Witherspoon, Kutcher video chatted every day for a month before filming Your Place Or Mine

LOS ANGELES – American actors Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher are both romantic-comedy veterans, Witherspoon with films such as Sweet Home Alabama (2002) and Legally Blonde (2001) and Kutcher in No Strings Attached (2011) and What Happens In Vegas (2008).

But the pair had never done a romcom together and barely knew each other socially when they were cast as the leads in the new movie Your Place Or Mine, which is streaming on Netflix.

And so the stars decided to do a crash course in getting to know each other, which involved video chatting every day just like their characters do in the film.

And they say it worked – although the pair were roasted online for their apparent lack of chemistry at the film’s premiere, where they stiffly posed together for photos last week.

Even Kutcher’s wife, American actress Mila Kunis, later told them, “you guys looked so awkward on the red carpet together”, Witherspoon revealed in a television interview.

Now streaming on Netflix, the stars’ new movie tells the story of Debbie (Witherspoon) and Peter (Kutcher), who had a fling 20 years ago but are now platonic best friends living very different lives – Debbie in Los Angeles and Peter, New York.

But things change when the pals decide to swop houses for a week, Peter travelling to Los Angeles to look after Debbie’s son Jack (Wesley Kimmel) while she chases a career opportunity in New York.

Written, directed and produced by Aline Brosh McKenna, the writer behind the comedy films The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and 27 Dresses (2008), it is an unusual romcom in that the two leads are hardly ever in the same room.

At a Zoom press conference, Witherspoon says she and Kutcher realised they needed to do something to build their on-screen rapport, which is depicted in split-screen scenes with each character in a different city.

“I had a little panic attack because (Ashton and I) didn’t know each other, and our characters are supposed to have been best friends for 20 years,” says the 46-year-old.

“So about a month before, we started sending each other videos every day.”

Says Kutcher, 45: “We would send, back and forth, videos (asking): ‘How’s your day going? What’s going on? What’s happening with you? What are you afraid of?’”

“And, ‘Who’s your best friend? And why are they your best friend?’” Witherspoon adds.

“It was really kind of fun. Our kids and our dogs would get in the videos too,” says the Oscar winner, who has two children aged 19 and 23 with her ex-husband, American actor Ryan Phillippe, and a 10-year-old with husband and talent agent Jim Toth.

Kutcher, who is married to Kunis, 39, with whom he shares two children aged six and eight, adds: “By the time we started shooting the film, it felt really natural to communicate that way.”

To help them get into character even more, McKenna sent each a personalised reading list.

But while Kutcher read all the books on his, Witherspoon admits she read none.

Kutcher’s character secretly wants to be a novelist, so the film-maker felt he had to be well-read, especially when it comes to fiction.

He says: “So Aline sent me 10 books prior to the film, each with notecards about what Peter got from this book as a writer. And I ended up diving in.”

Kutcher’s favourites? The 1995 romantic comedy novel High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and 2016’s When Breath Becomes Air, surgeon Paul Kalanithi’s memoir of his life and terminal cancer diagnosis.

“I actually fell in love with reading fiction again from this experience, so that was fun and refreshing,” he says.

Witherspoon, however, did not have time for her reading list.

“Aline sent me 25 books – and I did not read any of them.

“I called her and said, ‘I have three children, I’m running a company and I have a full-time other job. I’m not reading these books,’’’ says Witherspoon, who runs both Hollywood media company Hello Sunshine and clothing business Draper James.

“But I thought the books would look really good on the set, and they did.”

Your Place Or Mine is available on Netflix.