Carla Gugino

Carla Gugino (/ɡʊˈdʒiːnoʊ/; Italian: [ɡuˈdʒiːno]; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids trilogy, Sally Jupiter in Watchmen (2009), Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch (2011), and as the lead characters of the television series Karen Sisco and Threshold. Her feature film work includes starring roles in Son in Law (1993), Sin City (2005), Night at the Museum (2006), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) and San Andreas (2015), The Space Between Us (2017) as well as Kelor in the DC Extended Universe. Gugino has had lead roles in the TV series Political Animals (2012), Wayward Pines (2015), and Roadies (2016).

She is a frequent collaborator with filmmaker Zack Snyder.

Early life Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist of Italian descent, and a mother of English-Irish descent described as "Bohemian". Her parents separated when she was two, after which she traveled between her father and half-brother Carl Jr.'s home in Sarasota, and her Paradise, California home, to which her mother moved her when she was four. She has said of her upbringing, "I lived in a tepee in Northern California and a van in Big Sur. With my dad, I lived in a beautiful house with a swimming pool and a tennis court and went to Europe for the summers. So I feel like I lived two childhoods." She worked as a teenage fashion model, and took acting classes at the suggestion of her aunt, former Let's Make a Deal spokesmodel Carol Merrill. She eventually came to support herself, and with her parents' support, was legally emancipated by the time she was 16.

Career Gugino's television work during the late 1980s and early 1990s included appearances on Saved by the Bell, Who's the Boss?, ALF, Doogie Howser, M.D., The Wonder Years and a recurring role on Falcon Crest.

In film, Gugino appeared in the Shelley Long film Troop Beverly Hills, and co-starred with Pauly Shore in the 1993 romantic comedy Son in Law. She later appeared in the video to Bon Jovi's 1994 song "Always".

In 1995, Gugino appeared as Nan St. George (later the Duchess of Trevenick) in the BBC miniseries The Buccaneers an adaptation of Edith Wharton's last novel.

After playing Michael J. Fox's love interest, Ashley Schaeffer, during the first season of the sitcom Spin City in 1996, Gugino starred with Nicolas Cage in Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes, and in Judas Kiss, which she also co-produced. She appeared as Dr. Gina Simon during the 1999–2000 final season of Chicago Hope.

In 2001, she appeared as family matriarch Ingrid Cortez in the first Spy Kids film (as well as the film's two sequels in 2002 and 2003). That same year she appeared as Jet Li's love interest in the martial arts action thriller The One.

She starred in two short-lived TV series: ABC's Elmore Leonard crime drama Karen Sisco in 2003, and CBS's science fiction series Threshold in 2005. That same year, Gugino appeared as Lucille in the feature film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, Sin City. The following year, she appeared in the movie Night at the Museum.

Gugino appeared in the Roundabout Theatre Company play After the Fall opposite Six Feet Under's Peter Krause. In late 2006, she appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer opposite Blythe Danner.

Gugino appeared as Amanda, Vincent Chase's agent, in a dozen episodes of the cable television series Entourage. Gugino appeared nude in the May 2007 issue of Allure. That same year she appeared in the action-horror film Rise: Blood Hunter and the feature film American Gangster. The following year, she played the female lead in the thriller Righteous Kill, opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

Gugino starred in Chicago's Goodman Theater production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms from January 17 to February 17, 2009, in the role of Abby. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times praised Gugino's performance, saying, "Ms. Gugino displays a depth and range of expression that I cannot imagine any other actress achieving with such blazing honesty and wrenching truth. She is simply magnificent." During the first three months of 2009, three feature films premiered featuring Gugino: the thriller The Unborn, the film Watchmen, in which she played Sally Jupiter, and the adventure remake Race to Witch Mountain, in which she starred opposite Dwayne Johnson. That April, she received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Actress In a Play for her performance in Desire Under the Elms. Later in November of that year, she appeared as a pornographic actress in the comedy film Women in Trouble, which spawned a sequel in 2010, Elektra Luxx, titled after her character.

