This interview with Carla Gugino has been out for a couple of weeks but I just saw it covered on Just Jared and wanted to talk about it. Carla, 49, is promoting Gunpowder Milkshake, also with Angela Bassett, Lena Headey and Michelle Yeoh. I tried watching it and it was too stylized for me so I didn’t finish it. I know Carla from The Haunting of Hill House and the excellent Gerald’s Game. She was also in the Spy Kids movies, which started 20 years ago and were directed by Robert Rodriguez. Carla was just 28 when she played the mother to children who were 10 and 12. When she asked Rodriguez about it, he said it was fine because his mom had ten kids.
She got injured on her day off earlier this year
“I went on this amazing hike and I was coming down a hill and I broke my wrist really badly,” Gugino tells me from her home in New York City. “I broke all the bones all the way across and then had a bunch of complications because I had to have a bonesetter on. It made me look like RoboCop, but it was a massive metal thing that was literally drilled into my bones that I had to have on for seven weeks. Then it didn’t heal because the bone was pulled too far apart, so I had to have a second surgery seven weeks ago. I now am bionic.”She was playing a mom to preteens when she was 28
This year marks the 20th anniversary of “Spy Kids,” the first film in Robert Rodriguez’s four-movie family-friendly franchise. Gugino and Antonio Banderas played retired spies raising their kids (Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara) when they’d asked to go on another mission. “What’s particularly strange about the ‘Spy Kids’ of it all is I was so young when I did it,” Gugino says. “I was at least ten years too young for the role because I was supposed to have been a spy for ten years, then had two children who were now 10 and 12. I was 28 years old. But Robert kind of said, ‘My mom had ten kids and if we play this right, no one will ever question it.’ I think it only hurt me a little because people did think I was older than I was for a period of time. But I would never have given up that experience. It was such an extraordinary time. It was just this little tiny movie we made alone in Austin and it became a phenomenon that continues.”Gugino doesn’t think a fifth movie will be made anytime soon. “You know, I think Robert has moved on. I actually just saw him recently and we always want to collaborate. I think he did four of them and that was sort of right,” she says.
I got the impression that Carla wanted to call out her old director but was trying to be gracious and diplomatic about it. It makes sense that his mom had kids young so he wouldn’t think it was a big deal. She sounds like it bothered her at first but she shrugged it off and realized it’s part of the business. Women are asked to play grandmothers at 40 and love interests to men 20 years older and more. That’s just the consequence of having men run everything I guess, and hopefully it’s changing. Also, her story about breaking her wrist while hiking was a cautionary tale for me. I’m around her age and also love hiking. One of my friends broke her ankle hiking and had to have surgery. It just takes one wrong move or a loose stone. Then again Brooke Shields broke her leg at the gym so we might as well do what we love.
Photos credit: Avalon.red and Studio Canal SAS via Netflix Press
I’m glad she did Spy Kids. She was great in them.
Have not seen Gunpowder Milkshake yet, but I love anything with Angela Bassett, Lena Headey and Michelle Yeoh. And I especially love Carla Gugino. Loved her and Bruce Greenwood in Gerald’s Game. And outside of playing such a creep in Gerald’s Game, Bruce is still my fantasy husband.
It’s fantastic! I really enjoyed it, and Carla is great in it.
I really enjoyed Gunpowder Milkshake! It’s worth pushing through. The acting and writing is really good. And the fight scenes are well choreographed.
I liked it too – it was a bit gory for me, but it was very visually interesting, and all the women in it were great.
For me, she’ll always be Rebecca Warner from Son in Law. Why do I still love that movie?!
Oh my gosh – me too! It really is one of my favorite movies. And, in my opinion, Carla Gugino is one of the most beautiful women in the world.
She truly is. And ageless.
Absolutely gorgeous. And ageless is right! I think it’s helped her that people thought she was a little older than she was back then. She looks exactly the same now as she did at 28.
For me she will always be Chica from “Troop Beverly Hills”! I have always really liked Carla Gugino and am glad she’s still working.
