Ashton Kutcher Breaks Silence on Dax Shepard’s ‘Ranch’ Casting

Ashton Kutcher celebrated Dax Shepard joining The Ranch with a photo from the show’s set on Instagram.

Shepard will be playing a new character introduced after Danny Masterson’s exit.

“Reunited with an old buddy,” Kutcher wrote. He also added the hashtag “Punkd,” referring to Shepard’s appearances on the first season of Punk’d with Kutcher. Shepard also appeared in an episodes in 2007 and 2012.

Shepard has not commented on the casting himself.

On Thursday, Deadline reported Shepard will join The Ranch as Like Matthews, a former soldier with a link to the Iron River Ranch. He quickly becomes friends with Colt (Kutcher) and Colt’s father, Beau Bennett (Sam Elliott), but Luke still cannot escape his past.

Shepard is not signing on as a series regular, and will only appear in about five of the next 10 episodes to go into production. Shepard agreed to star in Bless This Mess, a Fox comedy pilot starring Lake Bell, for the 2018-2019 TV Season. Bless This Mess is scheduled to start filming in June.

The FOX pilot features Bell and Shepard as a newlywed couple who moves from New York to Nebraska to live a simpler life, only to discover that Nebraska is not what they expected. It was written by Bell and New Girl creator Liz Meriwether, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Last year, Shepard starred in, directed and wrote the movie based on the CHiPS TV series. He was also recently in Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later for Netflix and appeared in an episode of NBC’s The Good Place, which stars his wife, actress Kristen Bell.

He also started a new podcast called Armchair Expert, which has featured Kristen Bell, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Scott and Jimmy Kimmel. His Feb. 14 episode featured Kutcher.

During his episode, Kutcher talked about embracing his thinning hair.

“I started getting very concerned when I was 25, and that’s when I went on the Avodart. And I think like, five years ago I stopped and I did really good for a year, and now it’s thinning out,” Kutcher told Shepard. “I’ve actually become comfortable with it. I’m just good with it. I’ve got kids now.”

Photo credit: Instagram/ Ashton Kutcher