In 2011, Gugino appeared as Madame Vera Gorsky in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film Sucker Punch alongside Abbie Cornish and Emily Browning. Gugino sang a duet with co-star Oscar Isaac, which appeared in the end credits and in the film's soundtrack. She also guest starred on the fourth season of Californication as Abby Rhodes, Hank Moody's attorney and love interest.

In the mid-2012, Gugino had a lead role as Susan Berg, a Washington D.C. investigative reporter, on the USA Network's miniseries Political Animals.

Personal life As of 2005, Gugino was dating her collaborator, writer/producer/director Sebastian Gutierrez. She stated in 2009 that they had no plans to marry, commenting, "[Marriage] isn't important for us. We like being boyfriend and girlfriend; there's something sexy and fun about that. We're very much about, 'There’s nothing holding us here other than our desire to be together.'

Carla Gugino Actress | Soundtrack | Producer Date of Birth 29 August 1971, Sarasota, Florida, USA

Birth Name Carla N. Gugino

Height 5' 5" (1.65 m)

Mini Bio (1) Carla Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist. She is of Italian (father) and English-Irish (mother) ancestry. Gugino moved with her mother to Paradise, California, when Carla was just five years old. During her childhood, they moved many times within the state. But she remained a straight-A student throughout high school and graduated as valedictorian. A major modeling agency discovered Carla in San Diego and sent her to New York to begin a new career when she was 15. New York was more than she could handle at that young age, so she returned to LA in the summer, modeling and enrolling in an acting class at the suggestion of her aunt, Carol Merrill, known from Let's Make a Deal (1963). During her free time, Carla enjoys yoga, traveling and spending time with her friends in Los Angeles.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Peter Reynders

Trivia (12) Had a kidney operation when she was only 4 years old. - Niece of actress Carol Merrill (Carol was married to Carla's uncle, Mark Burgess). Carol's daughter is actress Hillary Safire.

Modeled for the prestigious Elite agency as a teenager but was considered too short for fashion runway work.

Has a butterfly tattoo on the inside of her left ankle.

Her father was of Italian descent. Her mother's ancestry is English and Irish.

Boyfriend is writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez, with whom she has worked on her TV series Karen Sisco (2003) and Rise: Blood Hunter (2007).

She turned down the role of Vin Diesel's love interest in the box-office hit The Pacifier (2005) to take a small but unforgettably sexy role in Sin City (2005) because she had enjoyed working with director Robert Rodriguez in the three "Spy Kids" films.

Is only seven years older than Malin Akerman, who played her daughter in Watchmen (2009).

Starred in two films in March 2009 that were back to back openings and USA box office kings. Watchmen (2009) opened March 6th, 2009, and was the number one film of the weekend. Race to Witch Mountain (2009) opened March 13th, 2009, and was the number one film of that weekend.

Featured in the 1994 Bon Jovi music video, "Always", alongside Jack Noseworthy, Jason Wiles and Keri Russell.

Personal Quotes (39) It's not often that the idea of continuing something for a potentially long period of time sounds exciting to me, because I really am a gypsy by nature.

I like being the lead but I like being in an ensemble. There are different challenges and dilemmas with both. If you're carrying a film, there's a certain weight, but there are a lot of scenes to explore the character. When you're in an ensemble, you have to convey the entire character in a limited number of scenes.

I'm a sensualist. My two main indulgences are dark chocolate and massages.

When my friends have a health concern, they call me. I've always been a vitamin taker. I also take digestive enzymes and antioxidants, and supplements that help with the thyroid and adrenals for my time-zone changes.

When a sports movie really works, it gets you on all levels, because the stakes are high. It's black and white. It's win or lose.

Personally, just as an actor, I love accents; they're fun.

Unfortunately, 'chick flick' has become a term to describe most movies that I don't even like. They're these movies that, yes, have women in them but they really don't reflect who women are, and there's something kind of silly or shallow or gossipy about them.

As an actor, you're naked emotionally; you're revealing yourself emotionally.