Exactly!
Ha, I know, silly movie but she really sparkled in it somehow. She was memorable and has become a pretty solid actress.
God I loved that movie.
Same! I love her in Son in Law for whatever reason. Carla is so beautiful and seems like a generally cool person. I also enjoyed her in the show Jett (I think it was called) from a few years ago. Mr. Eggo has a big crush on Carla and I’m ok with that, haha!
Buuuuuuuuddy
Loves Gun Powder Milkshake, and Carla! You should finish it, a movie where the girls kick the boys butts!
It was a really fun movie! I watched it with my (in his 20s) boyfriend and he commented on how they cast some of the hottest women around to kick ass. I felt like it was almost being set up for a sequel, but I know the release was delayed. If they do end up making another, I’ll be excited to see it.
If you all want to see her in something great her series called “Jett.” She has the most fabulous and sexy clothes while being so strong and feminist at the same time. CG plays a thief is ultra skilled at her heists. Cannot recommend enough. I watch whatever I can of hers because I know she is going to be an ultra strong woman in whatever and she comes through each and every time! Gunpowder Milkshake really pulled thru too. Carla made me cry in her part. She is charming and strong in it.
Really really love CG in everything she does. Jett was a disappointment. Too overly sexualized and even the oomph of her acting did not overcome the super shitty actor dialogue. The storyline was interesting for one episode, then remained stale. I wanted to like it so much. 😥
Can’t wait to watch Gunpowder Milkshake (had to finish Never Have I Ever w my teen daughter first). And that wrist story is scary. I love to hike too but managed to break my hand and require surgery just walking out the front door so I figure I’m going to get injured no matter what, so may as well do what I love!
She’s lucky she got a job period … it’s so cringe when an actor male or female who is lucky enough to beat out thousands if not millions of others to actually become a working actor starts being … this. She could’ve not been in the film at all lol cause there were no other suitable roles
She’s sharing her experience and the reasoning behind the director’s logic. Women are allowed to comment on sexist, odd, and even superfluous settings men have put them through.
She took the job, she’s not a household name, and she did say it hurt her livelihood because she was regarded as older than she was. Is it messed up that a mother = old? Totally. Is it sexist and ageist? You bet. Is she allowed to comment on something that happened to her, that impacted her career, and that she thinks matters? Totally. And yet, she was still gracious and thankful in her remarks, so I don’t know what you mean about CG being “this.” Perhaps you failed to read that part.
Your comment smacks of victim-blaming, sometimes women have to take the only job offered, and even when the film’s heavily funded, men get a bigger cut (think Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams). A bit of empathy would do you well, you’re upholding the most toxic tenant of patriarchy by saying she is lucky to have a job at all, damn the consequences and the nuances that uphold ageist and sexist ideas.
Well said, gilda!
Thank you Gilda!!!
@TheOriginalMia & BothSidesNow: thank you both! 🙂
***I don’t doubt the patriarchy has tenants (perhaps one can argue we are all at the mercy of this cruel landlord), but I absolutely meant tenet. Yikes.
I think this is a little unfair…she sounds like she is very grateful for having the opportunity to star in these movies. She’s simply bringing up the fact that it’s pretty unrealistic for her to be cast as a mother to a twelve year old with a prior career as a spy under her belt when she was only 28 years old. This type of ageism is widespread in Hollywood and I think women actors should absolutely be allowed to talk about it.
Just wow. As I read this I think that could apply to anyone, Any, let’s say PoC that gets an acting job and it is kind of “off”, or demeaning, they should not complain at all, because they are lucky to get jobs, really???
With that hindsight women would not have the right to vote and children would still be in factories, working.
I disagree – this is how things change, by people being willing to stick their neck out and say something when sexism, racism, ageism, etc run rampant.
I also think a lot of people forget that the vast majority of actors are not set for life levels of wealthy, and need to work to pay their bills. Not everyone is in a position to turn stuff down.
Thank you for laying bare your internalized misogyny.
