Throughout her career, Carla Gugino has gravitated toward characters who resist easy definition, finding depth in their contradictions and humanity in their complexities. With a career spanning film, television, and theater, Gugino has continually embraced roles that challenge her creatively, working alongside some of the industry's most distinctive filmmakers while bringing a singular curiosity to each new character. That curiosity continues to lead her into unexpected territory, from reuniting with acclaimed collaborators in Mike Flanagan's The Exorcist: Martyrs, opposite Scarlett Johansson, to joining Brad Pitt in David Fincher's The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. She also recently made a cameo in Flanagan's television adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. In this interview, Gugino reflects on the evolution of her career, the art of inhabiting complex women, her portrayal of iconic figures like Vivien Leigh, and the instinct to remain open to the unexpected.

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Taking on such a wide range of characters, is there something that draws you to a particular role now that you might have overlooked earlier in your career?

I think I'm much more interested in contradictions now. People are rarely consistent, and the more life I’ve lived, the more fascinating I find that. A woman can be brilliant and make spectacularly stupid decisions. She can be incredibly strong in one area of her life and completely helpless in another. She can be generous and selfish, sexually confident and terribly insecure, all in a day. When I was younger, I think I was more concerned with understanding a character. Now, I'm perfectly happy not to understand her entirely. In fact, I may prefer it.

How was your experience working with David Fincher and Brad Pitt, two people with such influential careers?

I find a common thread among people who are the best at what they do. They take the task of being storytellers seriously while maintaining a sense of play in doing it. That creates a liberating environment for discovery and collaboration. You can stop worrying about whether the machinery is working and concentrate on being a human in front of the camera. I was in heaven. I couldn’t wait to get to set every day.

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Having worked in both theater and film for some time, what do you think one gives you that the other doesn’t?

In theater, you get to be responsible for an entire performance. You can make a discovery on a Tuesday night that changes what you do on Wednesday. Film is a stranger proposition. You might spend an entire afternoon on a moment that lasts four seconds, and then someone in an editing room decides whether those four seconds are worth keeping. You have to develop a healthy relationship with surrender. I love both, and I crave doing both. I think theater makes me a braver actor, and film makes me a more curious one. Each feeds the other.

Your collaborations with Mike Flanagan have been such a special part of your career. What makes your work together so distinctive and rewarding?

Mike understands something that I think is essential to great horror: the frightening things aren’t the things we're really frightened of. The ghosts and monsters are wonderful, but underneath them there's grief, love, shame, loneliness, and all the things we spend an enormous amount of time trying not to look at, only for them to haunt us anyway. He's also an exceptionally generous collaborator. He writes complicated people and trusts his actors to find their way through them. And he's not afraid of emotion, which I admire enormously.

What was the most appealing part of returning to the world of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for The Adventures of Cliff Booth, and was there something about the project that especially stood out to you creatively?

I love the idea of taking a world that's so unmistakably Quentin Tarantino's and handing it to David Fincher, a meticulous auteur. It's a fascinating creative experiment. You have two filmmakers with such distinct sensibilities bringing this wild tale to fruition. And there's something fascinating about Hollywood in the late seventies. The idealism of the sixties had worn off, the old rules had gone out the window, and nobody seemed especially concerned about the consequences. Everybody was improvising, which is probably why so many people behaved so badly.

Looking back at shows like Karen Sisco, Jett, Political Animals, Californication, Entourage, and New Girl, what do you think those earlier television roles taught you that you still carry with you today? I've been very fortunate to play women who are ambitious, funny, manipulative, loving, dangerous, sexually adventurous, and sometimes deeply misguided. And I've never felt those qualities were mutually exclusive. I don't see why a woman can't be an excellent mother and a terrible criminal, or a brilliant professional and an absolute disaster in her personal life. As humans, we are constantly peeling the onion, discovering parts of ourselves we didn’t know existed. I like characters that allow for that. I also learned how important tone is. You can play the same emotional truth in a comedy, a thriller, or a drama, but the rhythm changes. It's a bit like dancing with different partners. Some lead beautifully. Some step on your feet. Occasionally, you discover you're the one doing the stepping.