I feel like I'm the only person - or woman, at least - who hasn't read 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'

Well, first of all, I'm an incredibly gullible person - I'm so bad that when I said that to someone, my friend said, 'You know, 'gullible' isn't even in the dictionary.' And I said, 'Really?' As I was saying 'Really?' I will acknowledge that I then realized what was happening, but that's how bad I am.

I generally make a sort of playlist for my iPod for whatever project I'm doing.

For me, I never, never, from the moment I started acting, had a desire to be famous.

I kind of knew it wasn't going to be until my 30s that I really hit my stride as an actor.

I always feel like I want to work with people who raise my game, and I can do the same for them, and we can jump off the cliff together.

I always had challenges when I was younger, because I looked so young but sounded older.

I think I'm always trying to subvert conventions, and sometimes it's more successful than others.

I'll always take an artistic endeavor over a career move.

I love doing serious movies for adults.

I think you always have to go as an artist with instinct, I really do.

I'm a huge Wong Kar-Wai fan.

I've joked that I would have either become schizophrenic or an actress, but as an actress you can do both.

My father and my mother separated when I was two..

My favorite thing is to have a big dinner with friends and talk about life.

It is odd there are many movies with many men. But generally movies have one woman, or maybe the older woman and the younger girl.

I'm fiercely protective of my privacy.

My tendency as an actor is, when there's a certain energy, I feel a challenge to match it, to come up to that plate and play on the same level.

One of the most important things for an actor is to observe humanity.

Sexuality is one of the biggest parts of who we are.

Sucker Punch (2011) is a big girl-power movie.

You know, I used to be made fun of as a kid for being really articulate; it was sort of like a strange thing.

I think that there's a tendency for actors who play strong women to have them take on all the worst characteristics of men, to become cold and detached and hardened.

What I've realized is that we're our own harshest critics. We give ourselves limitations. But I want to push through that wall, on a creative and personal level.

I guess I've always been really attracted to period pieces and always felt visually I was probably more made for the '50s or the early '60s than I am for a modern day.

I think when I first started acting there were different people who I thought, 'I want that person's career or that person's career.' And as time has gone on, it's become really clear to me what is important to me; getting the best roles, the roles that I feel are challenging and scary and that I haven't done yet.

I find often in Hollywood there are many people who play themselves really beautifully. And certain parts are not that dissimilar from who you are as a person.

One of the things I really love about TV is this symbiotic relationship you can get between the writers and the actors, and the characters start to come to life because you start to collaborate.

We are all multidimensional and kind of have dual personalities. Everyone puts on different roles depending on what circumstances they're in without even noticing that they do that.

I'm intrigued by films that have a singular vision behind them. A lot of studio movies have ten writers by the time they're done. You have a movie testing 200 times, making adjustments according to various people's opinions. It's difficult to have an undistilled vision.

Yeah, I guess I'm not a particularly religious person, but I do really believe strongly that we all need to believe in something, and that's very personal to each one of us.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001303/

Carla Gugino Actress - Born 29 Aug 1971 - Biography by Sandra Brennan - A native of Sarasota, FL, Gugino spent most of her youth being shuttled by her mother to various locations in California. At age 15, she and her mom were living in San Diego, when Gugino was convinced to try a modeling career in New York City. She succeeded, but soon found the fast pace of high-fashion modeling too much for her and moved to Los Angeles, where she took advice from an aunt, model Carol Merril, and enrolled in acting classes to study under drama coach Gene Bua. Gugino soon made her film debut in the comedy Troop Beverly Hills (1986).

More features followed, until she got her first supporting major role, that of Norma in the Robert De Niro/Leonardo Di Caprio drama This Boy's Life (1993), and later scored a co-starring role on the Michael J. Fox sitcom Spin City. As her star continued to rise, Gugino would spend the subsuquent years appearing in a wide variety of high profile projects, like Spy Kids, Out of Sight, Sin City, Night at the Museum, Sucker Punch, Watchmen, and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Gugino would also find major success on the small screen, with roles on shows like Entourage and Californication.

http://www.allmovie.com/artist/carla-gugino-p29147