In 1961’s Blue Hawaii, Angela Lansbury (age 36) played 26 year old Elvis Presley’s mother.
The next year, in Manchurian Candidate, she played the mother of Laurence Harvey, who was only 3 years younger than she was (and got an Oscar nomination for her role).
It’s interesting that Lansbury could portray older women when younger, because conversely, as she herself got older, she looked much younger than her age, at least to me.
I saw her walking down the street in NYC a few years ago and she is absolutely gorgeous. She’s a beauty in photos but just stunning in person. I always enjoy her in whatever she does!
Carla’s one of those actors who elevates everything she is in and she seems like a really lovely person.
They do this so that we all think a late 30s woman should look like a 28 year old, etc.
Woman 20 years younger are cast as love interests not so we all think men want younger women, it’s so that we all think that’s what women should look like.
It’s insane and I hate it.
What gugino says is so so true. I thought she was a very beautifully aged older woman. In 2009 didn’t she play malin akermans mother in watchmen? She must have been 36. When I saw her in the haunting series I wondered how she looked so young still and looked her up. I was shocked that she was only mid late 40s.
So, yeah. An impression was certainly created about her age thanks to the spy kids movies.
I agree, I’ve probably thought of her 35+ for over 20 years because of those films, I would have never imagined she was only 28 playing those kids’ mother.
Antonio Banderas, of course, was appropriately cast as his own age at the time, 40.
In Watchmen, she played Sally Jupiter in her 20’s/30’s/40’s/50’s. She was Malin Ackerman’s mom, but Carla was also in the flashback parts of the story so she was aged up with makeup as required to look older. Carla’s contemporary in the movie was played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is 6 years older than Carla in real life.
(Thank you for coming to my TED talk, lol)
Just love her! Suckerpunch is one of my faves. Gunpowder Milkshake was a little hard to get into at first but hang in there while the story builds, because it turns a corner & goes full kick ass. Carla’s character is right up her alley and she kills it. The cast is amazing & have great chemistry together. Imagine a Tarantino movie but without gratuitous violence and boobs, with a better plot, gorgeous cinematography and powerful, boss female narrative and focus. Give me more movies like that, please.
I’m a fan from “The Buccaneers” and Spin City days…
YES, the Buccaneers is one of my absolute favorites!!!
And let me add on to the chorus suggesting to power through Gunpowder Milkshake!
Absolutely will!
Same. The Buccaneers is one of my favorites and I have it on DVD!
She is beautiful.
She’s beautiful. I recall thinking she looked young in Spy Kids, but then I thought, my own grandmother was only 34 years old when she became a grandmother, so this could happen. Especially if she’s been a spy since she was a kid.
She’s beautiful. I recall thinking she looked young in Spy Kids, but then I thought, my own grandmother was only 34 years old when she became a grandmother, so this could happen. Especially if she’s been a spy since she was a kid. Married at 18, kid at 20, makes sense for the crafty character she played. I didn’t realize she was 28 though, I thought she was 32ish in the film.
The Buccaneers is so underrated.
Give me a break. You’re not a “victim” because you look or seem older than your age. Goid grief.
She didn’t even remotely imply victimhood; she said her character had worked 10 years as a spy before settling down to have a 12-year-old child. She also said “speaking of spy KIDS…” because her character must’ve been a “spy kid” herself in order to accomplish all that. Even if the mom character were 35, that would mean the character started her own spy career at the illustrious age of 13 (and retired at 23!).
So I don’t think she’s throwing any shade with that anecdote. And the fact that Robert Rodriguez was like “my mom had done way more by 28!!” when Gugino asked him about the math of the situation, is even better. Like, it’s objectively hilarious, c’mon.
I remember Carla well from “Entourage.” So beautiful and strong. She was one of the few females who held her own in that bro series. I loved her power suits. She is smart and gorgeous. Glad you wrote about her!
I LOVED Gunpowder Milkshake. It was a lot of fun with heart. Also, the fight scenes are badass! Carla is a BEAST!