Ashton Kutcher is the model of success in Hollywood. But the movie star and TV producer wishes he never had to endure the boredom of being a model.

The producer of “Punk’d” and other reality series is venturing into drama this season by producing a CW series set inside the world of modeling, “The Beautiful Life.”

Modeling is where it all began for Kutcher, who was discovered while he was studying engineering at the University of Iowa.

“It was finals, and I was 19, and somehow I managed get into a bar, and somehow I managed to get a beer,” Kutcher told the nation’s television critics in Pasadena, Calif. Soon, he was asked his age by an agent. “She said, ‘You should be a model.’ And I said, ‘Do guys even do that?’”

The modeling opportunity came two weeks after he was overwhelmed with school and determined to get out of Iowa.

“So when an opportunity came up to have a vehicle to sort of get out of Dodge, I jumped on it,” said Kutcher. “I won a trip to New York City. I went to New York and called home and just said, ‘I’m not coming home.’ ”

In his first week, he got booked on a fashion show for a new young male designer and was put in the final look of the show.

“I walked down, and [fashion photographer] Mario Testino was in the crowd. He’s, like, ‘Who is that boy?’ Why is he walking so angry?’ And then, that started a buzz, and then [photographer] Bruce Weber booked me on an Abercrombie & Fitch shoot the next week. So it was just sort of like I had that moment that just sort of just popped things off.”

It all sounded so easy and so exciting as Kutcher told the story. But Kutcher is such a great and enthusiastic storyteller practically everything he says sounds good. It turns out modeling wasn’t his idea of fun.

“It was a completely alien experience,” explained Kutcher. “I think that that’s why ... it makes really interesting fodder for a show like this, because it’s such a foreign world ... I didn’t even know that guys modeled. I thought the Marlboro Man was a real cowboy.”

He said coming to New York from Iowa was a “daunting” experience.

“You’re surrounded by some of the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen and then some of the most eccentric people that you’ve ever seen, in the artists and the designers and the photographers,” said Kutcher. “So that fish-out-of-water story is completely out of water. It’s a fish-in-the-desert story. And I think that it’s created such a great landscape for the story-line for this show.”

“The other interesting thing is that the people that you’re around and the characters that we’re going to have in the show — they come from all over the world, so you’re not just experiencing the culture of a city. You’re not just experiencing the culture of an industry. You’re experiencing the culture of the world ... So it’s this amalgamation of these cultures in a really sexy world.”

Sexy, but not exactly exciting.

“It is tedious,” said Kutcher of his modeling career. “You stand around and have your picture taken. They don’t really want to hear your ideas. They don’t really want to know what you think. And you can’t be funny. I was always trying to like be funny and they were like ‘be sexy.’ How do you do that? I don’t know what that is ... I just wanted to be an actor and once I became an actor I realized they didn’t want to hear your opinions [either].”

Of course, things worked out pretty well for Kutcher, a bankable star who is married to Demi Moore. But he believes becoming a model isn’t the best road to becoming an actor.

“I think it’s a very difficult one,” said Kutcher. “Had I known, I would have never even become a model, because a lot of my friends who are actually really good actors but are models end up getting stereotyped in that.”

Kutcher’s big TV break came when he was cast as lovable, dopey Michael Kelso on the Fox series, “That ’70s Show.” He met his manager through his modeling agent.

“She sent me for a call on some New York soap opera that I didn’t get a job on,” said Kutcher. “I couldn’t quite figure out how to make that dialogue work,” said Kutcher, who later auditioned for every character on the ‘ ’70s Show’ on tape before being cast as Kelso.

Kutcher expects his modeling experience to be part of storylines for the CW series, which has a cast that includes Mischa Barton (“The O.C.”) and supermodel Elle Macpherson.

He hopes “The Beautiful Life” will give viewers a more realistic view of the fashion industry than has been portrayed by all the reality shows set in the world.

“What has never really been portrayed are the ugly stories behind the beautiful people,” said Kutcher. “And there are ugly stories ... And a weird, superficial competition.

“You go into a casting and we look around and we all sort of look the same. I could never quite figure out why I got the job and he didn’t. But there is a reason. But only certain people have the eye to see that ... That ability to create an image leads to a brand that people can relate to on a still frame or on a runway. That’s a craft. That’s a gift. Making a show that can celebrate that gift but also tell that sort of slightly more petty underlying story is a great juxtaposition that I think people will respond to.”