Carla Gugino

Carla Gugino ( ; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. After appearing in Troop Beverly Hills (1989) and This Boy's Life (1993), she received recognition for her starring roles as Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids trilogy (2001–2003), Rebecca Hutman in Night at the Museum (2006), Laurie Roberts in American Gangster (2007), Det. Karen Corelli in Righteous Kill (2008), Dr. Alex Friedman in Race to Witch Mountain (2009), Sally Jupiter in Watchmen (2009), Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch (2011), Amanda Popper in Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Emma Gaines in San Andreas (2015), Jessie Burlingame in Gerald's Game (2017), and Madeleine in Gunpowder Milkshake (2021). Gugino also starred in the crime drama series Karen Sisco (2003), the science fiction series Threshold (2005–2006), the supernatural horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House (2018), the crime drama series Jett (2019), and the supernatural horror miniseries The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023). Early life Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist of Italian descent, and Susan Gugino, a mother of English and 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.