What was it like working with Alexander Ludwig in this different creative setting? Did seeing him take on a new role shift the atmosphere on set?

It was an inspired and unexpected full-circle moment working with Alexander as a director and acting together in Billings. I first met and worked with Alexander when he was a teenager, and we were acting together in Race to Witch Mountain. So, when he called me and asked me to come play on a film he had written and was directing, I was immediately intrigued to read it. I did, and it really moved me. The rest is history. He’s like a duck to water with directing. It’s a natural extension of who he is: confident, generous, and game for whatever emerges.

Is there a character you’ve played throughout your career who has really resonated with you, stayed with you in some way, and had a lasting impact on you personally or on the way you approach your work?

Oh, so many. Jett Kowalski, certainly. Nan St. George in The Buccaneers. Ingrid Cortez in Spy Kids. Vivien Leigh, of course. They're such wildly different women, and I think I've taken something from all of them. Jett's extraordinary ability to keep her head when everyone around her is losing theirs. Nan's determination to find her place in a world that has already decided what that place should be. Ingrid's ability to be a loving mother and a world-class spy, which is a combination I think more women should consider. The funny thing is that you spend months embodying these women, and then one day you find yourself behaving in a way that reminds you of one of them. It's a little unsettling, particularly when it's one of the less well-adjusted ones, [laughs].

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While researching Vivien Leigh’s life and career, was there anything you discovered that gave you a different perspective on her? If so, what was it, and why did it stand out to you?

I think what struck me most was the enormous distance between the woman the world thought it knew and the woman she actually was. She had this extraordinary beauty, elegance, intelligence, and discipline, and underneath all of that, she was struggling with excruciating things she had very little control over. She suffered from severe mental illness, was described as a nymphomaniac, and underwent electroshock therapy. Through all of that, she continued to produce these extraordinary performances and was said to be the most generous of friends. She could be terribly difficult; she could be magnificent, and she was often both. Her awareness of this, and the fact that she couldn’t control it, is totally heartbreaking.

What has acting taught you about yourself and the way you move through life, and do you think you would have discovered those things about yourself without the career you’ve built as an actor?

Everything, really. I started so young that I don't have another point of reference. It's a little like asking a fish what it's learned from water. I think acting has taught me to be curious about people, particularly those I don't understand or instinctively agree with. You can't play someone honestly if you're constantly judging them. And that's a useful thing to carry into life.

What was it like being part of such an incredible female-led cast in Gunpowder Milkshake, working alongside Michelle Yeoh, Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, and Angela Bassett?

It was summer camp with the coolest women imaginable. Except instead of making friendship bracelets, we were shooting people. I mean, look at that cast: Michelle, Angela, Lena, and Karen. They're all formidable, talented, funny women, and there's something wonderfully liberating about being surrounded by that kind of energy. Nobody needed to prove anything. Everybody just came to play.

With so many projects coming up, what is something you’re particularly eager to explore in your upcoming work?

The usual things: deceit, larceny, radical femininity, subversive humor, and high fashion.

After all that you’ve accomplished throughout your career and the many different roles and experiences you’ve had along the way, what continues to keep you excited and energized about the opportunities, challenges, and possibilities that still lie ahead?

Curiosity, mostly. I still get excited when I read something and think, "I have absolutely no idea how to play this woman." That's usually a good sign. I feel there's still so much I haven't done, so much I don't know. And I plan to stick around long enough to get into some trouble finding out.

CREW CREDITS:
Talent: Carla Gugino
PhotoBook Editor-In-Chief: Alison Hernon
PhotoBook Creative Director + Photographer + Producer: Mike Ruiz
Fashion Stylist: Alison Hernon at Exclusive Artists
Hair: Sebastian Scolarici at Tracey Mattingly Agency
Makeup: Matin at Tracey Mattingly Agency
Artwork: Guillermo Huerta
Photography Assistant: Dani Sax
Assistant Fashion Stylist: Emma Green
Fashion Styling Intern: Kitty Mertz
Interview by Ali Rosoff, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Daniel Lopez, Art Director, PhotoBook Magazine

The Art of Discovery: Carla Gugino on Creativity and Character