phone calls. 

Kunis acts as liaison, scheduler and, at times, the neighborhood’s reluctant diplomat. She is the one who explains association rules, passes along updates, and tries to keep minor disputes from snowballing into full-scale feuds. The role is unpaid and decidedly unglamorous, but she approaches it with the same pragmatism she brings to the rest of her home life.

The HOA work slots into an already tightly choreographed morning. 

Kunis wakes at 6:15. “First thing I do is turn my alarm off” — and moves straight into preparing breakfast and lunch for her two children before husband Ashton Kutcher drives them to the bus. 

Her own exercise routine follows, ranging from Pilates to the treadmill. Some days the pace leaves little time for her own routine. 

“Sometimes I shower and sometimes I don’t,” she admitted. “Sometimes I just have time to wipe my armpits.”

While her on-screen roles may be more recognizable, Kunis’s voice remains her most identifiable feature in the neighborhood, too. 

She noticed it most during the pandemic. “If I didn’t speak, I could go through the world unrecognizable. The second I opened my mouth, people were like, ‘Mila?’ ” 

That same instant recognition carries over to HOA calls, where the moment she begins speaking, the dynamic shifts.

Kunis treats the HOA responsibilities with the same light touch she applies to social media — another part of modern life she keeps at arm’s length. She doesn’t maintain public accounts, preferring, as she puts it, to avoid being “fed information about myself,” and instead unwinds at night by watching short TikTok videos anonymously.

The actress returns to screens this December in “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” in which she plays a police chief tasked with keeping order amid chaos. 

The parallels to her off-screen duties aren’t lost on her. Asked whether she occupies that stabilizing role at home, she laughs.

“If you ask my husband, absolutely not,” she said. “If you ask me, of course.”

Her HOA tenure, like her career, is shaped by hard-earned lessons. 

She keeps two pieces of advice close: “Don’t make permanent decisions on temporary feelings,” and the reminder that “It’s OK to change your mind.” Both, it seems, apply quite well to neighborhood politics.