B.J. Novak and Ashton Kutcher talk 'Vengeance,' 'Punk'd' and a 'friend at Davos'

In 2003, not long before he vaulted to fame as Ryan Howard on NBC's "The Office," a then-unknown B.J. Novak landed his first major break when Ashton Kutcher cast him on his MTV celebrity-prank show "Punk'd."

"That show was great acting training because you had one take, you had to be really convincing and funny and the other person didn't know you're acting," says Novak, who, as Kutcher's accomplice, wreaked hidden-camera havoc on the likes of Missy Elliott, Usher and Hillary Duff. "It's still the most fun job I've ever had."

Cut to today and Novak has now returned the favor in his feature writing-directing debut, "Vengeance," giving actor-turned-tech-investor-and-activist Kutcher the first meaty big-screen role he's had in nearly a decade.

A sharply comic neo-noir aimed squarely at the zeitgeist, "Vengeance," which hits theaters Friday, stars Novak as Ben Manalowitz, a pretentious New York writer who travels to rural West Texas to make a true-crime podcast investigating the overdose death of a former romantic hookup. There, Ben meets Kutcher's Quentin Sellers,