Carla Gugino

**Carla Gugino** (born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. She portrays Olivia Crain in the Netflix horror show *The Haunting of Hill House* and an older Jamie in its follow-up *The Haunting of Bly Manor*. She also appears in a small role in *Midnight Mass* and in a leading role in *The Fall of the House of Usher*.

## Early life

She 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 travelled 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

Her television work during the late 1980s and early 1990s included appearances on *Good Morning, Miss Bliss*, *Who's the Boss?*, *ALF*, *Doogie Howser, M.D.*, *The Wonder Years* and a recurring role on *Falcon Crest*. In film, she appeared in the Shelley Long film *Troop Beverly Hills* (1989), and she co-starred with Pauly Shore in the romantic comedy *Son in Law* (1993). She appeared in the video to Bon Jovi's 1994 song "Always".

In 1995, she appeared as Nan St. George (later the Duchess of Trevenick) with Greg Wise and James Frain in the BBC miniseries *The Buccaneers*, an adaptation of Edith Wharton's last novel. She played Ashley Schaeffer, Michael J. Fox's character's love interest, during the first season of the sitcom *Spin City* in 1996. She played opposite 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 final season of the television medical drama *Chicago Hope* (1999–2000).

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' science fiction series *Threshold* in 2005. That same year, she appeared as Lucille in the feature film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel *Sin City*. The following year, she appeared in the film *Night at the Museum* as Ben Stiller's love interest.

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

She appeared as Amanda, Vincent Chase's agent, in a dozen episodes of the cable television series *Entourage*. She appeared 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.

From January 17 to February 17, 2009, she starred as Abby in Eugene O'Neill's *Desire Under the Elms* at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, Illinois. 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, she appeared as Madame Vera Gorsky in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film *Sucker Punch* alongside Abbie Cornish and Emily Browning. She 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 mid-2012, she had a lead role as Susan Berg, a Washington, D.C., investigative reporter, on the USA Network's miniseries *Political Animals*. In 2015, she had a lead role in the disaster film *San Andreas*, in which she once again starred opposite Dwayne Johnson.

## Personal life

Since 1996, she has been in a relationship with her collaborator, Sebastián Gutiérrez. 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.'"