By now, you’ve probably seen an Instagram video that the married actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis posted last weekend. They were the targets of a social media outcry after it was revealed that they wrote character reference letters to the judge sentencing their former co-star on That 70s Show, Danny Masterson, for raping two women. Particular anger was rightly reserved for Kutcher calling Masterson “a role model” and Kunis saying that she could “sense his innate goodness” from their first encounter. 

Their joint reputations for being well-intentioned, likeable Hollywood A-listers were threatened, and so the apologetic clip that they put out – in which they looked either ashamed or sullen, depending on how generously the minute-long film was interpreted – could be seen as offering damage limitation as much as genuine contrition for their defending someone who they had, after all, known for 25 years. 

Few have been convinced, and so the controversy continues to rumble on; it will undoubtedly do so until some other misdemeanour from some other celebrity comes to light, and Kutcher and Kunis will gratefully retreat from their reluctant spell in the spotlight. 

Yet have the pair done anything so uniquely dreadful? Their decision to send letters of support on Masterson’s behalf was certainly wrong-headed, and an indication that, as the actors’ strike drags on into its third month, they may not currently have access to the support network of agents, publicists and fixers who would have counselled against such a terrible PR move. 

But in other circumstances, their decision to stand by a friend of theirs, and damn the consequences, might have been seen as admirable, and offering a degree of consistency that is rare in Hollywood. It is just deeply unfortunate that the friend of theirs is a rapist who is now serving a 30-year prison sentence for his crimes. 

Kutcher and Kunis are not the only previously well-liked celebrities who have found themselves in trouble lately. The once-untouchable Jimmy Fallon has found himself the target of a Rolling Stone exposé, testifying to his unpredictable and intimidating behaviour on his chat show The Tonight Show, which has been described as a toxic workplace environment; clips of his apparently “challenging” interactions with guests have gone viral, even as some of these guests, including comedian Jerry Seinfeld, have angrily defended Fallon. 

Meanwhile, Drew Barrymore, long one of the most beloved stars in Hollywood, has attracted criticism for her decision to restart her eponymous talk show in the middle of a writers’ strike that has shut down her peers. “I am also making the choice to come back for the first time in this strike for our show, that may have my name on it but this is bigger than just me,” she said, by way of justification. “I own this choice.” 

The protests directed at her by picketing out-of-work screenwriters – even though she will not be using union-supporting writers, begging the question of who, exactly, will be penning her witty zingers – might suggest that she might regret her choice. (She has already been dropped as the host of the National Book Awards.) And Jennifer Hudson, who is about to bring back her own programme, The Jennifer Hudson Show, on the same basis, should be preparing herself for a similar level of criticism. 

The irony is that the stars who are now being pilloried made their names and reputations on being likeable, down-to-earth people who projected approachable and upstanding qualities. Yet now they are facing criticism either for apparently supporting a dangerous rapist, having a temper or for prizing work (and the large fees that go with it) over solidarity with striking actors and writers. None of this sits easily with carefully cultivated profiles of the stars as being “decent” types. 

But isn’t it ridiculous, and naïve, to expect multi-millionaire film stars and icons, many of whom have been famous for decades, to have a quality that seems vanishingly rare in Hollywood today – niceness? 

There are, of course, actors who everyone acknowledges are nice, with almost wearying predictability. As far as I can see, nobody – nobody – has ever had a bad word to say about Michael Palin, and having had the privilege of being briefly acquainted with Bill Nighy, I can testify that he really is the most patient, generous and humorous of men when off-camera, as well as being dashingly charismatic and dynamic when required to perform. 

And there are other film stars who have successfully traded on their innate goodness for decades, too; it is hard to find many who would speak out against Hugh Jackman, Emma Stone, Keanu Reeves or Dwayne Johnson, who have somehow combined enormous success with maintaining often hard-won reputations for being decent and kind at all times, even when it might be inconvenient, even irksome, to be so. 

Yet set against this are endless celebrities who might appear charming when they are required to be for publicity, but have dreadful reputations in the industry for extreme rudeness, or worse. There are some major actors who appear not to care about how they are perceived; Hugh Grant’s awkward encounter with Ashley Graham at this year’s Oscars went viral because of his obvious discomfort with the situation, but he is happy to discuss other, similar incidents in interviews, apparently with pride. Grant, though, has long consigned his reputation as a loveable but tongue-tied romantic bumbler to the dustbin and takes delight in his new persona as a witty, misanthropic rogue; few others have managed to get away with the same behaviour. 

The likes of Christoph Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones are often uncompromisingly direct in interviews and in public, apparently unafraid to come across as blunt, or worse, and the ever-divisive James Corden was infamously banned by restaurateur Keith McNally from New York hotspot Balthazar over his entitled and unpleasant behaviour towards a waitress. 

And I can remember meeting one household name actor and writer years ago at a media event, asking him an innocuous question about his latest TV show, and being shocked by a tirade of four-letter rudeness that ended with the words “No, you can’t ask me any f___ing questions because I’m not giving any f___ing interviews tonight!” That he was there to promote the programme was not something that seemed the time to mention.

Actors are human beings, and we all have bad days. The ever-sainted Tom Hanks was filmed in 2022 shouting angrily at some over-eager fans who jostled his wife Rita Wilson while demanding his attention. Although his reputation was not damaged by the incident – he was, after all, wholly in the right – he candidly admitted in an interview earlier this year that “Not everybody is at their best every single day on a motion picture set. I’ve had tough days trying to be a professional when my life has been falling apart in more ways than one and the requirement for me that day is to be funny, charming and loving — and it’s the last way I feel.” 

It must undeniably be frustrating to be jostled a hundred times a day by admirers, who want selfies, autographs or, worse, to argue with you about some aspect of your personal or professional life. Most celebrities manage to grin and bear it, but others are less patient; the flip side to lashing out in a moment of irritation is that your momentary expression of discomfort or anger can easily end up going viral. 

It is a cliché that fame corrupts, and A-list fame corrupts absolutely. But the unifying thread in every instance of bad, or at least misguided, behaviour described in this article is that those behaving in unpleasant or arrogant ways have lost any sense of good judgement or perspective, usually because they are surrounded by sycophants who have enabled their actions while taking care to detach their well-paid clients from the trials and tribulations of the real world. 

It is little coincidence that major actors like George Clooney or Michael Caine, who seldom attract criticism, were older before they became famous, and less likely to be adversely affected by the circus as a result. Yet for all the #BeKind hashtagging that actors (or their social media teams) accompany their carefully posed and airbrushed Instagram posts with, it is undeniably the case that the vast majority of stars are difficult, egocentric and spoilt, and that expecting genuinely decent and thoughtful behaviour from them is a fool’s game. 

So when you next see your favourite actor telling some self-aggrandising story on a chat show (when the writers are allowed back) about their charitable endeavours or some such, and the host (whether Fallon or another) congratulates them in a mutual fit of ego massage, take it with a pinch of salt. More often than not, they’ll already have shouted at the underpaid assistant for not bringing their matcha latte at precisely the right temperature, and that, rather than showy ostentation, is a far more accurate guide to knowing what they’re really like. 

Niceness, in Hollywood? It exists, but, like the old joke about virginity in a brothel, there really isn’t that much of it.