Carla Gugino: ‘I Always Knew That Some of My Best Roles Would Come Later in Life’

Sebastian Gutierrez

With Carla Gugino, it’s not a matter of asking yourself what TV show or movie you remember her from. It’s asking, what don’t you remember her from?

Because Gugino is one of those actors who it seems has been in nearly everything you and your friends have been obsessed with. From her memorable turn as Hollywood agent Amanda Daniels in Entourage to recent starring roles in buzzy Netflix dramas The Fall of the House of Usher and The Haunting of Hill House, Gugino has built a formidable career, and the 52-year-old says she’s right where she wants to be.

“I never looked like an ingénue,” she tells Glamour. “I never sounded like one. I never felt like one inside. And so I sort of always knew that some of my best roles would come later in life.”

Now, Gugino is moving from the ghosts of Hill House and scheming of Usher to the only slightly-less-horror-and-scheme-filled world of political journalism (I kid, I kid), with a starring role in Max’s new drama The Girls on the Bus, which premieres on Thursday. The show is based on the memoir Chasing Hillary by journalist Amy Chozick, who covered Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail through both her unsuccessful bids to become the first female US president. The show follows four women journalists as they race to cover a modern-day presidential race, with Gugino playing Grace, a veteran reporter known as the “Queen of the Scoops.”

Ahead of the show’s premiere, Gugino chatted with Glamour about starring in a show about politics during an actual election year, what she learned about being a journalist, and her advice for building a career that lasts.

Glamour: This is kind of meta, because you're talking to me as a journalist about playing a journalist! What’s one thing that you learned about the media industry that you didn't know before playing Grace?

Carla Gugino: It is interesting. What I didn't understand was how…you need to be incredibly accurate, source [your information] well, and also get your story out in record time. I don't think I quite understood that race. Obviously we see the flip side of it where we get news that comes out that is actually inaccurate, and then it has to be rescinded and commented on. But it ultimately does end up being kind of a judgment call of, do we have enough information to feel like we can publish this story or not? And that's a debatable issue. One of my favorite things about acting is that it allows me to see into worlds that I didn't know.

The book was written about the 2008 and 2016 campaigns—which were a different political time—but the show is set in the present day, and people are so negative about the state of politics right now. I thought it was interesting that the show, I feel, had an almost hopeful tone. Was that intentional?

Absolutely. I think in general, I'm interested in stories no matter how dark they get. This story obviously doesn't get extremely dark, but it does go into some really good, complicated conversations that don't have easy answers. It asks some really good questions in that way, which is what I think storytelling can do.

The show actually wasn’t supposed to come out during an election year, right?

It was supposed to come out last year, but because of the strike it got pushed. But I think it's actually even more potent right now. These candidates are fictionalized, this world is fictionalized. Of course there are references where you can go, this person might be kind of like this person. But we also have a lot of figures in our political landscape right now that are not in this…I always thought it was a good idea that they weren't actually real candidates and we weren't actually telling a story about Hillary [Clinton], for example, or about anybody else who's in our system at the moment. It allows us to look at it with a little bit more optimism and hope, without being preachy. It might be able to express that there are ways that people with absolutely different beliefs can come together.

The show tells the story of four women journalists who are all in competition with each other on the campaign trail, but I noticed that it didn’t inherently pit them against each other on a personal level. Your character is even a mentor to Melissa Benoist’s character.

That’s very true. And I think that's from Amy's experience because she was on the road with a bunch of competitors and has had mentors who are fiercely strong and bright journalists. I think women have been done a disservice over time thinking that can't coexist because of course it can. It's a complex set of circumstances, but it actually can be more deeply bonding because of that.

You've had such a long career; as I was looking through your past projects, the one thing that I took away is that you always seem to be in the buzziest shows. What is your process for picking your projects?

I've never looked at it from the outside in that way. I end up going by instinct, and oftentimes I'll be attracted to something that's the opposite of what I've just finished. Just by the nature of having immersed myself in a particular world, be it a comedy or something horror oriented, or doing a play on Broadway and then wanting to go do a film or having filmed for a period of time. Then I’ll go, I have to get back and do a play. Maybe it's just, as they say, after you've done something for more than 10,000 hours, you have these instincts that you're not even quite aware of. So perhaps it's just that I've been doing this so much of my life that sometimes those instincts really click.

Working in such a high profile industry like acting is stressful, and a lot of women in any field struggle with a feeling of, how do I maintain this momentum? I’m curious if you have any advice for women who are looking to build a sustainable career in terms of emotional and mental energy.

When I was very young, a mentor of mine said: When you're on your deathbed, make sure it's your life you were living. It really struck me at the time, and it has been something that I've revisited in big moments of my life, but what I didn't know until now is how much that changes. It's a very active question. It's a very active relationship with yourself. I think the key is putting ourselves in positions where we don't know that we can succeed. To keep ourselves young and to keep ourselves hungry and curious and to keep growing, we need to put ourselves in positions where we are actually saying, “Can I pull this off? I don't have that answer. Let me try.” And it's terrifying.

That's the other thing I would say: to keep your own counsel. That's been something for me that is a challenge. I can get overwhelmed by all the voices in the world who have different opinions about what I should do. It's about really picking those few people that you can count on and listen to and vice versa. The rest of it is noise that you don't need to listen to. You just have to go: Does this bring me joy? Do I get that little giddy feeling or not? Just keep trying to find that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Originally Appeared on Glamour