Kevin Costner is afraid to walk down the hall with Ashton Kutcher is in his vicinity.

“A good rule of thumb is, if I’m there, you’re not getting Punk’d,” assures Kutcher, equally famous for his acting roles as he is for pulling pranks on celebrities (”Punk’ing” them).

“I’m confused about the whole thing,” Costner says.

Kutcher explains that when he is working with someone – like he did with Costner on “The Guardian,” hitting theatres Friday – he won’t Punk them.

“You have to be able to trust the person you’re standing across from,” Kutcher says.

That is especially true with “The Guardian,” a film with dangerous stunts involving helicopters and choppy waters.

In the film, Costner’s character, Ben Randall, is haunted by memories of a recent rescue mission gone wrong. Unable to efficiently continue serving as a U.S. Rescue Swimmer, he becomes a teacher, training such new recruits as the cocky Jake Fischer (Kutcher).

“I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the water in my career,” says Costner, who previously starred in “Waterworld.”

Costner almost turned down the role because of the water, he says, but ultimately decided it was perfect for him at this stage in his career.

“If we want to have complete filmographies, we will be in a movie like this. We will dance with the genres,” he says.

As for Kutcher, he was attracted to the role because it is different than what he is used to.

Kutcher is known for his dimwitted, juvenile charters like playing Kelso on “That ’70s Show” for eight seasons and of course for his role in “Dude, Where’s My Car.”

“I like doing movies that make me a little uncomfortable,” Kutcher says. “When you’re uncomfortable, you’re growing. I’ve never done anything that required so much physical output and this kind of dramatic output.”

By the time he completed the movie, Kutcher says he finally felt comfortable in such a mature and serious role.

“I could do this again,” he says. “But I wouldn’t do it again for that very reason, because now it’s comfortable.”

Another reason Kutcher decided to take the role: Kevin Costner. Kutcher was born in Iowa, home of the world’s most famous fictional baseball field in “Field of Dreams,” one of the films that helped lay the bricks to Costner’s legendary career.

“I grew up drinking from the fountain of Kevin Costner,” Kutcher says. “(In Iowa) you’re raised there with the mantra, ‘if you build it, they will come.’ I had a corn field in my backyard.”

In order for “The Guardian” to work, both Costner and Kutcher had to be at their best, Costner explains.

“It didn’t make any sense if I’m good and Ashton’s not, so we have an artistic approach and a professional approach with our business and we also understand a bigger picture,” he says.

Costner points to his and Kutcher’s off-screen roles as reasons why they share the same view on the approach to this film. Costner has directed a handful of films, most recently 2003’s “Open Range. He has also served as producer on about a dozen movies. Kutcher, meanwhile, has produced several of the films he has starred in.

“He understand it’s really a team thing,” Costner says. “We knew our greatest chance was to be a team together. He was my partner.”

Costner plays Kutcher’s teacher in the film, but Kutcher saw that as art imitating life.

“It wasn’t difficult to look up to him in the film and secretly watch him as my teacher because he is that in real life to me. It’s a pretty special thing when you get to go to work with one of your heroes.”

But while Costner may be a hero of Kutcher’s, the real heroes, Kutcher says, are the real coast guards.

Kutcher trained for about eight months and participated in a weeklong boot camp, just a minute sampling the coast guards’ training.

“To find people that are as tough as they are, that have such big hearts, and are as generous with themselves, it’s sacrificial in a way,” says Kutcher.

“They go out when the conditions are at their worst,” adds Costner.

The film’s plot is familiar, Costner admits, but he hopes what sets “The Guardian” apart from hero films before it is the audience’s reaction.

“We think our movie is good but our movie is not anything that you have never seen before,” Costner says. “What we try to do in a real familiar movie is touch you.”

Something that may soon be familiar to Costner: getting Punk’d.

As the somewhat unlikely duo prepares for the film’s release worldwide over the next two months, Costner had better watch his back. The dangerous filming has long been over and Kutcher may now pounce on his prey at any time.

“Now,” Kutcher says, “it’s open season.”






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