Bio
Carla Gugino is an actress known for her role as Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids movie trilogy and the title role in the television series Karen Sisco, from 2003-2004.
She also had a starring role as journalist Susan Berg in the television mini-series Political Animals, in 2012.
She was born in Sarasota, Florida to an Irish-Italian father and a mother of English descent. Her mother moved the family to Paradise, California, when she was four years old.
Despite moving around California a great deal as a child, Gugino remained a straight-A student and graduated valedictorian.
At the age of 15 she was spotted by a modeling agency in San Diego and moved to New York. This was unusual as at only 5 feet 4 inches (1.65 metres) tall, she was considered too short for catwalk work.
Finding the experience too much, Gugino moved back to California that summer. Partly at the suggestion of her aunt, game show model Carol Merrill, she subsequently studied acting.
Gugino has starred in many films including art-house film Lovelife along with Saffron Burrows and Sherilyn Fenn, Snake Eyes (1998), Judas Kiss (which she also co-produced, 1998), the three Spy Kids films, Son in Law, The One with Jet Li, and Sin City.
She also played Ashley Schaeffer in the television series Spin City. Gossip suggested Gugino was removed after 12 episodes because Tracy Pollan — wife of star Michael J. Fox — felt her chemistry with Fox was too good.
Gugino also starred in the short-lived science fiction series Threshold, from 2005-2006.
In 2004, she starred in Roundabout Theatre Company's After the Fall opposite Six Feet Under's Peter Krause. In late 2006, she appeared in the Off-Broadway play Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams, opposite actress Blythe Danner.
Gugino has also appeared in a wide range of television programs including ALF, Doogie Howser, M.D., Saved by the Bell, Who's the Boss? and The Wonder Years, and on the last season of Chicago Hope as brain surgeon Dr Gina Simon.
Gugino also frequently appears in films written and directed by her longtime boyfriend Sebastian Gutierrez, as they've worked together on several films in the past.
Their latest collaboration is the vampire horror film Rise: Blood Hunter starring Lucy Liu as a reporter who is turned into a vampire against her will. She then pursues the vampire sect that turned her. Gugino plays a member of the vampire sect.
The film was given a limited release from June 1, 2007.
Gugino played Vincent Chase's new agent, Amanda, in the second half of Entourage's third season for five episodes.
Gugino played Sally Jupiter, the original Silk Spectre, in the Watchmen movie, in 2008. She appeared nude in the May 2007 issue of Allure.