Video:Carla Gugino Interview - Watchmen at Comic Con 2008
with Rebecca MurrayCarla Gugino describes her character, Sally Jupiter, in 'Watchmen' as a broad - and that's the perfect word to use to sum up the ex-costumed crimefighter who pushed her daughter into following in her footsteps.
Transcript:Carla Gugino Interview - Watchmen at Comic Con 2008
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con.
Carla Gugino – 'Sally Jupiter' / 'Silk Spectre' in Watchmen
They age you in this. How was that?
Carla Gugino: "Yes. That was amazing. I had full prosthetics. Full check pieces and a whole neck piece and eyes, and it took about four hours so those days were really long. And it takes about an hour and a half to take it off. But yeah, it was really wild. I start at 25 years old in the 1940s and I age to 67 years old in the 1980s, and it was pretty wild. I've never played a character that's had quite that journey, you know? And Sally Jupiter is a really flawed and kind of beautiful character to me because of that, but she's a broad. She's got a lot going on, you know?"
Could you relate to any part of her character, because she is a broad and she's got her personality out there?
Carla Gugino: "Yeah. You know, it's funny. I definitely have had a lot of tough, strong women in my life, I definitely think, and people who've had hard knocks and therefore their view of the world has been informed by that. So I definitely can relate to it. And I think also I decided to act when I was 13 and of course have had a lot of really hard times, but I've also been incredibly fortunate and I've been able to support myself and work pretty consistently for a long time. I've seen a lot of people who that's not been the case for. And I think that this character, this woman, Sally Jupiter as Silk Spectre, really wanted to shine and be the light and be the star, and ultimately that didn't happen for her and it was kind of crushing. And she tried to do that through her daughter, and all those dynamics are so… You know, that's what's so amazing about this movie is that it illuminates the human condition in so many ways."
You do take her through such an arc. Which was more of a challenge for you to play – her as the young superhero-type person or her older knowing everything?
Carla Gugino: "Definitely the older. Definitely the older because the young was so fun. I mean, I'm a huge fan of film noir. I love film noir dialogue. I love a great 'dame'. I sort of feel like I should have been born during that time. I'm much more of that ilk than the modern kind of. And so that was just really fun. Really fun. And the stuff of her as an older woman was definitely more challenging and incredibly exciting because of that. But it's also very strange to have prosthetics on your face because you don't know what's being conveyed. You sort of feel like you have to sort of make your gestures possibly slightly larger – and she's also a larger-than-life character, so there was a really fine line in doing that dance."
Do we ever get to see her fight as a younger woman?
Carla Gugino: "We see… No. There's a very, you know, famous rape scene unfortunately which involves some stunts but there's not one. We see pictures of her in her crimefighting ways, but we don't see a lot of that."