Carla Gugino On WATCHMEN
The gorgeous and lovely Carla Gugino dishes on Watchmen’s opening credits and the Silk Spectre’s aging process, as we throw in as many adjectives as possible to describe She of the Perpetual Hotness.
All the buzz leaking from the set of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, one of the most highly anticipated superhero film projects in years, has thus far been positive. The talented and delectable Carla Gugino (Sin City) certainly wasn't about to rain on that parade when LARRY CARROLL of MTV Movies Blog approached her about it at last Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards.
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"It was really one of the craziest, most fun roles I’ve ever gotten to play," said the smart and stunningly sexy star of her character, Sally Jupiter. And she didn't stop there.
For the (few) uninitiated, Watchmen is the film adaptation of a Hugo Award-winning comic miniseries. Directed by Snyder (300) from a script by David Hayter & Alex Tse, the Warner Bros film began shooting in September '07.
Watchmen is a complex, multi-layered mystery adventure set in an alternate America where costumed heroes, once part of the fabric of society, have been banned by national law ("You might remember a similar enactment in The Incredibles," cracked CanMag's RYAN PARSONS). When one of those heroes, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is murdered, the masked vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) sets out to uncover, what he believes to be, a plot to kill all his former colleagues--including Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). But, as he peels back the layers of time and psyche, Rorschach discovers a shocking conspiracy with consequences for the whole world.
The luscious Gugino explained that her "larger-than-life" character’s plotline closely follows the comic created by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons. Voluptuous burlesque dancer Sally Jupiter became the Silk Spectre, a costumed vigilante who dressed like a classic pin-up model and joined the Minutemen, a colorful crime-busting group who pre-dated the Watchmen. Many years later, the matronly Sally passed the heroic torch to her daughter, Laurie Juspeczyk (Malin Akerman).
With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Wired's ERIC MALINOWSKI pointed out the fact that the foxy Gugino is only 35 years old, while Akerman is 29. "So, Gugino will be only six years older than her daughter. So scandalous! Oh, the ever-precarious cusp of casting believability. But hey, I guess that's what make-up artists are for, eh?"
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Actually, yes.
The ubiquitously chameleonic Gugino explained that full prosthetics were used to age her from 25 in the 1940s to 67 in the 1980s. Portraying a sexagenarian (sexy-genarian?) was "the most fascinating thing" for her.
"To start as this young crime fighter and end up an alcoholic woman in her late 60s was for me enough of a challenge; let’s put it that way," said the ridiculously good-looking thespian.
Although, in the comic, Rorschach refers to Sally as a "bloated, aging whore, dying in a Californian rest resort," some prefer to view the movie version more optimistically.
"Gugino has such a nice body," commented RUSTDOG at Rotten Tomatoes. "I bet she's one hot granny."
Granny or not, the curvy Gugino said she gets to "kick a small amount of ass," but not "as much ass as some people do." It's a curious revelation, to the eyes of true Watchmen aficionadoes.
"In the comic books, Sally Jupiter does not kick [ass] at all," WEICHER at Rotten Tomatoes insisted. "Actually, her [ass] is kicked by the Comedian in a terrible rape scene."
That pivotal scene already has been shot, confirmed the versatile Gugino, who said that it was "pretty crazy." She also said that Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the Comedian in that scene. That should be quite a make-up job in itself: the 1940’s-era Comedian was 16 years old!
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Another sequence with impressive effects, according to the splendiferous Gugino, is the opening titles, an unscripted segment shot over many weeks, which mixes live action with CGI.
"It incorporates real history and the fictitious world of Watchmen," revealed the dazzling Italianate beauty, "and so it's very cool. We meet Nixon and all sorts of people."
JEREMY SMITH at CHUD wrote that the sequence "sounds like a very clever way of telescoping the narrative, while also immersing the viewer in Moore's world without resorting to clunky old exposition."
Besides complimenting the "extraordinary cast," the rather attractive Gugino gushed that "Zack Snyder has such a very strong and clear vision for this piece."
According to his own most recent post at MTV.com, director Snyder is in the final weeks of shooting in Vancouver.
"Though we've seen and read a good deal on the making of Watchmen," wrote CHUD's Smith, "I still don't have a fix on how its going to look once it's all cut together. That's kind of exciting. It would also be a little terrifying if every actor who's talked to the press weren't so giddy about what director Zack Snyder is piecing together for March 2009. There's a too-good-to-be-true reflex when it comes to a filmed version of Watchmen, but, damn it, I'm beginning to believe."
[Thanks to: Neil Davey at Megastar (UK), Silas Lesnick at The IESB, Rick Marshall at Comicmix.com, Hunter Stephenson at Slashfilm, Superheroflix.com, WorstPreviews.com and Wikipedia.]