We sat down with Carla Gugino to talk about her new movie, Every Day, a story about a family’s struggle to survive life’s curve-balls that ultimately bring out the best and worst in us and make us closer.

Ned (Liev Schreiber) is a television writer on a seedy drama whose life is turned upside down when his wife’s (Helen Hunt) estranged father (Brian Dennehy) moves in with their family. Carla plays his sexy, free-spirited co-worker who lives in the moment and doesn’t think too much about the consequences. She’s a playful character who introduces some unexpected excitement into Ned’s life while nearly upending it in the process.

Carla talked to us about what attracted her to the project, what she liked best about her character, and also talked about her upcoming films like Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, I Melt with You, Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  In addition, she shared her thoughts on next season’s Entourage and the Sundance Film Festival.  Hit the jump for what she had to say.

Can you talk about how you got involved with this film and what attracted you to the project?

CARLA GUGINO: It was a very typical way in which I got involved in the sense that the script was sent to me. I got a beautiful note from the director which is not typical, which is always very appreciated, and I just opened up the script and started reading it and really loved the story and really loved what it had to say in regards to just the struggles of being an adult and a human being and also loved that this character was such a fun part of the story and such a playful element of it. That, to me, was just very appealing to play.

What was it about your character that really resonated with you and did you draw inspiration from anyone that you know?

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The characters in the TV-influenced indie domestic drama Every Day are intrusively colorful, including a husband and dad (Liev Shreiber) with an office job as a scriptwriter for a notoriously raunchy TV series, and a mom (Helen Hunt) who is a dead ringer for an older, tireder Jamie Buchman from Mad About You. There’s also a precociously self-composed, gay teenaged son (Ezra Miller), a mean, ailing, pee-stained grandpa (Brian Dennehy), and a sexy office temptress (Carla Gugino) who lives in enviable, responsibility-free luxury.

The specific troubles of this unhappy family are, on the other hand, colorless — not so much explored as presented and resolved like a shopping list: It’s tough to maintain a loving marriage, it’s tough to handle sexual temptation, it’s tough to be a good parent or a good adult child, etc. As an unintended result, the movie makes it more difficult than it ought to be for its intended audience to empathize with the very real stresses of a middle-aged Sandwich Generation. (The charming, self-aware gay teen, embraced by his family and having fun at his gay prom is, at least, a poster kid for an enlightened adolescent experience.) Dad’s supposedly cool, but actually off-putting showbiz career and work environment (Eddie Izzard plays his boss) is better understood knowing that Every Day is a first-time feature project written and directed by TV’s Nip/Tuck and Scoundrels executive producer Richard Levine. C+

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[002] May 13th – ABC Primetime Line-up Preview – After Party
[009] June 8th – Target A Time for Heroes Celebrity Carnival
[004] July 9th – TCA July 2003 Cable Press Tour
[011] July 13th – Spy Kids 3-D Game Over Los Angeles Premiere
[002] July 13th – Spy Kids 3-D Game Over Los Angeles Premiere – After Party
[004] July 15th – Television Critics Association ABC
[012] September 7th – 2003 ABC Primetime Preview Weekend Day 2
[022] September 10th – A Richard Tyler Fashion Show To Benefit The Big Bam
[023] October 16th – The Singing Detective Los Angeles Premiere

5 very brief clips from ‘Sucker Punch’ has been released.  I didn’t see Carla in them but you can view them here.

At first glance, Faster looks like any other action film.  There’s a lone hero, a cop, a detective and a love interest.  On closer inspection, it is apparent that director George Tillman Jr. has melded works by Quentin Tarantino and every film Jason Statham has ever been in into a decent action movie.

Driver, played by Dwayne Johnson, has just been released from prison and is on the hunt for the men who killed his brother and helped send him to jail.  While on his rampage, Driver is pursued by Killer (played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who is trying to kill him, and Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) who is trying to arrest him.

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Image Entertainment has made public their plans to bring the 2010 film “Every Day” to Blu-ray Disc (roughly 2 months after its limited theatrical run) on March 8th, 2011. The film was written & directed by Richard Levine and stars Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, Carla Gugino, Eddie Izzard, Brian Dennehy and Ezra Miller. The tech specs, bonus materials and such have not been announced for this release but stay tuned and we will keep you updated once we know further details. The title is already available for PRE-ORDER over at Amazon where it carries a $26.99 price tag.

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This one took me by surprise. Based on its initial promotion, I thought “Faster” was going to be something entirely different than what its final product turns out to be. I think this one is going to be passed on by a lot of people and it’s a shame if it is.

We’re introduced to a man simply called Driver. He’s just been released from a ten-year stretch in prison, and he’s hell-bent on revenge. The Driver leaves prison with no one to meet him and runs to a nearby junkyard. There he collects several things: a super-fast muscle car, a gun, and instructions on where to find a certain man. The Driver quickly goes to the destination, an office building, and, like a primal force of nature, kills his target in cold blood in front of many witnesses. But he’s not done yet…

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LOS ANGELES — Carla Gugino runs a hand through a mop of brown curls, crosses bare feet and lets out a sigh that seems to dissolve her slightly into her living room sofa.

“I know it sounds strange, but Los Angeles feels quiet to me,” says Gugino, relaxing after returning from her other home in New York. “I love that city, but it’s non-stop. I need a change of pace, or I go a little crazy.”

Change hasn’t been much of an issue for the 39-year-old, who co-stars in the Dwayne Johnson action film Faster, which opened Wednesday, collecting $3.5 million in its first two days, according to Variety.

Since leaving modeling to pursue acting full-time in 1988, Gugino has cruised through 66 film and television roles, from Entourage‘s wily powerbroker Amanda Daniels to Spy Kids trilogy family matriarch Ingrid Cortez to Robert De Niro’s sultry lover in Righteous Kill .

But if Gugino is making a name for herself, it’s as geek goddess.

Consider her fanboy resume: Sin City, Watchmen and Zack Snyder’s upcoming femme fatale project, Sucker Punch, in March.

The Sarasota, Fla. native would seem an unlikely candidate for nerd queen. Her home, located a few blocks from the Kodak Theater, site of the Oscars, brims with broken-in furniture, colorful pillows antique rugs and the occasional script. Not a comic book to be found.

Gugino, though, treats most roles as if they were Shakespeare, colleagues say. And the hours she logs at comic-book gatherings and sci-fi conventions do not go unnoticed among fans. One smitten blogger deemed her the “Icon of Comic-Con.”

“I think it’s her willingness to go all out for her roles,” says Jenna Busch of the blog column Girl Meets Lightsaber, dedicated to all things pop culture. “We geeks just want someone who gets as excited about genre material as we do. Carla seems to do that for every role.”

Snyder says he bumped into Gugino at a comic-book event and recognized her from the pulp film Sin City (which she chose over The Pacifier because of her fondness for director Robert Rodriguez ). He offered her a role for his comic book adaptation Watchmen on the spot.

“I admit, I was a little starstruck,” he says. “She has this fanboy cred that’s hard to explain. I wasn’t going to make her read; I just know I wanted her in my movie.”

A lot of directors do. With her retro style and deep voice, Gugino says expected roles to come later in her career.

“I knew people thought I was older than I was,” she says. “So I hoped to hit my stride around now. I’d like to think I have.”

Still, Gugino is hardly the iconic comic book damsel. She’s well aware of how Hollywood treats women as they eclipse 40. One of her first film roles came in 1993, as Robert De Niro’s daughter in This Boy’s Life.

Fifteen years later, she was cast as his lover in Righteous Kill.

“I don’t think that would happen to a lot of actors in this industry,” says Gugino, who worked as a teenage fashion model and remains a devoted stage actress. “When most 40-year-old actors get a girlfriend in the movies, she’s 28. It doesn’t work in reverse.”

Gugino catches herself sounding angry. “I can’t complain about all the work that’s coming,” which will include the comedy Girl Walks Into a Bar with longtime boyfriend Sebastian Gutierrez in December. and Mr. Popper’s Penguins in August with Jim Carrey.

Don’t bother trying to find a through-line to Gugino’s career, though. She gave up long ago.

“I don’t know if there’s an overarching goal,” Gugino says. “I still get excited about all kinds of movies. There are great directors doing all kinds of genre. I don’t think of one as arty or nerdy. I guess that’s why they let me hopscotch around. That’s what I really love to do.”

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